Of Yogurt Adventures

Well, I am woefully behind on my blogging. (What else is new!) I'd better get cracking, as I have a lot to write about!

First off, I have to say how blessed I feel to have gotten involved with this lovely group of women I have met here in the area. It is so nice to have good friends who lift you and make you "aspire higher."

Last night we had a little ladies night with four of our little group. It was fun to sit and gab and eat good food. Kayla (my lovely sister in law) gave us a juicer demonstration, and we enjoyed sampling each other's fudge (well, I enjoyed sampling fudge--I have never been able to perfect the art of fudge making. I always...ahem...fudge it up. Ha Ha. O.K., I know I am not that funny.

I had also made homemade frozen yogurt out of (drumroll please) real homemade yogurt.

Here is the recipe for anyone who wants to try it. Actually, I will just put in the link here for my readers' purusal.

http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/

I followed the instructions to the T, finished up at about 10:00 at night, and trotted off happily to bed, expecting to wake up to a lovely batch of creamy yogurt in the morning. Sadly, the next morning when I removed the lid and gave the pot a stir, the liquid looked exactly the same as it had when I had poured it in the night before. I whipped out my handy dandy thermometer, which I had purchased expressly for the purpose of making yogurt, and took the temperature of my liquid. The idea is to keep the yogurt at a constant 110 degrees for several hours so the bacteria can do it's thing. Too warm and you kill your bacteria. Too cool and it doesn't grow. It was no where near the necessary temperature. The heating pad had failed me. Next thing to try: stick it in containers in my crockpot. I poured hot water into my crockpot and set in my two containers of yogurt milk. After a little expirimentation, I found that if I turned my crockpot on warm and left the lid off, it was almost exactly the right temperature. Presto! Several hours later, perfect yogurt. (Maybe "presto" is the wrong word to use.) One more note: as a beginner, I used whole milk rather then a low-fat milk, although supposedly you can use any kind of milk and any fat content you want--I think the consistancy is just thinner if you use less fatty milk.

Next step. Attempt to impress the ladies coming to my house later in the evening with a FROZEN yogurt treat. This is where the adventure comes in. First of all, I had planned to freeze my yogurt in an ice cream maker that was recently given to us, but that we had never used. It looked similar to my friend, Karen's, that we have borrowed in the past, so I figured that would be no problem. WRONG. After I poured my yogurt in the canister and arranged the ice and salt around the outside, I discovered that I couldn't for the life of me get the doggone lid on. After much silent cursing, I dumped the ice out on our deck and decided to pursue a new tactic. I had about three hours before my guests arrived, so I thought if I spread the yogurt out thin enough in the freezer, it might freeze in time. So, by turning my cookie sheet sideways, I managed to finagle it into our freezer, where it fit perfectly--not an easy task I might add, seeing as the freezer door butts up against our counters and therefore does not open all the way. I then poured my liquid directly on to the cookie sheet already in my freezer. Smart....or, not so much. I then discovered that the freezer door wouldn't shut. Eeeks! Now what to do...cookie sheet full of liquid, can't get it out...can't shut the door. I had no choice but to do my best to dump it out, trying to get as much as possible into another container. Of course, most of it spilled, which I expected would happen. What I didn't expect, was that most of it managed to pool UNDER the fridge, I think just to spite me. To top it all off, a canister of little plastic heart beads that had been happily sitting on top of my freezer for weeks had the nerve to fall on my head and scatter hearts everywhere, right as I was finishing cleaning under the freezer.

Of course, Leila wanted to give me her advice on how to best make a mess (although I told her I was doing just fine on my own, thank you very much), but she still felt she had to chime in with her very loud opinion. Just what I needed, a squawking kid in the background to add to the excitement. Anyway, I finally managed to get the remains of my peach yogurt in the freezer. We enjoyed soft serve peach yogurt that evening. (At least I told the ladies they'd better darn well at least pretend that they enjoyed it!) They were kind enough to act duly impressed.

Lesson learned from all this? Never keep containers of heart beads on top of your fridge.

Oh yes, my peach yogurt recipe:

2 cups pureed peaches
2 cups plain yogurt
1 t. vanilla
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. water
1 pkg. unflavored gelatine (opt.)

Dissolve sugar, water, and gelatine in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Mix this together with all the other ingredients. Freeze as desired, preferable in an ice cream maker.