Yogurt making 101

I make my own yogurt and have done so for about 5 years now so I've pretty much mastered it. Just recently after making a trip to North Carolina the boy and I picked up some 2% fage nonfat greek yogurt and it was amazing. Thick and creamy and very dessert like so I was determined to do the same with my own recipe. I eat a lot of yogurt and I think a lot more than most people, I could be wrong but I really think so. I remember mentioning this to my mother and her telling me that she had recently read that people who eat a lot of yogurt appear to stop having certain allergies due to the live cultures called Lactobacillus (probiotics). I believe this because all of my life I have been allergic to metals touching my skin meaning any jewelry that is not gold or pure silver (the boy still thinks this is a ploy for real gems) but I can remember my poor ears oozing from infection only hours after wearing cheap earrings out for the night or my neck breaking out in itchy hives from a necklace. I would even break out from a metal belt touching my stomach which my youngest has been lucky enough to inherit. My mother handed it down to me. Well I no longer have any aversion to metal which is probably why I am a now a costume jewelry freak and no outfit is complete without lots of bling, the gaudier the better. I believe it is the yogurt and I truly know that my past digestive problems have been taken care of as well by my homemade yogurt.

People find the prospect of making their own yogurt daunting but it's surprisingly easy and really just takes a bit of experimenting with your microwave and yogurt maker to get it perfect. You will get instructions in your maker which can be purchased in either 1 or 2 L containers and then you can make a few changes on your own from there. Most will tell you that it is crucial to get the temp right and how important it is that all utensils that touch it are sterilized but this isn't true. No biggie and once you try your own you will not buy the store stuff again not to mention how much cheaper it is. I estimate that it's a 1/4 the price.

Measure out either 2 cups for 1L or 4 cups seen here for 2L in a microwave safe measuring glass container and microwave to the temperature your maker tells you.

Once your milk has heated to the right temp you can add approx 2/3 cup dried skim milk powder along with about 1/2 cup of of your last homemade yogurt or a store bought brand as long as it has live culture. Stir until dissolved.

Now add mixture to your yogurt maker and let sit for 8-10 hrs after which you will refrigerate until cooled.

If after your yogurt is chilled you would like to make greek yogurt which is simply removing the liquid whey to make a yogurt of 'cream cheese' consistency, just put a coffee filter into a strainer and let your yogurt drain for about 3-4 hrs.

pork loin

In my quest to empty 2 deep freezers, 2 refrigerators and 1 pantry I have decided on pork loin for dinner tonight. My family is not big on pork but once in a while I can't help but buy the Costco super pack which can easily feed 10 people. I love the Costco butcher because you just can't beat the freshness due to the constant turnover. They offer prime cuts at the best prices and now I sound like a commercial again. It's true though. Problem is, you have to buy huge quantities and we eat meat in small quantities and pork in even smaller quantities. Not that I have anything against pork but meat in general I try to keep to a minimum. Pork loins are sold 5 or 6 at a time so I individually wrapped 2 loins and froze them. Tonight I pounded 2 loins to about a 1/2 inch thickness and marinaded each one separately, one for the boy and I and one for the girls. Ours had lemon juice, worchestershire, salt, dried garlic and dried oregano. The girls had lemon juice, honey, salt and mustard. I then then coated the girls pork in crushed saltines after it was finished marinating and baked it at 450 degrees until no longer pink. Our pork was roasted at 500 degrees after marinating. I served it with roasted baby potatoes, broccoli and applesauce. The girls both finished theirs so this is always a good thing......the boy even finished his so I would say that feeding my picky family tonight was a success with a tricky ingredient. Patting myself on the back :)

Curry tonight

Indian is my favorite ethnic food for sure. In 2000 my family and I moved to Hoboken NJ for the boys work and I credit NY for my new obsession with almost anything ethnic. NY being probably the largest ethnic melting pot in the world (I could be wrong) this was the prime spot for me to start experimenting. What I quickly realized is that I could literally get anything I could ever want within minutes of my apartment and if it wasn't there then I could order it online and have it the next day. That's the very awesome part of living in the big apple and I loved it. After eating out Indian a few times with the boy I decided that I could do it almost as well minus all of the oil and cream and minus the tandoori oven in my tiny NY apartment so the first thing I did was order 3 simple Indian cookbooks and study them as if for the an exam.

 Next...I ordered all of the essential Indian spices and dahls online and got busy.

 Tandoori chicken, basmati rice, dahl and homemade naan was my first dish and I was hooked. Over the years I've continued to experiment and we continue to enjoy some kind of curry probably once every 1 or 2 weeks. Which brings me to tonight....we're having tandoori chicken and with my goal of emptying the pantry....I've used up all of my dried chick peas to make a chickpea and cauliflower curry. The chickpeas have a lot of 'gravy' so a dollop of thick yogurt and a piece of naan make it perfect.......and it was yummy if I do say so myself :)

Adonis

We have a specialty grocery store here in Montreal called Adonis. There are only 2 locations both around 30-40 min from me. One small store started out as a Greek grocer and grew into huge European grocers. I made the drive today in the pouring rain because it's Sunday and hopefully no traffic. There was traffic because of the rain and when I got there finally they turned off the lights so that we would all know it was time to get the hell out. I was so disappointed because not only had I driven 45 min to get there but I like nothing better than wandering around an ethnic grocers searching out anything new or different. Instead I literally jogged around the stored picking up a few items without much thought. I did however make it to the butcher and picked up 2lbs of shish tahouk (their specialty) and sliced marinaded filet mignon. I completely suck at cooking beef so I am really hoping at $10 a lb I can do something with the filet. I'm thinking of copying the sirloin salad at Baton rouge which happens to be my favorite. For dinner I had left over quinoa so I added some frozen peas and left over pesto cream sauce. I baked the shish tahouk and added a piece of spiced pita with it. It was a a good quick dinner.

Cooking Light

Today I decided to start going through my cookbooks and saved Cooking Light magazines.

 The girls school raise money each Christmas by selling used cookbooks donated by the parents and this is where about 80% of mine have ended up this week. I thought it would be harder because my collection was fairly large but I really feel as if they've served me well and taught me most of what I know today. There was a time that I would sit for hours many nights simply looking over recipes and bookmarking what I would try in the following weeks. Trial and error were probably my best lessons. I'm happy to have someone else enjoy these books like I did. As far as the magazines go, well I'm not even sure why I held on to these for so long except that I always thought each one had a recipe that I would want to go back and get....but never did. Now I have about 100 for recycling. I don't do magazines anymore and I can't remember the last cookbook I bought because there are so many fun and well done websites for anything your heart desires about food and cooking. Would I buy another cookbook....definitely! but only if it was really pretty and looked good on the shelf in my kitchen.

training

I could talk cookin forever.....but this is cookin and movin so lets talk movin. I try to move every day but I haven't always. As a kid and a teen I was very inactive. It took 2 pregnancies 17 months apart and 60lbs with each one enough to convince me that a little activity might help with the weight gain and body changes happening. My first gym membership that I actually used was when Josee was 3 months old and I did some research on the best centers with daycares. I ended up at a very small and very old YMCA in Oakville, Ontario. The main level had 1 small room for the daycare which I was initially worried about but there were 2 sisters running it who were great with the girls. The gym was deep in the basement and had 3 treadmills, 2 stair steppers and 2 recumbent bikes. The weight room was tiny with only a few machines and a set of bars and dumbbells. That didn't matter though because I had no idea what to do with free weights and spent about 10 min in total on weight training any ways. My goal was to do as much cardio as I could to lose the baby fat. I went every single day during the week and this where I began to run. I remember the pain and the discomfort most, 5 min of straight jogging was my goal and it took months for even that (seriously). I would have quit the whole idea of running altogether if it wasn't for this older couple who were there every morning with me. They were about 60-65 years old and both of them would run at what I thought was lightening speed for what I thought was 2 hours, but it was about 20-30 min. Then they would get on the stair stepper for another 20-30 min. I was in awe of them but they also shamed me into not giving up. I was 28 and pathetically out of shape. I think of them all the time and wander if all that exercise has kept them healthy now 12 years later putting them at around 75 years old. I hope so. I'm still not a good runner but I'm consistently not a good runner and that's better than not running at all as far as I am concerned.

Left alone

Today was the first day in weeks that I was all alone at home (except for Daisy). The kids are back to school after March break and Steve was in NY on a business trip. I liked it. It was nice. I especially love my morning coffee and protein bar. I watch Good morning America and get caught up on U.S. news. Not really sure what's going on in Canada but only because our morning show Canada A.M. is well....lame and right now most of our news is lame. Apparently some cabinet minister has spent $3100 of our tax money last year at Tim Hortons. As infuriating as that sounds....it's not newsworthy and it's laughable how ridiculous our Gov't is.

I had to pick up the girls and some of their friends for an overnight retreat in leadership and on the way I was listening to XM satellite radio Fox news. Just to be clear....I am not a fan of Fox anything but ended up here for some reason. It caught my attention because it was a story on a law trying to be passed by some member of Gov't regarding salt use in the restaurant industry. this guy is trying to get a bill passed in order to prohibit NY chefs from adding salt to their dishes. I had to keep listening because whenever I start yelling at radios and other electronics then it means I have a problem with something I'm hearing. This guy Oritz wants it banned in NY restaurants. Here's an article http://www.vosizneias.com/51050/2010/03/11/new-york-new-bill-to-ban-use-of-all-salt-in-restaurant-cooking-called-absurd/

This could be a really really long blog but I'll make it short, how ridiculous to to tell some of the top food artists in the world how to cook their food! We drive to the restaurant, we order at the restaurant and we eat at the restaurant. None of this is done under duress so give me a break and let people decide what they want to order, eat and pay for. I could go on but I won't.