Flavored Yogurt

The last time that I made yogurt I decided to do some experimenting with different flavors. I prepared my yogurt like I usually do, but before I put the yogurt into a storage container, I prepared a few 8 oz. mason jars. I made one coffee flavored by heating up a small amount of water, dissolving some instant coffee and sugar into it, then letting it cool. The others I made strawberry and raspberry flavored by putting a few spoonfuls of jam in the bottom of the jar.

After I had my milk heated up and had stirred in my yogurt starter, I poured some of the yogurt mixture into each jar. I stirred up the coffee one but left the jam on the bottom of the others.

I then stuck them in a warm place with the rest of my yogurt to sit over night.

The coffee one turned out fabulous, although next time I want to make it a bit stronger. The jam ones are delicious as well. This was a nice change from my typical plain yogurt and I'm definitely going to continue experimenting with this.

Making Some Progress

I only have 3 more days to finish my 31 in 31 Days list! I have a feeling I'm not going to reach my goal, however, I have accomplished a few things so far:


1.) Bake cookies.

I made raspberry jelly thumbprint cookies. Yum.

5.) Finish knitting the sock that I started a while ago.


6.) Pick strawberries and make jam with Brittany @ Little Miss Scatterbrained, Amy @ Little Miss Moon Blossom, and Kara @ Lil Miss Wisecracker.

First we picked some perdy strawberries at Highland Orchards.

Then we made some delicious jam.


It a very enjoyable day!

10.) Finish Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome book. I loved all of the birth stories and the way Ina May describes birth and the things that influence it.

11.) Wander around the library.

13.) Harvest and eat beets from the garden.

Yummy!

20.) Finish reading Pushed by Jennifer Block.

This was another totally awesome book. It's packed full of tons and tons of information about the short comings of our modern maternity care. Everyone really needs to read this book.

23.) Make fried lentil balls.

I'd show pictures of the actual finished product but they really didn't turn out that well. Let's just say I need some practice. Interesting process though. My friend gave me this mix so it really wasn't too hard. You first add water to your mix (pictured above) and let it sit for 15 minutes. Drop spoonfuls of it into hot oil and cook until done. Place in a bowl of lukewarm water. After about 10 minutes take the lentil ball out and squeeze out the water. They are then eaten with some yogurt and topped with some cumin and salt. It was definitely interesting and not too bad. But again, I need practice and I'm not even completely sure exactly how they are supposed to turn out!

25.) Participate in Chinese Thursday at work (we all order Chinese food together).

I ordered chicken w/ string beans and fried rice. It was delicious.

27.) Stake, cage and/or trellis tomato plants.

Needless to say I've got a lot of work ahead of me if I want to even get close to finishing my list in the next 3 days!

Ranch Dressing

With both the garden and the CSA program, we've been bombarded with lettuce. And with lettuce comes salads and with salads comes salad dressing. Needless to say we've gone through a ton of dressing. Just the other day we completely ran out. I really didn't feel like going out and buying more so I decided to make some. I first mixed some sour cream with mayonnaise in about a 1:2 ratio. Then I chopped up a bunch of parsley and a bit of dill from my garden along with some garlic scrapes from the CSA.


I mixed that into my mayo mixture. Added a little salt to taste and stirred in some milk to make the whole thing a bit more pourable.


After it was all mixed up I put it in a handy left-over mayo bottle I had lying around because I'm cool like that.


The whole process didn't take more than a few minutes and boy was the final produce tasty. This batch was a bit dilly, but tasty nonetheless. The cool thing about this is that you can make it however you like with whatever you have lying around. You could throw in some onions, garlic, oregano, lemon juice, chives and I'm sure tons of other things to mix things up. The possibilities are endless! I'm totally excited about experimenting with dressings now. Bring on the lettuce!

Popcorn

I finally got around to making some of the popcorn that I got at the bulk foods store. This was the first time that I've ever made popcorn that doesn't involve using a microwave although I have seen my mom make it this way. My husband helped me and since we both didn't really know what we were doing, it was pretty exciting. We put some vegetable oil into the pot and then threw in a small handful of popcorn kernels. We didn't know how much it'd make so we decided not to put in too much. You can imagine our surprise when we took off the lid and the pot was completely full. After we had everything in the pot we put the lid on and turned up the heat. Every few minutes I'd shake the pot to stir it around. We both jumped when the first kernel popped. After all of the popping sounds stopped we removed it from the heat. I sprinkled a little salt on top and it was done. All in all it probably took well under 10 minutes to make this whole pot of popcorn.

The popcorn was delicious, even my husband who really doesn't like popcorn loved this stuff. I'm going to have to make this more often. Not only is it delicious even without adding any butte, but it doesn't have all of the weird unknown substances that microwave popcorn does. It's also pretty cost effective. I got a 3 pound bag of kernels for under $2 and we hardly used any of it for this big batch. I'm hooked.

Freezing Strawberries

Freezing strawberries is a great way to lock in their great taste and nutrients for weeks or even months after they've been picked. When freezing strawberries, I first wash them and remove the stem. Then I spread them on a cookie sheet and stick them in the freezer for a few hours. Freezing them this way reduces the amount that they will stick together later.


After the strawberries have been in the freezer for a little while they can be put in plastic bags or containers then placed back into the freezer until they are used.


After picking, 50+ pounds of strawberries I had a lot to freeze. But it's ok because frozen strawberries are marvelous in smoothies. Speaking of smoothies, check out these babies:


Just frozen strawberries, yogurt and sugar. Mmmmm.... delicious.



Running this morning: 2.6 miles