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.