Quick and easy homemade yogurt with no special equipment.

I freaking love yogurt. When I figured out that it was something you could make yourself a few years ago, I was stoked...that is until my mother in law described a lengthy process that involved special equipment and failure. Uh, no thanks. 

As the years have gone on, prices keep going up (can you say $1 a cup for yogurt...eek!) and we seem to be eating even more yogurt than before. So off I went on a new quest for homemade yogurt. There are several methods out there, some using "yogurt makers" some using crocpots, some using lots of pots, temperature taking and timing. None of this sounds fun for me. I hate doing dishes, I have the memory of a goldfish, and I do not own a candy thermometer.

Sometime last year I stumbled upon a website that had the simplest method for making yogurt, made it a few times and promptly forgot where I found the recipe. Its so easy, I remember all the steps and decided to set up a quick tutorial because I cannot for the life of me find that website again. 

One thing I will not do is tell you that you need to use some super special milk from this one rare breed of cow in the Alps that's raised on organic angel tears and free ranged the finest grass in the world and sweetened with local buckwheat honey that's humanely collected. 

Something majorly off-putting about a lot of DIY food item instructions is the constant, obtrusive yuppy d-baggery that is sprinkled super liberally throughout the article. Buy Walmart brand for all I care. Do remember that quality ingredients will yield a quality end-product, but the quality is up to you.

What you will need

1 Gallon of whole milk

1 6oz cup of plain yogurt

4 1-quart containers with lids (these can even be old spaghetti sauce jars)

1 Tablespoon measure

Something to stir with (I like a chopstick, it reaches all the way to the bottom of the jars)

A big pot with a lid

A big cooler

A large towel

Optional~Jar lifter (you could just lift the jars with a towel over your hand if you don't have one)

Yield: 4 quarts. You will have a little milk and a tiny scoop of yogurt left over.

This is it, minus the pot and cooler. Nothing fancy, nothing special, this is all that will get dirty here. Oh yeah, I said it,  no mess to clean up!

This is what turns your gallon of milk into yogurt. 

Pour your milk into your jars. Fill the pot 3/4 of the way up with cold water. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!  Cold milk in cold jars, surrounded by cold water. If you start mixing hot and cold around glass, you're asking for shattered & possibly exploding glass, not fun. Now turn your stove to medium and walk away for a while. It speeds to process to occasionally give the milk a stir with your chopstick. When I see the water kind of simmering I turn up the heat to med-high. Again, don't jack it up immediately, exploding glass is bad.  Walk away again...seriously. It takes about 20-30 min to get to where it needs to be, no need to stare at it (unless thats your thing).

After the water starts going on a light boil, you're going to need to pay attention a bit. Watch the surface of the milk for a skin. I lifted one of the milk skin thingies off so you could see, it's sort of wrinkly and pudding-looking when it's sitting on top. This means it's heated to the appropriate temperature. Honestly, I don't remember why we need to raised the temp this much, but we need to. Google it if you crave the knowledge of hot milk. 

Now (carefully, boiling liquids remember?) remove your jars and put them on a towel on the counter. Away from any breezes or fans, rapid heating or cooling of glass is explodey. Put the lid on your pot of hot water (we're using this in a bit, keep the hot water in it).

Ready for this? Walk away again, for about 30 minutes. We're waiting for the milk to cool off, you can stir the jars up to speed up the process, but you don't have to.  After a half hour goes by, give the jars a little stir and stick your finger in it, seriously. If you can comfortably put your finger in the milk (very warm but not hot) it's ready to add your starter yogurt. At this point, turn your pot of water on high on the stove.

I didn't take a picture of this part because it's literally me using a measuring spoon. Put 2 tablespoons of your plain yogurt into each jar and stir. 

Pop your jars & pot of hot water into the cooler and wrap everything up with a towel to keep all snug and warm. One more time, walk away. Until tomorrow morning. I usually make this around noon-ish and take it out of the cooler at breakfast time the next day.

   

This is what it looks like when you take it out of the cooler. The liquid is cool if you want a more watery yogurt (think smoothies) so you can just give it a good stir and put it in the fridge, or you can drain off the liquid.

                                 

The left is yogurt mixed with the watery stuff, the yogurt on the right is drained off. At this point you can take the yogurt and put it in a strainer lined with cheese cloth to create a thicker Greek-style yogurt.

Remember this is plain yogurt. Some people dig plain yogurt, I do not unless it's going into a smoothie. So add some fruit, honey, vanilla, sugar or whatever and enjoy ^_^

Home Made Dog Food.

Well hello internet world, I'm the laziest blogger ever, so here is post...3 I think.
Last night hubby and I were finishing up our shopping list, and trying to save money, we delved into the dark corners of our freezer to inventory what we had already. We were very responsible adults and made a list to put on the front of the fridge, I even put it in a page protector so it would be (a little) toddler proof.

Let me stop here and say I LOVE my fridge, you could put at least 2 bodies in it. It's like a Tardis. The freezer is an on-the-bottom chest, but things have the habit of disappearing into the bottom of it.

About 50 feet down, my husband found several mystery meats. Wrapped in foil and bagged, but not labeled, and looking like they'd been there since the dawn of man. Knowing what's in my fridge and not wasting money, I'm totally doing it wrong >.<
After much poking, peeling and squinting, we figured out it was ground beef. Horribly wasted, freezer burnt little rocks of graying cow matter. "Ick, throw that out!" you'll say. But, if you have furry little friends in the house, think twice about chucking your icy chuck. You can turn that wasted money into saved money in about 15 minutes. Dogs and cats both will eat food that consists of actual food! They'll love it, you'll feel like less of a wasteful jerk, and they'll be a little healthier for it. Seriously, watch how their coat will suddenly get all shiny and soft.

Because I love my puppus, here is my dog Remy, he's an American Eskimo (AKA German Spitz) and my toddler's BFF. He will be very happy tomorrow morning when I feed him this project.

I've made dog food before from a recipe HERE, figured out very quickly how easy it is and have done it a few times since with different kinds of meats (Remy's favorite is salmon, rice & peas.) I will say this though if you'd like to follow the instructions on that website, canning ground beef is tricky because the fat can cause the seal to not form and you should NEVER can anything with rice or pasta in it. It is a serious health risk because of the density of such foods. HERE is a website that has all of the up to date info on canning and all the horrible things that can happen if you do it improperly. Don't chance it and just freeze or refrigerate this stuff and use it immediately.

Here we go....

All you need is your newly found freezer treasures and a few things from your fridge/pantry that you'll most likely have anyway.

I have here 1 massively-massive grated carrot, 1 egg, apple cider vinegar (also called ACV, it's great stuff for people and animals), 3 cups steel cut oats & 3 pounds of beef (that's the defrosted chuck-cicles in the bowl)

I found that we had around 3 pounds of beef, so that's what I'm using. I also found the oats about 17 feet back in my cupboard. It's old, and honestly a little stale for people's tastes, but Remy won't mind at all. It's good filler and still fairly healthy for him (especially in comparison to all the junk you'll find in bagged dog food, go ahead, read the ingredients list on your bag of Puppy Chow...) I made 3 cups of the oats. I've made this in the past with rice, Remy approves of this way too. It's really about what you have on hand and what's OK for a dog to eat. NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER give your dog onions, it will kill them, that is not on the "people food that's cool for dogs" list.


Start off like you're making dinner for yourself, throw your beef into a hot pan.

I cooked the beef until it was about halfway done, do not season it, your dog doesn't need all that salt and pepper.

Then I cracked in an egg AND put in the shell. It's extra calcium that is great for your furry friend and they can digest it just fine as long as it's crushed up pretty good. I crushed up the shell after taking this picture because pulverized egg shell isn't that photogenic.

After I squashed the egg shell up good and the beef was fully cooked, I realized I had about 1/3 of a bag of frozen peas left over, so I threw those in along with the pre-cooked oats and about 2T of ACV.

Mix it all up and look at what a good job you did wasting all that meat! 

Is it "budget friendly" to make your animal's food like this all the time? No, not really. But if you've got meat in your freezer that has been frozen to the point of needing to be thrown out, then yes, it is budget friendly. You're not throwing out money and you can save that bag of kibble for another day, it'll keep. 

I portion mine out to about a cup for my 30ish pound dog. You can freeze this to keep for an "oh S**T I forgot to buy dog food!" day, or just toss it in the fridge and use it immediately. 

 Also, my husband came home about 5 minutes after I made this and said "oh, did you make dinner?" Apparently my dog cooking smells much better than that canned junk :)

Oh, we don't know each other? That makes it perfectly appropriate to....

yell at my child. Yup, this happened last night. I'd like to start off by saying I am NOT typing this from inside a jail cell, and I think I handled the situation very well considering.
A short back story on how my family works in public: My toddler, "A", is 2 years old and very busy. Not in the "she's-so-spirited-and-creative" while she breaks glass and I smile adoringly as mayhem ensues kind of way. Just the, she's constantly in motion, kind of way. I DO NOT tolerate destruction, screaming, tantrums etc. This is not how we conduct ourselves in public and I will gladly take the offending child out of the store and wait in the car until the rest of my family is done shopping if that is what is necessary. 
The set up:
We were at a discount store called Ollies last night. The place is huge and there is so freaking much to look at. I adore this store, their motto is "GOOD STUFF CHEAP!" so it's pretty self explanatory as to why.
It's now 9PM, and Ollies is closing. "A" missed her nap, but she's pretty un-phased other than a bit of selective deafness (which can get a little taxing, but such is life with a toddler).  We're at Ollies because it was the closest place to the Mexican joint we ate dinner at that had a decent amount of space to walk around. We were all feeling like huge Fatty McFattersons and needed to walk it off.

So, we're standing in the checkout and there are 2 people in front of us, so we're hanging out into the isle a little bit waiting our turn. An employee, who couldn't have been any older than 22, was behind us and to our right unpacking some stacked boxes that appeared to contain some chemicals in gallon jugs. After a little back and forth and a bit of a thumb war, A decides she no longer wants to hold my hand or stand so she plops herself on the floor. I will now stop to say there was NO screaming, there were no tears, she was not rolling on the floor or tearing things off of shelves. She simply placed her chubby little buns on the floor exactly where she was standing. I, being a huge germ freak, immediately start to pick her up off the floor. This girl turns and says "Off the floor." quite gruffly and with no please, thank you, or explanation. I think one of two things, she either thinks she's doing me some favor by helping me get my out of control (eye roll) child off the floor, or she's concerned because she's unpacking chemicals.
Two other options occurred to me later, she hates kids or she does not value her own life...

I look at her with a bit of irritation, being I was in the middle of lifting A off the floor, and say "we're working on it, it's happening right now" and turn around. As the law of gravity toddlers has proven, what goes up, must come down and within 30 seconds A's buns are back on the floor. This girl looks directly at my 2 year old child and yells (yes, yells) OFF THE FLOOR NOW! 
I am proud to say, I took a breath before reacting. 
My first instinct was to either rip off her arms and beat her with them with my newly induced mama-bear rage, or scream at her until she was reduced to a crying puddle of passive-aggressive-scumbag. But I did neither of these things, I took one deep, quick breath, looked up and said "OK...you do NOT talk to her like that." In a firm, dont-fuck-with-me tone, lifted my child into my arms, and turned around. She immediately said "ok!", and suddenly made herself very busy. 

Meanwhile, my husband & our friend both have their jaws on the floor. It happened so quickly neither of them even reacted other than that "duuuurrrr" look.  The girl in front of us looked like it was go time. She asks "Does she know you?!?" I loudly say "No, she most definately does NOT know us" and she gives a good, well practiced "bitch, please" stare at the offending baby hater and says "Mmmmm, I thought you were related or something to be talking to your child like that." to which I tell her again that I definitely do not know her at all.

At this point what happened has finally sunk in and my husband and our buddy start to recover from their stupor. We paid for our items and left, I'm still pretty sure the cashier had no clue what happened in that 15 seconds, she looked quite confused.

Of course, as we walked out we had to recount the incident 6 or so times with our added "I should have" and "I can't believe she" and about 60 "it happened so fast"'s inserted into the situation.

I will be calling corporate to make a complaint on Monday. Do I want to get this girl fired? No, not at all. But I work in retail as well and there are some things you just not say to your customers or their children. I work in a crappy podunk town that has the habit of resembling a fantastic combo of Lord of the Flies and New Jack City. I totally get being PO'd at your customers, or just having a bad day. But you do NOT pop off at a baby like that. You just don't. Not only is it against every policy ever in the retail world, but it's generally assholeish. I just don't get why someone would speak to a small child like that, especially one they just do not know.

It wouldn't surprise me if that girl went home and facebooked or blogged about the horrible monster child and her demon mother that screamed at her at her work. Gah, can't people just control their children?

That thought makes me giggle a bit.

Quick tutorial for folding a flat

This is my favorite flat fold for the CNY Cloth Diaper group.

I picked this up a while back on Diaperswappers, it was dubbed "the airplane fold" because it's pretty similar to folding a paper airplane.

Personally, I think receiving blankets  make the best flats. They're big, absorbent, super cute and people tend to give you a bazillion at your baby shower.

First, lay your (hopefully not terribly wrinkled) flat of choice down so that the long way is vertical. Fold about 1/3 of the fabric up like this. How much you fold is pretty dependent on how big your baby is. For a toddler, I think this is good, but play with it.

Now take the bottom corners and fold them up toward the center (much like making a paper airplane) 

You may choose to let your dog supervise as well.

Now fold up the tip of the triangle you just created. Again, how far you fold up is dependent on how big your baby is. Smaller baby, bigger fold. 

My dog approves of this.

Now take the top corners and fold these in toward the center. I angle it the way pictured because the top is going to wrap around your baby's waist and pin. The angle will depend on how big your baby is. At this point you'll then tuck in the top little pieces that are hanging over the top edge of what will be the back of the diaper, otherwise your baby will have little tuxedo flaps when your'e done.

Now place your baby in the middle, fold up the bottom and fold in the sides. I generally roll or fold in the part that is at the thighs up to the back. This just neatens up the look and makes a trimmer fit. It also helps keep in any mess that may happen. 

Pin or snappi the diaper closed and voila! 

Oh Hai There Internets

Hello there. 

I say this mostly to myself, because I'm pretty sure absolutely no one reads the first post of blogs. I've never once put forth the effort to pop back to the (boring) beginning of any one of the blogs that I frequent, but I could be in the minority here. I'm also pretty sure no one will be reading this because my other blog is a fail. Mostly because I'm to lazy to post on it. I wanted to separate my failed crafty blog and my ramblings. Maybe one day I will do something with the fail blog, when I'm feeling more crafty perhaps.

But for now, I feel like having a place to probably piss people off.

Half-assed bio: I have a husband, 2 kids, a dog, a cat and a house. I'm opinionated, just like every other asshole on the internet. There is no method to my madness, which is another way to say I'm hypocritical...just like every other asshole on the internet (yes, including you.) 

I have about 65 things I'd like to post about right now but I'll wait until later. I had a chiropractor appointment today and my head feels like it may fall off my shoulders. 

Goodbye self, I think you're doing this blog thing wrong.