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I’m slowly working towards some simplicity within the home, but hey! It’s a lot of hard work!

I love having a go at growing my own veges and always use herbs fresh from my garden. I try to plant from seed whenever I can and have learnt to save and share my own seed for the following year. I make Award Winning preserves and pickles; and my husband brews Award Winning boutique beers as well. I love to stockpile and try to limit quick trips to the shops. I dabble in bread making and enjoy making my own stocks too.

I enjoy feeding my family good hearty meals, nothing like those tiny restaurant stacks you have to look for on the plate. My husband maintains our vehicles and machinery and we both enjoy fabricating on a small scale mostly relying on metal & timber recyclers for any materials needed.


While I don’t always have time to reply to comments, I love reading them. I hope you enjoy your stay and I hope you learn something new because I love sharing what I learn, and I'm always looking for another new skill myself.

Cheers!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Making Yoghurt in my crock-pot

Even the best cooks can make mistakes, I am not one of the best cooks, but my boys think I am. Yesterday I scorched the milk, and still went ahead and made yoghurt...
Here is what happened....

I had made heaps of yoghurt years ago with mum, she had an easi-yo yoghurt maker......but I had to refer to the Internet for memory joggers first up. 

I poured 2 litres of milk into the crock-pot, and according to a lady on the internet, I was to leave it for 2 to 3 hours on high, or just before it comes to the boil.....so thinking I had plenty of time to attend to other things, I continued on...."What's that funny noise?' I'm saying to myself while looking around the kitchen.....
it was the crock-pot on a full rolling boil.......
I had scorched the milk.
Now do I waste it or continue on to see if I can still make it.?..
you know I am not going to waste it without trying first...
I tasted the milk and it didn't taste burnt, so I kept going.

Washing out the crock-pot after scorching the milk.

Adding the starter culture to the milk.
 Once the crock-pot was cleaned, I poured the milk back in. When it was warm to the touch I added a small tub of natural yoghurt as the starter. 
 And wrapped it up and put it to bed for the rest of the day and night. I was lucky enough that when I bought my crock-pot it came with this beautiful sleeping bag. 
Last night before going to bed, I checked on the milk
It had worked..much to my delight.
It didn't look like much was there though....
but I kept going and decided to strain it overnight....



I knew those ANZ money bags would come in handy one day....I just knew it.

Best to turn the bag inside-out so you don't have to scrape around the seams.

This morning, I checked on the yoghurt...
and it was still draining, but feeling the bag, I decided it was thick enough.

After straining overnight

The crock-pot was used to catch the whey.
I will use some of the whey today
to make scones and a loaf of bread.



Out of the 2 litres of milk and the small tub of natural yoghurt, 
I got 541 grams of yoghurt and about 1 litre of whey. 
This is great, I think Natural yoghurt is a bit pricey in the supermarket. 


Left: Now take some aside to use as the starter culture for the next batch of yoghurt.
Right: Take some and add your home-made jam....(strawberry here) and mix through. 
That was with breakfast!!!
Centre back: Place the rest in the fridge to chill....
This lot will be used as plain yoghurt.....and sour cream
hmmm I think fig and ginger yoghurt is looking good for tomorrow...
the possibilities are endless!!!
It is the perfect consistency for sour cream.

See, it is worth it to keep on going....you just never know, even the worst blunders can turn into something great.
Have you ever salvaged what you are cooking and followed through with the recipe?
Did it work? Did it blunder? 
I would love to hear about it. 

3 comments:

  1. I used to be able to make home made yoghurt, but for some reason these days it never really sets, it looks like runny junket or something.. after seeing this I may have another go using the crockpot.. I never thought to drain some of the liquid out, to obvious for me :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. ha ha Wendy!

    Narelle...I had a funny cheesie experience last year.
    I had 2 litres of sour milk so I put it to heat slowly and left the room...for ages...I forgot for about 30minutes but it didn't boil over/scorch etc...what it did do was separate beautifully without rennet/lemonjuice etc. Once drained I had a very tasty cottage cheese!
    coffeee Sue

    ReplyDelete
  3. Have another go Wendy, I bet you can make it work......Hey Sue, I will have to remember that one....I love cottage cheese with chopped chives and spring onion.

    ReplyDelete

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