Homemade Yogurt

My first attempt at making yogurt was a big fail. I chose to blindly trust the booklet that came with my dehydrator, and promptly wasted a litre of delicious organic milk. Turns out 1986 was still figuring out homemade yogurt!

This time, I am home on the farm, so ironically, I don't have access to organic milk (the sheep are just starting to lamb, and none of the small town grocery stores sell organic milk). Luckily, regular old milk in a bag works just as well, even if it is not organic.
Instead of buying a container of plain yogurt solely for the purpose of making more yogurt, I purchased some yogurt cultures in a small packet from our local health food store. This worked really well.

Now that I've tried it, I think homemade yogurt is like homemade bread--  easier than you'd think.

Here's what you need:

1 or 2 litres of milk
1 packet of yogurt cultures OR
a few tablespoons of yogurt with active bacterial cultures

a big stainless pot (heavier is better so as not to burn the milk)
an large bowl or insulated container
a thermometer
a heating pad or blanket


Step One:
Heat the milk slowly in the large pot, stirring frequently, until it reaches a temperature of roughly 185 degrees Fahrenheit. You may want to use a double boiler if you are concerned about scalding the milk.

Step Two: 
Remove the milk from the heat immediately and let it cool to about 110 degrees. Add your yogurt starter or active yogurt and stir well. It's important not to do this until the milk is cooled or the bacteria will be killed by the heat!

Step Three:
Move your yogurt-in-progress to the insulated container, cover with a lid or towel, and keep warm for 8 hours. You can do this by sitting it on a heating pad or blanket set to medium heat, and/or by storing in a well insulated container such as a large thermos (depending on your thermos, this may still require a heat source). I chose to store my yogurt in a big glass jar wrapped in a heating blanket and placed inside a cooler bag, which was pretty successful.

Step Four: 
Wait 5 to 7 hours, and check it out!
If your yogurt is ready, give it a good stir and then store in a sealed container in the fridge. If you would like a thicker yogurt, leave it for a few hours more. It will thicken a little bit as it cools and should last in the fridge for at least two weeks.

A few notes:

Your yogurt might be different than store-bought yogurt for few reasons. If your yogurt is slightly chunky, don't be concerned. Most store-bought yogurt is 'stirred,' and they don't mean with big ole spoon! Also, yogurt products often contain gelatin, corn starch, or pectin to create a consistent texture. If you love this, you can always add these things to your own yogurt.

Your homemade yogurt may also be more tart than you are accustomed to. This is the natural flavour of yogurt, whereas yogurt manufacturers often use additives to control that tartness. Adding a natural sweetener like honey or maple syrup should contrast the flavour nicely.

Finally, there is whey. Whey is the liquid that gathers on top of yogurt as it "cooks."  Don't dump it out! Stir it in to your yogurt: the whey contains most of the healthy bacteria as well as calcium, and other nutrients you don't want to lose. In fact, Little Miss Muffet was most likely enjoying a delicious bowl of yogurt in the old nursery rhyme. Be like Miss Muffet. Whey to go!

Concoctions

When I was a little girl, I liked to make "concoctions." There was nothing I enjoyed more than putting together various strange ingredients in some magical combination to create something new and different. Whether it was a food, home remedy or beauty product, or even simply make-believe, the idea of brewing up a potion could always get my mind racing. Still does!

I enjoyed it so much that a lot of my concoctions became vivid childhood memories. We had a children's book by David Suzuki-- I think it was about human anatomy-- that for some reason had a recipe for eggnog in it. I remember being thrilled that I could make eggnog by myself. It was easy! And it didn't come in a carton! I used a manual egg beater. The kind you hold with one hand and spin with the other. And I am pretty sure this was my first experience using nutmeg. I love that I can remember that, when half the time I can't even remember where I left my boots!

Over the years, I also put a lot of weird things on my face and skin. There were oatmeal masks, milk baths, and egg and salt foot scrubs: on those days everyone in my family would get a foot massage, except maybe my Dad, whose feet I wasn't willing to make contact with. I had a desire to heal the body with homemade ingredients: I would scour the books we had for home remedies. Thank you, Reader's Digest.

More often than not, there was an element of play in my creations. Concoctions were an outlet for creativity, one which I shared with my sister. I'll never forget the day we decided to make a game of creating different appetizers for each other. It started out innocently enough, but quickly became a competition to see who would do a better job of tricking the other into eating something really weird disguised as something delicious! I think the kicker was a dessert-like creation with peanut butter and graham crackers and marshmallows-- with a surprise dob of horseradish in the middle! Thanks, Brooke.

As a teenager, I got into aromatherapy. Lavender and cedarwood for relaxation, orange for energy, mint for health. I would take baths with essential oils, and burn them in my room. Strange smells would spill out into the hallway, but my family never complained. The smell of cedar still throws me back to those days.

I wanted to be a herbalist before I really even knew what a herbalist was. I was thrilled when I realized that there was an endless supply of mint growing in our yard! I also wanted to be a witch. Not the wart-nosed cackling kind, but the earth-mother, pagan ritual kind. Witches know things about the earth. They have the secrets. I wanted to find those secrets, learn how to make potions, and live outside in the woods with the trees and the wildflowers and the wind. I still do. But I'm not about to make any blood sacrifices-- and I'm pretty sure that eye of newt would not legitimately help with any type of ailment. And cauldrons are pretty pricey, so I'll have to settle for a rocket stove or something!

As I grow older, I have come to understand that concoctions were a learning tool, as well as a creative outlet. Through my experimentation, I learned a lot about the natural world, as well as the food we eat. I love how food is our connection to the elements of life: the sun, and the rain and the earth and the wind. There is magic in those elements. It's all connected, and it's all beyond our understanding, no matter how much wisdom we collect, and no matter how much we think we know. We really know nothing at all. It's painful and beautiful at the same time.

But what we do know is still valuable! And I still love my concoctions.

Which is why, when I was recently introduced to the magic of fermentation, I went a little crazy in the head.

It's not that I wasn't already aware or interested in some of these things, I just didn't realize how good they were for you, and I hadn't taken the time to explore the topic in its entirety. Now that I am learning more, I'm getting pretty excited about it.

I've decided to share with you, in installments, my experiments with growing 4 different kinds of cultures, yeasts, and ferments: yogurt, kombucha, sourdough starter, and fermented vegetables (aka sauerkraut).

In case you are skeptical, or are wondering what is so great about these things, I would suggest that you start by visiting this web site, which is a really good source of information regarding the health benefits of fermented food (thank you, Jake, for sharing this web site as well as your enthusiasm!).

Stay tuned for the first installment: homemade yogurt.

The Cost of Everything

Today I drove home from my last day of my 9 to 5 job, thinking about how everything costs something.

When I was in University, I didn't like how long it would take me to get places by foot, bike or bus. I often felt like I was wasting my time, getting from place to place. Now that I have a car, and a monthly insurance payment, and a gas tank to fill every week or two, I realize that the alternative is wasteful in a different way. And it occurs to me that this is true of all expenses: in fact, it is probably true of every action we take, every single day. There is a cost associated with almost any action. I am sure there is some theory in Physics or Economics that accounts for this, but I am not a physicist or economist, so I'm just going to give you my personal take on the matter.

Everything is made of energy. Everything you do (or think, or say) uses your body's energy. This is why you have to sleep every night. This is also why you have to eat food. And, it's why you feel like you have no energy in the winter time: all of our energy ultimately comes from the sun. Our existence is dependent on the sun, whether we like it or not. And in the winter, we see a lot less of her.

Me, driving.

Going places uses your body's energy. But if you are rich/lucky enough to live somewhere where it is an option, you can trade your time and effort in to have that energy in a different form: you can work 9 to 5, and put your energy into your job, to get money, with which you can then purchase something (a car, or a bike) that will allow you to use less energy to get where you want to go.

But in order to do this, you must be chained to a desk every day.

I used to think that having a car would give me freedom. In fact, when I mention to people that I often think of selling my car, that is the usual response I get: oh no, don't do that, you'll lose your freedom and independence! And since I still have my car, I guess that means I tend to agree with them to some extent. But here's the thing: if having a car means I have to work a job that doesn't truly make me happy, am I really that free and independent? Am I not actually even more dependent than I was before? I am dependent on my job to provide me with the money to pay my car insurance and put gas in my car. I am not free to do the things I would like to do with my time, because I am spending my time working to pay for my "freedom."

Huh?

Do you really want to be these people?

Perhaps if I was doing something that I truly loved doing, that gave me pleasure and joy and passion and emotional energy, it would be reasonable to do this. But I have not yet found a way to make a living of those things (I'm working on it!), and I don't think it is reasonable to work a job that doesn't make me happy simply for the purpose of being able to... drive around.

I have concluded that if I did not have a car, I would actually have a lot more energy. I would get more exercise getting myself places, and everyone knows that exercise gives you energy. I would be healthier. I would know the true cost (in time and energy) of getting places, so I wouldn't jam my life full of things to do, and I would have more time to stop and think, do yoga, meditate, and just be. And best of all, I wouldn't be relying on an unsustainable resource to get me from place to place at high speeds. I have a funny feeling that all of this speed is going to cost us a lot more than we realize, somewhere down the line.

My neighbourhood (sort of): Rideau Canal at night.

Walking and biking are so much more enjoyable than driving. No matter where you live, you don't truly know your neighbourhood until you have walked it. If your goal is to truly be wherever you are, travel at any speed becomes enjoyable-- an act of exploring and living within the geography you inhabit, rather than madly dashing from one location to another, "getting things done."

Similarly, I believe that if I take pleasure in growing my own food, it's silly to work a job so that I can eat. So much energy goes into producing and transporting food! This seems so wasteful to me. Why are other people working to make my food, when working to make my own is the very thing that brings me the greatest joy?

With every move I make, I want to become more connected to the earth-- and I can do so by slowing down, sowing seeds, and savouring every moment of the day. For me, this is what it truly means to be free.