Thank you, Summer Raspberries

Winter.  January.  Blah.  Sorry to be such a downer, but I can't wait for February.  January is the month that seems to drag and be the smoggiest and yuckiest and coldiest...coldest.  Luckily I have a trick or two up my sleeves to make it through unscathed.  It's like I'm being chased by lions or something. :)

Exhibit A:

An ordinary, January breakfast.

Exhibit B:

A January breakfast that kills!  Oh yes.  Thank you, flat of raspberries I bought last August and turned into freezer jam.  A little taste of sun-ripened berries always makes the gloom and doom of January feel just a little better.

The smiles don't lie.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Rebel Mormon Cinnamon Buns, if you want your house to smell like Christmas

Today I am sharing something that's very special to my family.  My roots come from Danish, Mormon pioneers who settled in Utah in the 1800's.  Details are few and hard to come by, but let me share with you the story of one of my most treasured recipes.  Cinnamon buns.  They aren't like any cinnamon buns you've ever had, unless you're related to me.  I originally shared this over at Inspiration Cafe when we were doing our series on recipes from our heritage.  Well, it's Christmas time, and that is the best time to have these, warm from the oven with a cup of hot cocoa.

This recipe was the creation, as far as we can tell, of my Great, Great Grandmother Margaret.  They are what my family affectionately calls buns.  As a child, I was always perplexed by the cinnamon buns with gobs of white frosting at the local mall. Because, our cinnamon buns never had frosting.  What gives?  If you ask me, they're a lot better without frosting.

I wanted to get the origins of this recipe as accurate as possible.  My Mom didn't know all the details so we called my Grandmother Evelyn, and her two older sisters, my Great Aunts to find out what they knew.  Aren't I lucky that I get to call them up for a visit any time I want!!  I cherish my Grandma and love to hear her talk about the "olden days".  

Here's what we know, Margaret was the daughter of a polygamist, and a rebel child at that!  Her family had to send her away to live with another family because she was too difficult!  Sometime in the late 1800's she came up with this recipe.  She made bread two to three times a week and one day decided to make a treat with her bread dough and these buns were born.  In my family, you just say you're making buns, and everyone shows up.

Margaret taught her son's wife, Catherine (My Great Grandma, let's keep all these greats straight, now) how to make buns.  Catherine taught my mother how to make buns (Grandma Evelyn makes pies, but respects the buns), my mother taught me and now I'm teaching my girls.  As far as we know, none of the other children of that old polygamist made these buns.  I am the lucky progeny that gets to pass them on to my young and am sharing them with you. 

It's interesting to me that when people talk about countries that have a deep connection and history with their food, they always say the US doesn't have that.  Well, to heck with that.  I have recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation, that still get made to this day, even though they are old timey and a bit different.  I truly believe, that if you look closely, you'll see that Americans do have a historic food culture, but it's something that has to be passed down.  You have to make these things or they will get lost.  Get ready daughters of mine...this will be your legacy in twenty years or so.

This recipe really isn't hard to make, it does require yeast, which scares some people, and if you happen to have a starter, feel free to use it as that is what my relations always used.  I do not have a sour dough starter, so I use active dry yeast.  It does take some time, as with homemade bread, you have to let it rise, punch it down and rise again, but it is so worth it.  And, it takes some imagination because this recipe is....well, subject to interpretation.  Let's get to it!

Cinnamon Buns
1 quart milk (a quart is 4 cups, but I gotta use old timey measurements! Also, this is how my family makes the milk, you boil 2 potatoes really well in 2 quarts of water, then you take out 1 quart of the potato water, remove the potatoes and set them aside to be mashed in a bit, to the quart of potato water add whatever amount the directions call for on a box of powdered milk to make a quart of milk...why don't we just use regular milk?  I don't know!  My Mom says this makes it taste better and is what her Grandma did.  So potato water and powdered milk).

1 C. Sugar
1 Tbl. Salt
2 Tbl. Shortening plus more for greasing the pans and dough
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
1 Lb. raisins 
Light corn syrup (like Karo...well, this isn't exactly the way Gr. Gr. Grandma Margaret made it, a few alterations have been made thanks to science)
a bunch of white sugar and cinnamon

Place your raisins in a bowl and pour over them the hottest tap water you've got and let them sit and soak until needed in a little while.

Grease a 12 quart stainless steel bowl with shortening and set aside...if you don't have a 12 quart bowl, then use a couple large bowls and/or dutch ovens...like me.  Use what you got.

Mash the potatoes in a stand mixer and to them add the "milk", sugar, salt and shortening and mix well.  Once this mixture has cooled to luke warm, add the yeast and let it dissolve. Mix to combine.

***here's where you've got to go with the flow...this is a pioneer recipe after all***

Using paddle attachment on your mixer, add enough all purpose flour so the dough is like a stiff cake batter.  Drain your raisins and add them in (they don't have to be patted dry, just drain them.)  Mix.

Now, continue slowly adding flour and mixing with the paddle attachment until it just pulls away from the bowl (My mother thinks it took about 12 cups of flour, but she is just guessing as she was using her sifter and sifting it in).  At this point, switch over to your bread hook and knead for 5 minutes.

You could of course, go full pioneer woman (not that pioneer woman) and not use a mixer, and just use brute strength, in which case you stir until you cannot stir any more. 
 
Place dough into greased bowl.  Grab a handful of shortening and smear it on top of the dough.  Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled in size.  This will probably take a couple of hours....depending on how hot or cold your house is.

Punch the dough down.  You do this to de-gas it.

Let rise again until doubled... now, this is where you get all old timey again, you know your dough is done when you stick two fingers in and the marks stay!  If you look up at the picture at the top you can see where my mom tested her dough!

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grease a bunch of 9" x 13" cake pans...and by a bunch I mean, as many as you've got.  This recipe will make approximately 4 dozen buns.

Mix up a pile of cinnamon and sugar.  Sorry for the vagueness.  I would say get 3 cups of sugar and enough cinnamon so that the color is light tan, or until it tastes good.  Take half of this mixture and put it in a small sauce pan.  Measure it because you need exactly the same amount of water that you have cinnamon and sugar.  So, if you have 1 1/2 cups cinnamon and sugar, you need to add 1 1/2 cups water.  Add in a large dollop of corn syrup.  This is to make your cinnamon syrup that gets brushed on top of your buns.  Place on stove, stir and bring to boil.  Once it has boiled, reduce heat to low and keep at a low simmer until needed.  The rest of the cinnamon sugar is going in the buns.

Spoon a bunch of cinn/sugar onto your very clean counter tops.  Cut off a hunk of dough.  How much is a hunk...well...let me put it like this, take your hand, grab some dough, that's a hunk.  Now's the fun part.  You are going to roll out snakes with your dough in the cinn/sugar.  Make sure to always have your dough snake rolling in the cinn/sugar.  You want to get them really well coated throughout. Once you feel it is long enough and cinnamon-y enough, then you coil it up and place it in your greased pan.

Now you need to let the rolled buns rise for a little bit, so here's what you do.  When you get a pan filled, set aside and cover with a tea towel. Fill some more pans and set on top of each previous pan, cover with tea towel.  Now that you've got your pans filled, take the bottom one and cook it while the others continue to rise.

Bake buns at 350 F for 15 to 20 minutes until GBD (golden brown and delicious).

Once done, brush on your cinnamon syrup over each bun.

And then dump, upside down onto a piece of parchment or wax paper.  Hopefully if you greased them well enough, they'll just fall out easily...if you didn't grease enough...you might have to pry them out.

Let cool until you can't stand it any longer!   Unwrap the luscious coils a few inches at a time and devour.  The best way, is warm from the oven...and maybe dunked in hot chocolate!!  My Great Grandma would dip her's in her tea. 

p.s. These freeze really well!  Put them in a freezer bag, squeeze the air out and you will have buns at a later date when the craving hits...and it will, oh it will.

Grandma explaining that she expects these girls to carry on this tradition of making buns...

Something tells me they will...as long as this mama has anything to say about it.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Stewed Tomatoes...ABC's

Have you heard the term locavore?   It means that you try and eat locally and seasonally as much as possible.  You get food that hasn't traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles to make it your table, so this helps save the Earth.  Good.  You also know you're getting the freshest product available, that has been allowed to ripen naturally and not get gassed into ripeness.  Good.  You get to help support the farmers and economy in your area.  All good.

Now, when you combine the locavore movement with the DIY movement...what do you get?  Bottled tomatoes.  True. It's science.  So, I am excited to be a small part of both.  Also, the best thing about preserving your own food, you know what's in it.  Want to know what's in my tomatoes?  Tomatoes.  And a dash of lemon juice because the FDA says so.

But, what do you do if you've never bottled tomatoes before?  I was thinking about this and figured there are probably people out there, who want to try it, but where the hell do you start, when you're starting from the very beginning?  The beginning.  So, come along, let me give you some canning know-how, hard-earned from a life of helping my mom and grandmother's preserve food.

First thing though, you will need some equipment.  You need at least two large pots.  One of those two needs to be extremely large.  We are talking large.  My largest pot is a 21 quart capacity.  I didn't always have a pot that large, so if all you've got is an 8 quart, that's okay...as long as you have several other bowls and pots you can dump cooked tomatoes into.  You need a small pot. You also need a canner, whether this is steam or boiling water, it's okay, just follow the instructions.  You need quart bottles, lids and rings.  These need to be washed and ready to go.  You need a liquid measuring cup, a funnel, a pie tin and a 13 x 9 inch casserole dish.  Yes, a casserole dish and pie tin are essential when it comes to making bottled tomatoes.  Now, come along and see how to do it!!

Canning is a dirty, messy, long process.  Don't be fooled by all the beautiful pictures of rows and rows of bottled goods.  Don't wear your best clothes, be prepared to stand for hours on end and expect a giant mess when you're done.  Fair warning.  It's worth it, but, be it's nice to know what you're getting yourself into.

Step 1: Sort and wash your tomatoes.  Start with a clean sink, and begin going through the box of tomatoes, discarding any that are particularly unpleasant, and washing the good fruit and placing it in the sink for later.  My family just uses one of the tomato boxes as a garbage can.  Don't be afraid of tomatoes that have cracks in them.  These can be cut around.  In fact, if you purposely buy the cracked tomatoes, also known as the seconds, they'll cost you half as much.  Insider trick.

Step 2:  Imagine the pot on the left was filled with tomatoes, gently simmering for a few minutes, until the skins break a bit and you can peel them easily...I forgot to take a picture of that happening.  Sorry.  Once you've washed your tomatoes and  are ready to begin, start some boiling water.  They only boil for a few minutes to soften the skins.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes from the boiling water to...

Step 3:  Your casserole dish.  This is where you place all the hot tomatoes and let them cool for a bit, amongst the discarded skins from the previous batch of tomatoes you've just peeled.  Once this gets too full of skins, toss the skins.  It's just easier to work in this one spot.  You can set your tomatoes down and clean them all in the same spot.  As you can see, next to my casserole dish is a large bowl where I put my peeled tomatoes.  Once that gets full I dump them in the stewing pot as seen above next to the simmering water.

Step 4: Peel your tomatoes. Here you go, a step by step on how I do it.  1. Make sure the tomatoes are cool enough to handle.  2.  With a nice sharp paring knife, cut out the core.  Don't cut yourself and don't burn yourself.  3.  Slurrp!  The tomato slipped right out of its skin.  It's not always that easy, but nice when it happens.  4.  Quarter the peeled tomato and toss it into bowl.

Follow a proper canning guide book regarding amount of time to cook.  My Mom, and therefore me, likes to cook our tomatoes longer than is strictly necessary.  Make sure you stir your tomatoes so they don't scorch on the bottom!

Step 5:  In your clean bottles, measure out the appropriate amount of lemon juice.  According to new guidelines, you should put 2 Tbl. lemon juice or vinegar per quart bottle.

Step 6:  Get your pie tin, measuring cup and funnel and place them next to your cooking tomatoes.  Place your empty bottle in the pie plate, put funnel in and start  scooping up tomatoes in measuring cup and carefully pour into bottle.  It will splatter.  Beware.  The reason for placing your equipment in the pie tin is to keep the mess from going everywhere.  It helps....minutely.   Set filled bottle aside and continue filling bottles until you have 7...which is how many you can can at once.

 

Step 7: In small pot of simmering water, place the necessary amount of un-used rings and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 8: Using a damp paper towel or cloth, wipe the rim off.  If there's anything here, the lid will not seal properly!

Step 9: Now, just follow the canning guidelines.  Pay special attention to altitude!  If you're like me and live at a higher elevation, you need to process for a longer time.

Step 10: Label it.  Using a permanent marker, make note what you've made and what year you made it.  Now, I just put the year, because I know the only thing in quart jars in my pantry are stewed tomatoes.  Other people might have salsa or chili sauce or spaghetti sauce...and in that case it could get confusing.

There you go.  Now you have a little knowledge on what equipment to use and how to use it, I feel secure in unleashing you to the farmer's markets for your own boxes of tomatoes.  And this coming winter imagine all the pots of soup and spaghetti and chilli you get to make, all from your own bottled tomatoes.  It's worth it.

Thanks for reading!

Shared here:
Mellywood's Mansion

Heather

Homemade Peach Butter

What's for breakfast over here, you might be asking yourself.

Alright, there is very little chance you are asking yourself what's for breakfast over here, but now that I've mentioned it, I'm guessing you are just a bit more curious than you were before...maybe?  I'll just show you.

Easy Scratch Buttermilk Biscuits with homemade peach butter.  Sounds good, but maybe you are asking yourself, what is peach butter?  It sounds like you take a hunk of butter and mix some peaches in it and spread it on toast.  Sounds good if you ask me...but nope, it's basically jam.  You cook it for a long...let me repeat...LONG time so that it cooks out most of the liquid and it gets really thick and the flavor is really concentrated.  No pectin needed.  The kinda fun thing about peach butter is, it reminds me of my Grandma Kathy's peach leather.  So, I think it's extra delicious.

Extreme close-up.  And yes, that spoon is in imminent danger of being....cleaned...we'll call it.

Not just me who thinks this is the best breakfast.  This little girl would eat just biscuits if I let her.  She might mix it up with jam one day and honey the next, but all biscuits, all the time would not even phase her.

So, peach butter.  I doubled the recipe which turned into a fiasco because Smitten Kitchen said it takes ohhhhh....40 minutes max to simmer it down to the appropriate thickness.  Bull.  It took me almost 3 hours and that's just because I decided to give up getting the appropriate thickness and kept turning my temperature up hoping for a faster reduction.  As my pot's contents got lesser and lesser from it slowly being put into jars, the remaining product eventually got there....so some will be thicker than others.  Oh well.

**********The thing you need to know about canning is...well there are three things that I feel are most important. ***********

1- READ THE INSTRUCTIONS COMPLETELY BEFORE YOU BEGIN.  I can't tell you how many times I have messed up a step because I think the sugar should go immediately in the fruit...it doesn't.  READ FIRST!

 2- The 7 P's!  Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance (for those of you who didn't know the 7 P's).  Have all your supplies ready.  Pre-measure things.  Have your canning gear ready to go.  Fill things with water and get them boiling.  Because you just know you're going to want to do something and you're going to have to go find it, because canning crap is usually at the bottom of a pile in your garage or you have to wait for water to boil.  Not fun.  Be ready.

3-Have all your jars and twist-on lids already washed.  Nothing killed an attempt at canning faster than jars that have been sitting in a cupboard for a year. This really is part of the 7 P's, but felt it was important enough that it deserved a specific mention.  So, go get yourself a bushel of peaches and makes some butter!

Smitthen Kitchen's Peach Butter Recipe

I also referred to my Ball Blue Book to make sure I wasn't going to give my family botulism.  These kind of things are important.

Happy breakfasting!!

Thanks for reading!

Shared here:
Mellywood's Mansion
Try a new recipe tuesday 

Heather

Just beet it....beet it...no one wants to be...Pickled Red Beets

Oh Michael.  My Aunt had your poster hanging up in her bedroom in the 80's alongside Tom Selleck in his itty bitty khaki shorts.  I still have a thing for mustachioed men in short shorts and love it when The Mister indulges my mustache whims.  He flat out refuses to indulge my short shorts whim.  Whatever.  He claims that red-heads should NEVER have mustaches (but every once in a while I get a mustache out of him).  This stems from a childhood with a red-headed father who wore a mustache.  I will never confess to him that this may, in fact be sage wisdom.  I still like it.  I also like...beets!

Beets are a misunderstood root vegetable.  I think they get a bad rap from being cooked incorrectly.  Roasted they are divine.  They are sweet and pair so nicely in savory dishes.  As a child, beets were always pickled and canned.  So when the time came to harvest my own beet crop, I knew exactly what I was going to do....make my children recreate a page from my own childhood.  Scrubbing beets.

Here's what you do.  Put on your dumpiest clothes.  Beets juice will stain the heck out of anything.  Clothes, hands, counter tops, so be prepared.  Get a scrub brush, a clean bowl and head outside with your kids.  Turn on the hose and ask them to scrub the dickins out of each and every beet.  You want all the dirt off and the beets to gleam bright purplish red.   If you have a dog...they will probably try and steal your beets.  Wild beast.
 
At first, your kids will think this is lots of fun.  Until they realize that Mom is actually having them do work.  Then be ready for the whining and complaining.  Don't give in.  Make them scrub those beets.  You had to scrub bushels of them...for goodness sake, I think they only have 25, max!  Weak.

While kids are cheerfully scrubbing beets, get your work station set up in the kitchen.  Pot for boiling the beets.  Canning pot and tea kettle ready with hot water to replenish canning pot's water level.

Take the scrubbed beets...and give them a good once over.  I'm guessing your kids do a questionable job, as my kids did.  They're learning.  They'll do better next year.  Chop off the tops and the tails.  Plunge them into boiling water for about 10 to 15 minutes until they're slightly more tender and peel them.  You can actually keep the skin on, but my Mom didn't, so I don't.  Chop them accordingly, if they're very petite...whole.  Halved.  Quartered....etc...you don't want huge chunks of beet, you want them to be nicely bite sized.

While all the above is happening, heat your pickling fluid up to simmer and get the sugar dissolving.  Follow your recipe.  Or be like me and use half my Grandmother's recipe and half the Ball Blue Book's recipe.  And then be nervous you're going to give your family botulism and store the three jars you get in the fridge.

This is my fancy new canning pot.  Loving it.  It's extra huge and has a fancy lid that tells you when you are able to start timing.  I live at 6000 feet above sea level, so at different altitudes, you have to adjust your canning time accordingly.  Fancy.  I just said fancy a lot...fancy, is in fact one of my favorite words.

Voila!  Final product and so, so pretty.  I have eaten 2 out of my three jars so far.  A...because they are taking up valuable space in my fridge, but B...they are so good.  Unless you ask my children and they are foul.  They are quite sour because I used a larger vinegar to sugar ratio.  I suppose if I used more sugar they'd like them more.  But, my Mom's beets were sour, so I like mine to be a bit sour.  If you're putting them on tossed salads, they really cut through creamy dressings...and I love it.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Connect with your inner bakestress...make bread

I admit it.  I make my own bread.  It's very old-fashioned...but at the same time, it's a very now thing to do.  If you're anything like me, you want to give your family the best, most nutritious food they can eat.  This is why I make our bread. 

The food industry (don't get me too worked up), makes me angry.  They have learned about the unholy trio.  Sugar, Salt and Fat.  If you add these three things...to anything it makes it so that people crave it.  Find it irresistible.   That's the trick right there.  If you make something irresistible, then people will eat more of it.  Therefore will need to buy more and the company that makes it makes more money. 

By making my own food, I can watch the amount of sugar, salt and fat that goes into my family's mouths each day.  Plus I get rid of the additives and preservatives.  It's win-win for me.  Plus, I'm just gonna put it out there...the smell of fresh-baked bread is heavenly.  The taste...even more so...also, just think of all your ancestors looking down on you, thinking...alright, my skills aren't going to waste, the young whippersnappers are doing fine.

My family comes from a long line of bakers and home chefs.  My Mom...great cook.  I would rather eat her cooking than anybodies.  My Grandma Evelyn makes...the...best...pies.  Pie crust does not intimidate her whatsoever.  My Great Grandma Hansen....learned from her mother-in-law how too cook as her Mom didn't cook, and she made her own sourdough bread every day.  How I wish I had her starter...and the fresh eggs coming from her hen house..And then there's the cinnamon buns that came from Great Grandpa Hansen's polygamist Grandma and the ladies before her...Those old timey Danes could cook....we still use their recipe to this day.

I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride when I make things from scratch.  Bread...scratch (we even grind our own wheat!)  Pancakes...scratch.  Yogurt...scratch.  Canned goods, like jam and chili sauce...scratch.  I am even starting to get interested in fermenting...more.  The Mister lives in fear of the day I start putting jars of sauerkraut on the kitchen counter and kimchi in the backyard...it's gonna happen....get ready my love.

Plus...if you make home-made bread, you can make this...a melted cheese with fresh-picked, garden tomatoes with plenty of salt....The Best Use of Bread! Hands down...unless it has butter and fresh strawberry jam...

She agrees.

So here's the recipe I use and all my tips and techniques that go with it....

Supplies
Mixer with paddle and bread hook...this is even optional if you're willing to do some serious stirring and kneading (which I've done when my mixer died)
2 loaf pans
A food scale...optional, but you'll get both loaves even.

Homemade Whole-Wheat Bread Recipe
3  cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup gluten flour (buy this in the baking aisle, it's because whole wheat doesn't have gluten and gluten makes bread...bread...so you are adding in some gluten with this product.  It is important!)
1 1/4 Tablespoons instant yeast
2 1/2 cups steaming hot tap water (120-130 degrees F)
1 Tablespoon salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1 1/4 Tablespoon bottled lemon juice
2 1/2 to 3 cups whole wheat flour

Mix together first three ingredients in the mixer bowl with a spoon.  Add water all at once and stir for 1 minute; cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes.  Add salt, oil, honey and lemon juice and beat for 1 minute with paddle attachment.  Add last flour, 1 cup at a time, beating between each cup.  Once the paddle attachment stops mixing the flour in effectively, switch to the dough hook.  (Make sure to pull off all the dough from the paddle and put back in bowl.) Only add flour until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Beat for about 6 minutes. This makes a very soft dough.  ****do not put too much flour in!***  This is the part where experience comes in handy.  For the first month at least, I made bricks instead of bread.  I put the entire allotment of flour in every time.  I live in the desert.  My bread is going to take less flour than somebody who lives where it's humid.  The trick is, as soon as the dough starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl, get ready to stop...add a little more flour a bit at a time until it is a nice ball of dough and isn't sticking to the sides anymore.

Pre-heat oven for 1 minute at 350 F. and turn oven off. (I actually wait until I can see my heating element turn red through the door...so I wait about 2 minutes) Turn dough onto oiled counter top; divide, shape into 2 loaves. (Here's where I weigh mine to make sure each loaf is the same weight...you don't have to do this...but I think it's nice.) Place in oiled bread pans. (I use Crisco.)   Let rise in warm oven to 20-25 minutes until dough reaches top of pan.  Do not remove bread from oven; turn oven to 350 degrees F and bake for 30 to 34minutes.  Remove from pans and cool on racks.

And remember, this is a skill that takes time. If your bread isn't amazing the first time...try it again.  You won't regret learning this, and taking the time necessary to make a delicious loaf for you and your family to enjoy.

Strawberry weekend numero dos

Tis the season you know.  For strawberries.  Tart, sweet, red, juicy...known in my house as ambrosia.  My girls could eat a million of these puppies.  So, what else do you do besides make homemade strawberry freezer jam?  You make strawberry shortcake.  Oh, but not just any strawberry shortcake.  You make some seriously good strawberry shortcake.

Come on.  You know you want some.  There's a trick to strawberry shortcake...well, there's a couple of tricks.  First, you gotta make your own biscuits.  Second, you've got to use fresh strawberries.  Third, you've got to have two kinds of cream.  The whipped kind and the whole whipping cream...unwhipped...for moistness, richness and just plain goodness.  I come from a family who thinks a little cream makes everything better...and doesn't it?

First make your biscuits.  Now this is my usual biscuit recipe that I use all the time.  Except for now that I'm low-carb.  Blah.  But, I've mixed it up a little bit, because while I don't want a biscuit so sweet it's gonna give you a cavity, I do want it a touch sweeter than normal.  DO NOT buy those weird little sponge cakes made specifically for strawberry shortcake.  Don't do it.  You will be amazed by how much better this is.  My beloved mother who apparently didn't believe in scratch biscuits, used Bisquick when I was young, but added a bit more sugar.  That's essentially what I've done, but with the best drop biscuits you'll ever eat recipe.

Awesomeness, pure and simple

Please refer to my re-named blog www.beatinghearth.blogspot.com and this post for a revised and better version of this yogurt recipe

Homemade Greek Yogurt.  How amazing is that?  Why would I make homemade yogurt?  Because I can and because it's completely awesome.

My oldest declared that she "never tasted anything like it" and "it's the best yogurt I've ever had" and "It probably took you a lot of work to make it"

Thank you darling. 

2 ingredients.  Yeah...I love a recipe that calls for only 2 ingredients....that and some time and some unusual equipment...aka a bath towel or blanket and something for straining: paper towels, cheese cloth or a clean dish towel.

Ingredients
8 Cups Milk (any fat percentage of your choice, I used 1% because I like a little fat, but not whole fat and make sure that it isn't Ultra pasteurized.  Just pasteurized is what you want.)
3 Tbl. starter (this is also known as any Greek yogurt you currently have in your fridge, as long as it has live and active cultures, as that's what you need to reproduce and make your yogurt yogurt)

Other Necessary Equipment
Candy Thermometer
Cheese Cloth, Paper Towels or Dish cloth for straining
Heavy Bottom Pan
Ceramic casserole dish with lid
Strainer
Large bowl that the strainer fits in
A blanket or bath towel

Pour all but 2 Tbl of your milk into a heavy-bottom pan.  Put the 2 Tbl of reserved milk in a bowl and back in the fridge. Stick a candy thermometer in the milk in the pot.  You need the candy thermometer.  Go and buy one if you haven't already.  If you read this blog at all, you will know that a candy thermometer is an essential piece of equipment!  Over medium heat, bring the milk to exactly 180 degrees F. 

Make sure your milk doesn't scorch!  You will want to use a rubber scraper quite religiously during the cooking of the milk.  One benefit of making your own yogurt, during this cooking process your house smells soo good.  Kind of pudding-ish.  Getting it up to temp does take a few minutes, so be patient.

Once you have achieved 180 degrees, immediately remove from stove and pour the heated milk into a large ceramic casserole dish. Put it on a wire rack for cooling. 

Take your reserved milk and to it add 2 to 3 Tbls of your starter...aka some yogurt you have in your fridge.  I would hazard a guess that you want to use a brand of yogurt that you enjoy eating.  My personal favorite is Greek Gods, it's mild and creamy and sooo good.   Mix the milk and the yogurt thoroughly and then put it back in the fridge.  You have to wait for your cooked milk to cool now on the counter top.

Now let it sit WITH THE LID OFF until the temperature comes down to between 105 F and 110 F.  The picture above, if you can see is where I let my temp come to...I would say it was 109 F.  Okay, the reason you keep the lid off, is apparently you need the good bacteria fairies to start working their magic....don't think about it too much.  Lacto-Fermentation is awesome, just let it be. 

Now while your milk is cooling, and mine took about 30 minutes (my house is really cold), you want to turn your oven light on.  This is going to be your heat source.  Yeah...I said the light in your oven.  Don't think I mean that I want you to turn your oven on at all...no.  Just the light bulb and you will keep it on for like 8 hours or over night.  I started my yogurt making process at about 8:30 pm and at about 7:30 am was when I removed it from the oven.  Just to give you a little timeline.

Now that your milk has cooled, whisk in the reserved milk and starter so that it is thoroughly combined.  If you feel tempted to add more yogurt thinking it will give you a more yogurty product, don't.  Apparently the bacillus (which is what the bacteria is called) likes to have plenty of room to do their thing and if there is too much then your yogurt will end up watery and off-tasting.  I used 3 tablespoons but think next time for fun I will use 2 just to see if there's a difference.

Lid on.

Make the dish cozy by wrapping it in a towel.  Don't look at me like that.  Wrap it in a towel.  Put it in your oven and leave the light on.  Close the door and walk away.  Please make sure that your towel is not anywhere near the light bulb though...you don't want to start a house fire in the name of homemade yogurt.

You will leave it here for around 8 hours, or over night is convenient (which is what I did)

This is what you wake up to.  See, it's yogurt.  But it's not Greek yet.  So put your casserole dish in the fridge and let it cool for at least 2 hours.

Line your colander with whatever straining item you are using and put the colander in a dish that is big enough.  Now my colander has short stubby legs and because I didn't want my yogurt swimming in it's own whey (which is what you are straining out of the yogurt by the "whey"), I propped my colander up on an inverted bowl so that it would be above the whey.  I used a dish towel for my straining, but I had doubled it up and maybe feel like a single layer would have been plenty.  Scoop your yogurt in and put it back in the fridge for about an hour.

Okay, so after an hour you need to dump your whey and squeeze your yogurt to get the moisture out and then put it back in the colander for another hour of straining at which time you will be surprised again by the amount of whey you get out of it.

Anyone in the whey market?  I got a bunch.  This is only half too!

And now your yogurt is complete and should be thick and tasty.  Sweeten as you like.  We do it with a drizzle of honey and some fresh fruit.  Jam would be nice.  Even some brown sugar would give it a yummy mapley flavor.  Try this.  Especially now when to buy Greek Yogurt is like 6 bucks for 32 oz, here it took half a gallon of milk and so cost....$1 maybe.

Yay for homemade yogurt, you'll feel like a champ and true human being if you do.

Granny Square Pic of the Day

Gratuitous I got a cute kid pic of the Day

My baby on Thunder Mountain Railroad during our DisneyLand vacation.  Too big!  She loved it!  We rode it 3 times.

Thanks as always for reading!

Heather