Homemade Yogurt

Microorganisms are a huge part of my life.  I am a clinical laboratory technologist and love the study of microbes and parasites.  Most people say yuck when I get excited!  This has lead to a fascination with cultured foods.  So much of what we eat is dependent on the action of microrganisms. 

A few years ago I experimented with homemade kefir.  Kefir is similar to yogurt in that it is a fermented milk product.  It is much runnier and contains different bacteria.  The freeze-dried cultures I used for making kefir were not ideal but I did not have a good source for kefir grains and was not super impressed by the taste either.  Kefir is great for drinking and making smoothies but I love yogurt with granola and fresh fruit for breakfast or a snack.  Kefir just does not lend itself to this type of dish.  Plus I was using a stove-top which was somewhat labor intensive.  I decided it was not worth the effort to keep pursuing this prep method.

More recently, I began reading again about homemade kefirs and yogurts.  I found several sources for making crockpot yogurt or other incubation methods.
 
http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2011/04/making-homemade-yogurt-2.html
http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/yogurt.htm
http://bornambitous-bornimaginative.blogspot.com/2011/03/yogurt.html

This sounded like a great idea!  So I tried it.....with not so great results.  I sterilized the milk in the crockpot and let it cool.  I used Stonyfield yogurt and kefir cultures as starters.  I added powdered milk and even pudding mix to one batch.  Each time I got slightly thickened milk.  Yuck.....well it did make some great strawberry smoothies and banana/Nutella smoothies but I still wanted thick yogurt. 

Then I said to myself, you are a scientist!  You can figure this out!  So I read more recipes and thought about the process and concepts behind it.  As long as the crockpot was turned off, that milk was going to cool down.  Over several hours it will reach room temp.  Bacteria does not grow well at room temp, well Yersinia does but we are not detecting stool pathogens here (at least I hope not!).  My hypothesis was that the temperature of the crockpot after cooling was not sufficient for adequate growth of the cultures.  So I filled my crockpot with water.  I heated it up.  I unplugged it and monitored the decrease in temperature.  Sure enough that crockpot was not staying warm very long!  I will save you all of the data points but I knew what I had to do!

Bacteria grow best at body temperature.  I wanted to maintain a temp of 95-105 degrees.  My oven cannot be set that low so that option was crossed off.  My crockpot has a low and high setting.  I needed a warm setting or a precise thermostat but I wasn't going to go out and buy a new crockpot.  So today I did another experiment and had success!

I added about half a gallon of milk to my crockpot and heated on high for about 2.5-3 hours.  After the heating process, I turned the crockpot off and let the milk cool to about 110 degrees.  I added powdered milk and about a half cup of Stonyfield.  I checked the temperature of the mixture every so often.  I was not really precise with the time intervals, just checked when I had a break in the other projects I was working on this afternoon.  When the temperature was dropping below 100 degrees, I turned the crockpot on low.  I let it heat for about 10-15 minutes and turned it off again.  I did this twice in about 5 hours and by then the yogurt was a great consistency!  Not as thick as some varieties but enough that I could eat it instead of drink it. 

I am so happy that I found a solution.  One more thing that we can do ourselves at home!

Oreo Stuffed Cookies

One of my friends made Oreo Stuffed Cookies for her hubby on their anniversary.  I cannot take responsibility for this idea.  She shared the recipe with me and you can check it out here.  I told my husband about the recipe and he wanted to go to the store to get Oreos so I could make the cookies that night.  So that we did and experienced these insane cookies!  A triple cookie in one that I force-fed to the girls at work that are on a diet.  It was one's birthday so it was time for a little (or huge) treat!

 

But I kept thinking, I can make this recipe worse!  That became my project today....

I had some extra peanut butter frosting in the frige from my husband's birthday cake.  Don't ask me for a recipe.....it is peanut butter, vegetable shortening, and powdered sugar mixed together until I achieve the right consistency and taste.  Sometimes butter, vanilla, or other things get added, depending on my mood.  Anyway, I chopped up some Oreos and dumped a small plop of frosting (yes, that is the exact measurement) onto the chopped cookies.  I made some balls with that mixture that looked like this:

I used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.  A flat pancake of cookie dough was formed around the ball of Oreo and peanut butter.  In the oven they went!  They looked so pretty when the came out of the oven.  I had to be proud of the presentation.  Presentation is everything!  

My husband tried one and didn't seem too impressed at first but then said these are pretty good.  From him, that is an amazing compliment!  We discussed the recipe and decided they need more peanut butter.  Either peanut butter-chocolate chip dough on the outside or at least a bit of peanut butter flavoring.  Try 'em and let me know what you think or send me your version!

Pancakes and Syrup

Inspired by my lunch today....

When my husband said he wanted lunch, I offered pancakes.  He agreed as long as the meal included bacon.  Luckily we had a few slices of bacon left from a farmers' market purchase a few weeks ago.  This is not the bacon he prefers; it is usually much more salty and smoky but it sufficed.  Still trying to find another supplier of his favorite kind.  But anyway, I wasn't supposed to write about bacon!

Pancakes at our house are made with homemade baking mix.  It is the same recipe that my mom always used.  Half whole wheat and half white flour is what I love.  Plus it is a bit more healthy!  This pancake just sort of happened awhile ago.  Believe me, I don't typically try to make pancake shapes!

Justin enjoys molasses on his pancakes.  Why did he spend so many hours making homemade syrup last winter?  Not sure but I know I love that he did!  That first taste of syrup last year was heaven.  We didn't place any taps this year because we had enough syrup left from last year's batch.  Here are some pictures from the syruping process of 2011.

                          

Instant Orchard

Within the last few weeks we have planted four fruit trees in our yard.  My mother and father-in-law both, independently called it the "instant orchard".  And that it is! 

We have two apple trees: McIntosh and Cortland.  They are fully established and were members of a large orchard of apple trees.  My father-in-law was digging others to sell to one of his clients (he owns a tree nursery) and offered to dig some for us.  We were happy to adopt them!  The trees were dug with a full root system intact.  My husband added a few ruts to the yard with the skid-loader but it made the work of digging holes and moving the trees alot easier!  I am excited to see blossoms starting to pop out.  I hope the cold nights have not caused any damage because I would love to pick apples this fall!

Our orchard doubled in size when we added a sweet cherry and peach tree.  Both of these trees were mail order.  They basically look like sticks in the ground right now so I will have to learn to be patient and wait for the fruit.

Mushrooms in the Basement

Over the last month and a half or so, we have been growing mushrooms in our basement.  We ordered a kit from Gurney's  that came with all of the materials to grow button mushrooms.  Though the kit is a one time deal and does not continually produce mushrooms, we wanted to experiment.  Last week we enjoyed the first harvest in a stir fry and I have some more mushrooms in the frige for this week.  We have several more patches of tiny buttons growing; I am hoping to have more in the next week or so but the water content is off after we were away for the holiday.  Overall, a fun experiment but I would love to figure out a way to keep the cycle going.....

Opening the kit in mid-February.

 Moldy looking compost layer...

 Add the growing surface...

 Covered up the contents for about two weeks...

 Spider web-like mold after a few weeks of incubation...

 Some baby mushrooms buds in March!

They are growing!

 This is about 1.5 days after the above picture.....they grew so fast!

 First harvest of mushrooms from our basement :)

Dreaming of fresh produce from our yard....

I can't wait until our garden is in full swing and I can cook from what is freshly picked!  The last week was tree planting week: two apple, one sweet cherry, and one peach.  Well, the cherry and peach are more like sticks with roots right now!  I am hopeful that we will have some apples this fall.  More about our orchard later. 

Gardening season has started.  We have snow peas in the ground and rhubarb coming up.  My husband started seeds in the house and we have lots of little plants growing and waiting to be put in the ground.  I purchased strawberry plants at the farmers' market and already have some little green berries!

Last year was our first garden season in Central PA.  We were so happy to be able to plant in our own yard.  Our first season was productive and we were able to do some canning and a lot of freezing.  We have pickles to last for the next century (both canned and frozen)!  Our tomatoes did not fare well and I was disappointed as I wanted to can salsa and sauce.  Hopefully this year will be different.  We had a great crop of sweet potatoes but offered them to our starving rodent friends, even if unknowingly!

Here are pictures from last year's crop which we are still enjoying!

Made a meal of these "baby carrots" that I pulled when thinning the row!

 A few cherry tomatoes for salad.

Yellow squash, guarded by Jetta.  She really did not want to share!

Snow peas are great for stir frying!

Pickles, pickles, and more pickles.

Wieners love corn :)

We froze tons of corn from several gardens.

Canned applesauce for the winter.

Can't wait for this year's harvest!