Homemade Yogurt

An idea....a frugal moment.....a web search.....voila~

Greek yogurt
Thinking about yogurt and how quickly I seem to go through containers of it.  I'm partial to Chobani's Greek yogurt and often buy many containers for the work week since it seems especially tasty with the granola recipe that Elizabeth posted months ago.  I'm a bit excited that there seem to be almost daily new flavors. However, it is expensive and does produce a lot of container waste, so I started thinking about making my own despite the good works done by that company's founder.  I'm sure I will end up buying some yogurt...and making some yogurt.   I do have a memory of my parents making yogurt...in a groovy 70s sort of way, I suspect.

Elizabeth is the experienced yogurt maker, but I beat her to this blog to talk about it.  Maybe she can give me a few hints if it looks like I'm a bit off in my lactobacillus-ing. 

I guess yogurt is one of those things I buy without thinking about making it myself..until now.  I do like the milkman idea and the milk; however, we are slow milk drinkers around here due to tummy issues.  I have a standing order since I use milk in recipes but sometimes find that the order needs to be padded with some orange juice.  I'm VERY excited that we can now get half and half delivered as well.  I like supporting our local milkman, so this is one more way I can get and use the milk. Although, even without a milkman there are times that one ends up with a bit too much milk..  Being anti-waste, it's good to have a use for milk that preserves it a bit longer.

An extra half gallon of milk was placed on my milkman order...and with my Chobani already in the refrigerator....ready to go from here.  Hey, check out the article on the link above and you can see my milkman.  My sister in SoCal said that she just got a one.  Could it be?  Gasp...we are ahead of the trend here in Milwaukee!!?  There's a picture of ours, so we are pretty certain he is a real person:)

Recipes abound on the internet for yogurt; however, I tried the one linked from above.  This one seemed to require little effort...a good thing for a mid-week project.  Not too much in the way of fancy equipment.  And the step by step instructions were pretty darn nice also!

Here's the condensed version:
Pour 1/2 gallon of milk in a stockpot; remove 2 T milk and place in a bowl.  Heat the milk in the stockpot to 180 degrees...stirring almost constantly.   Pour into a glass bowl and let cool for an hour.  Mix reserved milk and 2 T. live culture yogurt together.  Add to milk and mix well.  Place in gas oven covered with lid and warm towel overnight.In the morning take a peek;  place in the refrigerator if it has thickened.  Strain to make Greek yogurt after it is cooled.  Reserve 2 T mixture for the next batch.

I have to admit there is a faint odor of baby spit-up after making this.  It's not offensive, but I could smell it.  Fortunately, it was an early spring day, and I could open the windows and share it with my neighbors!

Much like my cheesemaking adventure, I need to find a good use for the whey.  It's a bit wasteful, but I did end up tossing the whey on this round since that was enough of an adventure for this week. 

Peace.  Love.  Good Food. 

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Frog Eye Salad

I can't even describe this, really.  The conclusion we came up with at a recent family gathering is that you have to grow up with this to like it.  And even growing up with it may not help you to like it.  It's a rural North Dakota thing I guess.  Frog eye salad seems to be made of fruit cocktail, cool whip, Acini de Pepe (tiny pasta), and marshmallows.  Not my taste but I make things others don't like which really shows how individual things can be.

My sis in law gave me a North Dakota Highway Patrol Cookbook (that I left in Fargo but will retrieve it in a few weeks) that has the recipe.  There won't be a picture of this since I won't be making it...but the recipe can be found here:
Frog Eye Salad

I like cooking and recipes and have some thoughts that an interesting study would be that of cooking trends over time.  My tastes change...and looking at older cookbooks is so interesting.  Recently I acquired the First Lutheran Ladies Aid Cookbook from Fargo, ND.  My mother-in-law had it in her things even though I never saw her use a cookbook.  There is a chapter of Norwegian recipes!  For real.  And the hotdish page tries to tantalize with names like...hot dish...rice hot dish....noodle luncheon hotdish...lima bean hot dish......DeLux hot dish...hot dish supreme.  and the gelatin pages!  Cherry gelatin whip.  Orange gelatin whip.  And on.  And on.

I have been wanting to make lefse, so this will be the recipe I will use.  Hmmm...the sour milk soup and the lutefisk...probably not.  I know that there are some gems in this book, so it will be fun to page through when I have a bit more time.  I'm enjoying the ads...and the recipes submitted by Mrs. "husband's name" Lastname-son.   A great piece of history that I'm happy to have on my cookbook shelf!

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Pumpkin Pizza with Sausage and Apples and Brie

Pumpkin Pizza
This has a lot of the makings of  a good dinner.  Eleanor was pretty excited when she saw this up on the computer; although it ended up sitting in the queue of dinner items for a couple weeks before it worked to make it.  That's OK....always like having recipes lined up and waiting for the right evening to be made.

Sunday evening is a good evening for pizza at our house...time for the dough to rise and to prepare the toppings.  This recipe was a good way for me to re-enter the cooking world after a brief hiatus.  It seems each time I take a break I really do come back with some renewed energy.  There's nothing like not eating well for a few days to make homemade food taste great...and really appreciated. 

A few adaptations to the recipe listed above. Arugula...not in season...so it was served with a heap of broccoli this time.  Chicken apple sausage from Trader Joe's was already in the pantry...so that's what I used; sliced instead of crumbled. I debated about the dough....do I make it as listed in the recipe and end up with 1/2 batch left over?  or do I cut it in 1/2?  I decided to make the entire batch as listed in the recipe so I wouldn't end up with 1/2 can of pumpkin leftover.  I just made a flatbread out of the remaining dough...sprinkled with some olive oil and Parmesan it should make a good lunch for Eleanor this week.

Conclusion:  None of us loved or hated this recipe.  The three of us liked all the flavors but are thinking maybe it's a bit too much happening on a single crust.  I was worried about the sweetness of it...and it was a bit on the sweet side.   Maybe eliminating some of the ingredients would help at a future time.
Pumpkin crust + brie=good
regular crust+ brie+sausage+apples=good
Not sure...but will hold the thought and see what can be done!

Although this wasn't a huge hit, I'm loving this blog...great finds off this woman's site, so cruise around it when you get a few minutes!

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Roasted Chickpeas

Spicy Roasted Cinnamon Chick Peas

I do think I have tried roasting chickpeas in the distant past.  I'm remembering that they didn't turn out crunchy.  It seems like this idea is what I'm seeing so frequently lately to make a salty and crunchy snack just with varying spices.  You know, how you notice something and then it's everywhere!  That's how I'm feeling with this recipe...roasted chickpeas must be trendy right now.

This is a recipe that can be made with any spices but the cinnamon combined with cayenne seemed like a good start for this new snacking adventure.  These are great recipes...these ideas....the things that can be changed with a few spices for lunch/snacks.  The link above seemed a good place to start but a double batch was in order.  Making a double batch is not twice the work, especially when getting all the spices out of the larder!

This is the kind of recipe that makes me think that re-joining a warehouse club is a good idea.  Instead of doing that my thought is that I should look for an food service size can and make differently spiced versions of these...hmmm....that may be the next food item prowl....

Unlike the kale chips (that was kind of a dud as far as a chip/cracker substitute), these were good; although there is still some room for improvement in my version.  Sometimes the idea of healthy cookies or healthy crunchy snacks is a turn off for me.  It's better for me to have the real think and move on...the "good for you" junk food version doesn't often do the trick since I'm still left unsatisfied.  I'm putting these in a category of their own for now.  They weren't as crunchy as I had hoped, so drying them a bit more thoroughly next time is in order.


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White Chicken Lasagna

White Lasagna
Love this blog!
I made my changes on this recipe...and so did the preventionrd blogger.  Her changes are noted on her recipe(follow the link)
 Mine are below:
 6  lasagna noodles
1 T butter
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 c  chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk ( I used skim)
2 cups shredded cheddar
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups ricotta cheese ( used part skim...as did preventionrd blogger)
1 c cubed chicken breast
frozen spinach, squeezed fairly dry after thawing.

Cooking lasagna noodles....gave that up a few years ago.  I was experimenting a bit on this one with trying lasagna in the slowcooker.  For sure there is enough liquid in there to cook the noodles.  

I mean, she's a registered dietician and all, but I thought I could cut the fat a bit too.  Her recipe calls for smart balance (1/2 c).  I went with butter but used a scant tablespoon.  A friend of a friend worked at a co-op and said there were a couple never-ending debates....the right to smoke versus the right to clean air...and butter versus margarine.  Being from America's Dairyland and all, I prefer to use butter...just cut back on it a bit.  Quite a bit in this case. So, pick your fat for this recipe.

The blogger where I got this recipe omitted the chicken completely.  I had cooked 3 chicken breasts in a bit of water in the slow cooker since I had three in the package I thawed.  I really didn't need that much for the other recipe, so the remaining bit...the cup or so...was reserved for this recipe. 

Fresh spinach would have been nice...but Paul had gotten a HUGE bag of spinach at Sendik's a couple months ago so I had cooked and frozen it.  I wish I had taken a picture since it was a ginormous bag of spinach.  It did put him in an awkward husband position when he saw spinach on the list.  Hmmmm...does he buy this large bag and risk me asking what he thinks I will do with all this spinach?  or does he buy the smaller bag for the same price and risk me asking what he was thinking?  A tough call for the person who didn't author the list:)  Since we're using it in this recipe, he made the correct call!

I drastically reduced the cheese called for in the recipe and that worked for us; using the cheddar I already had helped as well since I didn't need to run to the store for another item.  I did not add cheese to the sauce but instead used it in layering the ingredients. Parmesan was omitted entirely from the recipe and instead used as a garnish at serving time. 

I made this in the slowcooker, so I decreased the chicken broth a bit as well since things tend to get soupy in the crockpot.   Also, that's all the chicken broth I had in the fridge...leftover from another recipe. I had to add it immediately after adding the flour since there wasn't so much fat in the pan to make the mixture bubble. 

Tuesday is our crazy day...leave the house at 5 am and return between 5:00pm on a good night or 8:00 pm on a crazy night.  This was going to be one of those nights when it's closer to 8pm.  So, I made this the day before and put the crockpot in the refrigerator; then plugged it in on low at 5am.

A few trials going on here with multiple variables.  Lasagna in the slowcooker.  New recipe for lasagna.

It was a bit messy scooping it out of the slowcooker, so maybe next time I'll do the foil trick mentioned in my turkey meatloaf post.  Doesn't matter just for us though...this was really good!  Even with my fat reductions:)

The picture just doesn't do it justice...but it was after 8pm when we got home and unloaded our car..which had the stuff in it for a full day.  So, next round...the foil trick to pull the entire thing out of the crockpot and slice into wedges.  That would make it much nicer looking; although the taste was great even when it had to be pulled out of the crock!

This can definitely be the base of many recipes to come!


 
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Buffalo Wing Hummus

New food blog find......Buffalo Wing Hummus led me to this one off foodbuzz.
Yum.
I thought I had garbanzo beans in the larder...just 'cause I usually do.  I went to make this and found I was out.  But, no worries, I had cannelini beans....a fine substitution.  I didn't add the salt (on purpose) and did not add the paprika (accident).  No measuring on this one either.  I sorta kinda cut it in half and made another hummus (plain) with my other can of white cannellini beans.

Some celery for dipping along with carrot sticks and a tiny sprinkle of blue cheese.    I think we have a winner!

I'm liking this blog, so you'll see me experiment with other recipes off this one in the next few weeks.

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Asparagus...ummm....Broccoli Penne

 Penne with Roasted Asparagus

I had noticed asparagus on sale the last time I was at Sendik's, but that was no longer the case when I returned to get it for this recipe.  I noticed the broccoli on sale and thought that would be a good substitution, so I grabbed that.  Hmmmm.....I returned home to look at the recipe and noted that was a variation listed.  Good thinking on my part, I guess.

Spring is coming to Wisconsin, so I will be able to try this with asparagus as well.

Hard to believe...but we're getting close to 500 posts!  I think that we have done really well in keeping up with some new ideas.  Elizabeth had her sabbatical, but she has a lot of things to post when she gets back to it.  That's what has been so nice about blogging with a friend.  The pressure is off since the other person can pick up when life has other priorities.

There wasn't a lot of direction established when we started.  And I still feel that we're meandering a bit...no big plans for each year of blogging.  No huge gala on the evening of the 500th post. We'll just stay here while we try out cyberspace.  Recently I joined foodbuzz...near as I can tell it's facebook or ravelry for cooks...so that may add a fun dimension as well.

When making this recipe it seemed like a decrease in butter would be a good idea....I used 2 T or so which was just fine for us. That gave it some nice buttery flavor and smooth texture but didn't give us the fat from 4 T of butter.  It probably helps that I have never had it with the full amount...so I didn't know what I was missing!  The recipe came together quickly and was just the thing to eat after sweaty yoga.


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