Rory and I were talking the other day about how nobody knows how to do anything on their own anymore. For example, how many of you know how to make your own bread (using that bread-making machine your grandma gave you doesn't count), sew a blanket, or knit yourself a sweater? Probably not very many of you. At our household, we're going to try to learn to do some of those types of things on our own again.
Rory took on our first project: yogurt making! Here's how the whole thing went down...
First, we started by rigging up a double-boiler. Once we got that set up, we began heating a quart of milk. We used locally-grown, hormone free milk from Picket Fence Creamery. We continued to heat the milk until it reached 160 degrees.
Once the milk reach 160 degrees, we removed it from the heat and put it on a cooling rack.
We left the milk on the cooling rack to let it cool to approximately 110 degrees.
While the milk was cooling down, we brought a kettle of water to a boil, then used the boiling water to sterilize the glass jars we planned to use to hold the yogurt.
Once sterilized, we let them dry. If we were really being green, we would have poured the water back into a pitcher, let it cool, then used it to water plants, but we weren't that creative at the time.
Once the milk reached 110 degrees, we stirred in a half container of regular plain yogurt. You need to do this to get cultures to cause the milk to turn into yogurt. As an alternative, you can purchase just the cultures, but they are more expensive than just buying a container of yogurt.
We stirred the yogurt in pretty thoroughly.
Next, we poured our yogurt mixture into a bowl with a lid to ready it for the next step of the process.
Next, we needed to keep the mixture between 95 and 110 degrees for six hours. Our way of accomplishing this was to set up a small cooler with a heating pad inside of it.
We then put the lidded glass container in on top of the heating pad.
Next, we stuffed a towel around the edges to prevent any heat seepage.
Then we closed the cooler tightly and left it that way for the next six hours.
Six hours later, we had yogurt. We took it out, stirred it, then poured it into smaller (consumable) containers...reusable, of course!
Once separated, we added a little fruit to each container, then put them in the refrigerator for several hours.
Once cool, we had the finished product.
It was really good! We've made it a few times now (both with fruit and without). I prefer the fruity version, because I think it has more taste. Rory likes the plain stuff, because he puts it on top of baked oatmeal.
Any suggestions on what we should attempt next?
WOW! I am very proud of you both. What a great idea. Getting ol'school. I suggest learning how to run a sewing machine, it's the best thing I've ever done. Knitting is also next on my list, I will teach you when I learn! I don't know what you should try next, but down the road....work on the waterproof cloth diaper. ok?!
Posted by: Kelsey | January 25, 2008 at 09:44 PM
Yes! Yes I do! And, the more you do, the more likely you'll survive the zombie attacks, and we can live together in a buncker ala Tank Girl!
*Bake the most easy delicious bread EVER:
http://outsidecat.com/wordvehicle/archives/474
*Read Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, then make some cheese
*Cut plastic grocery bags into loooong strips, then knit them into a bag to hold groceries. (Meta-awesome.)
*Code a script that allows you to control your heat from your computer using the current outside and inside temperatures. (You can do that, right?)
Posted by: Sonya | January 28, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Two of my kids are writing persuasive papers: "Americans need to become more proactive and 'go green," and they're listing three - five major-yet-simple ways we can make a change. What are you thoughts?
Go Green - discuss.
Posted by: Kelly | January 28, 2008 at 07:03 PM