Pizza!

Because of all the yogurt I've been making, I've had a lot of whey that I haven't "whey" exactly known what to do with all of it. Today I made some focaccia, 5 minute artisan bread dough, and...pizza. Rachel absolutely loves pizza, and she also loves Curious George. All day long, (ever since Rachel found out we were making pizza today) Rachel has been talking about how she wants to pretend to be George when we make pizza and she wants to make the same way he did in the book. 

Well, I didn't let her make the enormous mess that George made, but we did try to make some fun shapes like he did.

Rachel are two pieces and Kent are one whole one. The kids had lots of fun helping make the pizza and I think they ate it better because they got to help. :) the whey in the dough have it a little bit of a sour flavor and it was soooo yummy! 

Crazy!

Yes, yes, I'm fully aware that I'm crazy! I bought this 

And this 

 Today. 

Three weeks ago I bought 25 pounds of carrots just to see if I could use them before they went bad. We did. This week, I bought 25 pounds of tomatos and 25 pounds of dry black beans! I'm not too worried about the beans. They won't go yucky, but what will I do with the tomatoes? We may be having lots and lots of salsa and spaghetti the next few weeks!! I'm excited! If anyone has a tomato (or black bean) recipe that they just love, they should send it my way!

Yogurt Recipe

This is for my sister-in-law Lex. 

I decided to share my yogurt recipe so you all can be as awesome as I am. :p

All you need is: 1 gallon of milk and 2-3 tablespoons of any plain yogurt that says it contains Live Active Cultures in the ingredients. 

Step 1: Put your milk in the crockpot. 

Step 2: Heat the milk on high for a couple of hours until the milk is about 170-180 degrees fahrenheit.

Step 3: Turn it off and let the milk cool until it is between 110 and 120 degrees fahrenheit. It cools faster if the kid is off during this part.

Step 4: Add the yogurt and put the lid back on the crock pot and wrap the crockpot with towels. Big ones.

Step 5: Leave it to sit and make yogurt for 12-24 hours. The longer you leave it the more sour it will be.

Step 6: If you want runny drinkable yogurt then it is done. If you like it a little (or a lot) thicker (like we do) drain off a little (or a lot if the whey). I line my strainer with paper towels (double or triple thick) and leave it for an hour or so. I know people who have used coffee filters or cheese cloth for this part.

Tips and tricks:

*You can use any type of milk you want, from whole milk all the way down to skim milk. I've even read that people have used cream or half and half.

*One gallon of milk makes 4 quarts of yogurt, unless you drain off some whey and then it makes less depending on how much you drain off. I usually try to drain off 1 quart of whey leaving me with three of yogurt. My family has been loving this so much that I've been making yogurt about once a week lately! We drink less milk when we eat more yogurt though, so it all evens out. 

*If you use a little powdered milk (like 1/3 cup) in your milk when you first put it in your crockpot the yogurt will turn out a little thicker. (I've been doing this, but I've also done it without too and it's just fine.)

*Sometimes the yogurt can be a little clumpy. Before I put it in my fridge, I get out my beaters and whip it up a little bit. It makes it a much nicer texture.

*Save your whey that you drain off and use it. You can substitute it for water or milk when baking and it is so yummy! It is good in bread or pizza dough, or pancakes and it is soooooo good for you! Or you can give it to your plants instead of water. They love it!

*The yogurt is delicious on cereal (hot or cold), or with applesauce mixed in, or with a little extract (our favorites are banana, strawberry, lemon,  and coconut) and some sweetener mixed it (sugar, honey, ect).  We also like to put fresh fruit in it, and I just made some pumpkin granola that it is absolutely delicious on. The possibilities are endless!

*Before you eat it all up, make sure to save a few tablespoons from your batch to make some more! You can use your own yogurt to start another batch! Cool huh?

You should let me know if you try it!! It's a pretty easy and straight forward recipe and as long as you make sure your milk gets to the right temperatures, it's hard to ruin. I hope it works for you!

We aren't fighting!

While I was in te bathroom this morning I could hear my lovely children on the other side of the door going back and forth saying, 

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!

Over and over again. So like any good mother I called out, "It sounds like you guys are fighting. Please stop!" (It was still early in the day, so I wasn't too frustrated with them yet, thus the please.)

Rachel's reply was, "We aren't fighting, we are arguing." 

She was right of course, but it just kind of stunned me to hear that from my 3 year-old! She is such a smarty-pants! 

Frozen Yogurt

I just wanted to take a minute and talk abou how cool I am. :p I've been trying to make homemade yogurt for a while now and kept ruining it. Usually I would make it so runny that we had to drink it. Well just recently, I figured out what I was doing wrong and I've been making yogurt every week since. The kids have been absolutely loving it. Rachel asks for yogurt as a treat after dinner or she asks for it on her cereal instead of yogurt. Something else fun we have done with it (twice) is make homemade frozen yogurt. The first time we made vanilla, and this time we made coconut brownie frozen yogurt. It was super fun, yummy, and easy! And cheap!! If you want to have yogurt but don't want to pay as much as the store asks you should totally consider making your own!!