No.67: COOK Homemade Yogurt

After hearing how much better tasting homemade yogurt was a few months ago, I decided to give it a try myself. I was very surprised at how easy it was to make and thoroughly impressed by the taste. Now, I try to make homemade yogurt any chance I get. The necessary ingredients are minimal:

1 quart of milk
2 tablespoons of yogurt
fruit or granola, if desired

Regarding the ingredients, I used Ronnybrook Farm Creamline whole milk (hormone-free and not homogenized, so there is a nice layer of cream on the top) and Fage greek yogurt as my starter in hopes of producing a thick consistency.

Using a cooking thermometer, track the rising temperature to 180 degrees F, then let the milk cool down to 120 degrees F. Once it has cooled, add 2 tablespoons of yogurt as your starter and then mix the ingredients with a spoon or a whisk (I also shook the jar after tightening the lid).

Place the jar on top of a heating pad set to medium heat, wrap the jar in a towel, and cover it with large pot to incubate for 10-12 hours (I do this stage overnight). After the incubation period, cool the yogurt by placing the jar in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.

When you are ready to eat the finished product, feel free to add fresh fruit and/or granola. The following morning for breakfast I added raspberries and granola with goji berries. Pretty simple. (Remember to save roughly a half a cup from your homemade batch so you no longer have to buy yogurt from a store as your starter).

No. 38: COOK Homemade popcorn.

Before Orville Redenbacher and the microwave, Native Americans taught early American settlers how to prepare popcorn by introducing kernels of corn to heat. Centuries later my father would prepare popcorn without the use of a microwave so I thought I would give it a shot as well. 

To prepare popcorn the old fashioned way, I began by pouring about a 1/4 cup of corn kernels into the bottom of a large pot. I then added a small amount of olive oil (be careful not to soak the kernels in oil) as a healthy alternative to canola oil, covered the pot with a lid, and turned the stove on to medium-high heat. When the kernels began to slowly pop, I grabbed onto a side handle with one hand and the lid with the other, carefully shaking the pot to avoid the popcorn from burning.  When the popping slowed, I removed it from the heat and poured the popcorn into a bowl. Because of the flavor and moisture produced by the olive oil, no butter was needed. Add sea salt if desired.

Not only is this a great alternative to the microwave popcorn variety, but it’s also pretty simple to make.