crafts and yogurt

progress on the wastebasket: very good. this is a promising project. dh Mr. TellBlast gave approval to its looks this morning.

progress on current prayer shawl: poor. I've knitted only once or twice this week.

progress on G's jean quilt: still at a standstill. My wonderful partner brought her walking foot over. The quilt is too thick to fit. The crazy quilt came together so easily with the batting and backing with the same foot. Denim is too thick. I'll probably sew little spots like a button, or duvet instead. I'll make decisions about how to place them. And I had such a cool quilting pattern in my mind.

yogurt: it's great. I am crazy serious about my love for crockpot yogurt. My third batch is just as thick as the second, but I let it sit for 3, not 5, hours. I am wondering if the culture being in (unflavored whole milk yogurt) vs. (vanilla 2% milk yogurt) makes the difference. Everything else I use is exactly the same -- Heartland whole milk in the glass bottle, crockpot, and the culture (yogurt).

Vanilla Yogurt Recipe

1/2 c. crockpot yogurt
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. white sugar

I hesitate to use vanilla because of the thickness issue. (Same with honey. And we're on our last jar, which I blame on A's grandpa.) For yogurt with fruit, we frequently go without vanilla extract. It enhances the flavor, but is difficult for my 8 yo (actually all of us) to measure in that amount. We usually just drop the fruit in a cup, cover it with a little sugar to make it weep a bit, then spoon a bunch of yogurt over the top. Mmmm.

Sticks and yogurt

On the sticks: a prayer shawl! I'm using my remnants. I feel awful not using the donated yarn from parishioners. I'll get a picture up and list colorways once the shawl is long enough to photograph nicely.

Yogurt: I accidentally forgot about my crockpot full of milk last Wed. Instead of resting for 3 hours, it rested for 5 hours. An impromptu visit to Living History Farms made me forget. Fear of wrecked yogurt fell upon me during the five minute ride home. I proceeded with the recipe as if I hadn't left the milk sitting longer than instructed. The result? Thicker yogurt! Making a note to use the longer time.

For those of you who aren't ready to make your own yogurt, you may want to head over to fellow Iowa home school mom Darcy's blog. She's giving away Stoneyfield Farms Yo Baby yogurt, along with other Stoneyfield Farms stuff (bib, bowl, etc.) The contest ends on Sunday, July 5th at 11:59pm CST.

Fro Yo

The crockpot yogurt was a big success. The vanilla yogurt I made turned out well. We have about one cup of plain yogurt left, and half of that must be saved for this week's batch. Definitely making more. And I have a free milk coupon ;-)




We decided to experiment with frozen yogurt. I was nervous about the water content (it was runny enough for me to add dried milk) making large ice crystals. It turned out like homemade popsicles. Popsicles was our first idea, but we couldn't find the old Tupperware molds of my childhood. The pecan tassie pan was Plan B.




We made strawberry yogurt as usual, sprayed a tartlet pan with cooking spray to ease any trouble getting the yogurt out.





If we removed the amount of fro yo that we wanted, then let it sit a bit, you could eat it with a spoon. If you didn't wait, you could hold the yogurt and bite the tart easily.


The flavor was fine. The texture was like homemade popsicles.





I don't know that I would make this again unless one of the kids asked me to.




The recipe wasn't bad, but I prefer non-frozen yogurt. And maybe more strawberry jam.



Our strawberries are getting on the small side now. The season is winding down for us. (Our old CSA, however, just began its strawberry season.) I'll need to figure out when to move the berries. Then I can have space for non-food perennials again.

Perfect Yogurt

My 15yo proclaimed our strawberry yogurt recipe to be "THE Perfect Yogurt."

Make yogurt.
















Slice strawberries, such as this one, and toss with sugar.










Add yogurt.

Mix. Eat. Enjoy.

Yogurt Success

No real cool happening photo to share. Crock pots aren't attractive.

My crock pot yogurt turned out well! I added 1/2 c. dried milk to the yogurt the day after I made it to thicken. I had to drop my daughter off to work at the store anyway (and there were 99 cent eggs), so getting dried milk wasn't a hardship. My kids do not like chunks of anything in their yogurt, so this could be a HUGE advancement for my family.

I took some sliced strawberries, tossed them with white sugar, and let them set to get the juices to run. I strained this juicy syrup into a cup and added yogurt. The younger kids taste-tested. The older child said it smelled right but didn't want to take more than a bite. "Just not wanting yogurt right now." The younger child said it was great. They noticed that the yogurt was thinner than store-bought, but it wasn't a real big issue.

I took the remaining fruit (icky chunks in the kids' eyes) and added yogurt to eat for myself. Dairy is easier for me as yogurt, and I like the probiotic/anti-UTI protection.

Straight from the crock pot before adding dried milk, the yogurt appears to be regular, plain yogurt that you would cook with. I will attempt vanilla yogurt (our usual, non-chunk flavor) within a week. The $1 I spent in ingredients was icing on the cake.

Thank you to Simply Food, Nothing Extra for the inspiration and belief that yogurt at home is do-able. Thank you to the Crock Pot Lady for her recipe!

Strawberries

Mmmmmm. Sunday, I made a scratch shortcake, home grown strawberries, store bought non-dairy whipped topping. I meant to take a photo, but forgot. It was eaten with no crumbs left -- my younger two were comically eating opposite parts of the dessert.

Today, I have crockpot yogurt in the making. I am excited. This was a great deal because I got a free milk coupon at Hy-Vee. I used it to buy Heartland Dairy whole milk (met them a couple years ago, nice ministry in Missouri). Hy-Vee also had a sale for $1/carton Cultural Revolution yogurt (made in Kalona, IA). This all means that I paid $1 for this experiment. If it turns out bad, I didn't lose a large investment. I hope to mix in strawberries. There was a suggestion to add gelatin, but I don't do gelatin. Maybe powdered milk. I guess I'll just figure something out when I get there.

The idea for this came from Simply Food, Nothing Extra. Since I am a lazy person, I decided that the recipe for yogurt at their site was not for me. Thermometers and scalding, etc. Too much after just canning 7 jars of strawberry jam. The jam, by the way, was declared to be the color of jewels this evening by my youngest child. It does seem to be a brighter red, but I rarely buy strawberry jam since everyone claimed to love raspberry fruit spread the most. So I don't know if the color really is brighter than the store's jam. But it made me feel good.