Sunday, May 25, 2008

Dairy Daze

Saturday was especially busy. I began with first cleaning the kitchen, then by making butter and yogurt - which are seperate processes. I learned from my last butter attempt to not freeze the cream, to let it warm to room temp and to not add the salt until paddling the butter.

I have made yogurt successfully a couple of times a week for a long time but after my cheese failed, I went back to the drawing board and followed the beginner cheese maker recipees from Fankhauser's beginning Cheese course. Usually I make yoghurt in the little jars that came with the convient kit,
and years ago I made it in the oven and over the pilot light of the stove. But the Cheesemaking site showed a great way I hadn't tried before using the insulating properties of a cooler. This recipee had me cook the milk longer and ended up with a more set up product.
The jars set up better but the cooler didn't do too badly.

I had gotten out the cream while I fixed the yogurt and then began the butter process. Not adding the salt first and the other factors made a world of differance. Of course I needed a little cream for the coffee along the way.
And at one point it took real self control not to just dump in sugar and sit down with a bowl of heavy whipped cream
But in the end butter formed.

Now I needed something to go with that butter. I poured the whey and the odd bit of leftover yoghurt milk into a bowl with some honey and yeast. Added some flour and let the yeast activate - you can see it in that last photo. I can made bread by guess and by gosh and it looked like this: A little extra brown but very good.

This all was served for dinner (and dessert) with a seven bean mix that had been soaked and sprouted. I didn't get picture of that. I used everyone's suggestion from the food storage group and added whey from a different experiment and seaweed as well as spices and vegies.

The simple lifestyle makes for a long day in the kitchen - whew.

5 comments:

RevDrKate said...

I am so impressed with all that you are doing. It's inspiring! I have been working on recycling and living greener, but you blow me outta the water, roomie!

~B. said...

It does make for a long day, but look at that bread!!! Its worth it! You're making me hungry!

Unknown said...

I'm tired just from reading about your day, but it all looks wonderful!

Connie said...

Ha! It is very satisfying.

Going Crunchy said...

Oooh......good stuff! I learned so much from this post.