Homemade Greek Style Yogurt (version 2)

I recently realized while going through the motions in my kitchen, making Greek style yogurt, that I have been keeping a secret from you.  That the way I make my yogurt has changed.  I had found new shortcuts and before I had time to tell you it became habit.  So yesterday while I was catching up in the kitchen, baking breads and cooking beans, I took a few photos of my latest gourmet shortcut to share.

Into three glass quart jars (you could use clean applesauce jars or even pickle jars) spoon two tablespoons of store bought yogurt into each jar.   Let the yogurt come to room temperature.

In a large stainless steel pot, allow three quarts of milk to come to room temperature.  Then heat the milk slightly until when test it with a finger, you can't feel it, hot or cold.  Body temperature, I guess.

Pour the warm milk into the jars.  Put a lid on each.  (The red funnel is part of a canning kit and makes filling almost any jar so easy.)

Find a helper and shake each jar to distribute the yogurt into the milk. 

Fill a cooler with bath temperature water.  Cram the jars into the cooler and shut the lid.

Set the cooler in a nice warm spot (mine is always on top of the freezer - this is also where I set bread to rise) and let it sit undisturbed for 24 hours.  I have found that letting the yogurt sit for longer makes a thicker yogurt.  Over Christmas when things were a bit hectic here, I accidentally left it for 48hrs.  It looked like curddled milk but after I strained it, it looked fine.  A tad bitter but fine.

Line a bowl with a clean pillowcase.  Pour the yogurt into the pillowcase.

Tie it up and let it drip until the volume is reduced by half.  Since I made three quarts of yogurt, I let it strain until I have collected a quart and a half.  This will leave you with one and a half creamy quarts of fresh yummy yogurt. Since it is almost identical in consistency to sour cream, it can be used cup for cup in traditional recipes. My husband and oldest son eat this stuff by the bucket, the bucket, I swear.  You should see their idea of a serving size.  I figure I'm saving some serious cash making the stuff myself.  We make ours plain and unsweetened but for a serving you can sweeten it up with a tablespoon of some homemade jam for a real treat.  

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P.S.  

In the kitchen I was fooling around with a new gluten free bread recipe.  Sandwich bread, breakfast bread.  No artificial binders or fillers.  So healthy, made with almond flour.  While almond flour is getting plenty of talk (and for good reason!) it is a bit expensive.  I ground my own in the Vitamix and after mixing was pleasantly surprised to pull this out of the oven....

Super rich and healthy... very substantial.  A bit much for the little ones but an awesome grain free bread for a grown-up breakfast.  Highly recommended!  

almond flour bread recipe from making love in the kitchen - meghan telpner

Nourishing Our Children: 20 Minute Free Video on Traditional Diets

The first 20 minutes of the Nourishing Our Children video. The full presentation materials (DVD, e-book and study guide) can be obtained with a donation of $55 to the Nourishing Our Children campaign through January 18th. 

My thoughts on the first 20 minutes:

Nourishing Our Children is based on answering the question, "Can we be well fed but malnourished"? The video covers how Weston Price (a Cleveland dentist) set out to answer that question as he began noticing the increasing deformities in the mouths of children here in Cleveland, Ohio. Within the last year my eyes have been open to traditional foods. Fermentation (needed desperately in my diet to combat my infestation of candida), raw milk, animal fat (keeping the fat in our food and diet), eating non-industrial (man made) food, proper food preparation (soaking of grains, sour dough preparation, fermentation, etc.), etc.

Starting with reading "Real Food: What to Eat and Why" by Nina Planck my eyes were startlingly opened to the idea alone that fat is extremely good for us and essential in our diet. The right kind of fat, used correctly, do not make us fat! Amazing. I know. We are so focused on "low-fat diets". That is hardly our biggest health concern.

I have continued to endeavor to change my diet and Wade's from the industrial diet we are so very used to. Because of finances, busy life, and learning it is a slow and gradual process but I am encouraged by the knowledge that I now know how to well nourish myself and my children (and husband God willing!).

There is one more point I want to address. While I embrace and appreciate the idea of traditional diets and believe there is clearly something nutritiously right about them. I am cautious to embrace the idea of evolution being the driving force behind our need for traditional diets. I look at the concept of traditional foods and diets in light of what the Bible teaches us about our history and from our history our diet. What God made was perfect, what man makes is flawed. Everything with a grain of salt and seeking the truth through God's eyes.

What are your thoughts? Is this idea of traditional foods completely new and foreign to you or is this something you are already changing about your life style? I would truly love to know.

Keep your eyes open. Jackie was busy in her kitchen this morning. She may have something fun to share! You know... she is my inspiration for looking at holistic and natural health. She discovered it first and has paved the way and inspired me for years. 

Good Food Friday: The Ups and Downs of Gluten Free

No actual recipe today friends.  Just a story about food... 


I love a challenge, in the kitchen that is.  There is such a feeling of accomplishment when I can convert a conventional recipe to a healthier version.  It started with changing simple ingredients like sour cream to homemade yogurt or butter for applesauce.  Then I ventured into adding some extra things like nuts or seeds.  I was feeling good, making things from scratch with almost 100% success, cutting out all the fillers and extra processed components of recipes.

About 4 years ago our family physician suggested we try our second son on a gluten free diet.   My first thought was I am totally up for this; he will miss out on nothing.  I read and studied and experimented and tested, learning the properties of the various flours and the ratio of butter to eggs.  I was really proud of my accomplishments.  I even found a decent recipe for bread.  (The store bought stuff while gluten free had a TON of extra processed garbage in them!)  So basically the entire family went gluten free.  It was not a difficult decision to make, it was simply easier than making two different meals. Minus the bread.  There will always be two kinds of bread in my fridge, both homemade, one spelt the other gluten free.

A year ago, in another challenging attempt to save a few bucks, I bought a pasta machine.  Not one of those you can see in the late night infomercials that blend and extrude but the shiny old fashioned metal kind with the clamp and the crank.  Oh it is beautiful.  Once a week, usually Thursdays, I bring the machine down from the top shelf in the pantry, pour myself a glass of red wine (what is a good pasta dinner without one!) and crank out the good stuff.

Honestly, it's  okay.  This is the one thing that is killing me about gluten free.  I have done so much reading and testing that I feel by now I should have struck gold, but I'm still not happy.  So much of pasta making is in the ingredients.  I have used only farm eggs and fresh ground rice flour.  But the one thing I absolutely do not want in my pasta are the very ingredients that determine its success... fillers.   Starches.  Empty calories.  Corn based binders.  Really?  I have come all the way to run into this.

Yesterday all I could think about was making ravioli.  At two, I assembled the fillings.  At three I had finished researching a new pasta recipe.  By four, I was making a second batch of dough, with my standard and somewhat disappointing recipe.  Big sigh.  Huge sigh.  Here is what the four hour project/finished ravioli looked like...

and you can see by my kids plates they had no complaints.

Neither did my husband...

But by my fourth square, I was done.  It did not taste like I wanted it to.  Like I dreamed about all afternoon.  Like I remember before going gluten free.

So why?  Why keep on trying?  Keep falling short...

Because the chance of success, a total complete success, is just so close. This entire post may see kind of negative but I promise you I never see it that way.  In my experience, all of the best things I have achieved were difficult.   Having kids young.  Getting through school.  Learning to cook and bake.  Being involved.  Having more kids.  Building a home.  Making time to be me.  Having one more kid.   Soon I will have this under my belt too.   I have learned so much.  I'm sure I take most of it for granted now, I know the kids do, in a good way.  They know that I can make anything and never doubt my experiments.  So I'll keep going and failing and succeeding because in the end I believe it is the journey that counts.

How about you? C'mon, share your success/failure stories...

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Gluten Free Inspiration -- some sites I visit often for all their yummy recipes and super ideas!

Elena's Pantry :  A very clean and simple site with awesomely nutritious foods

Making Love in the Kitchen :  Meghan is an inspiration!  All her foods are insanely creative and yummy!


Know of any others???  Share the love... We gluten free people need to stick together!

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Also, don't forget to let us know you are out there and reading!

Friendly Reminder: Ways to Follow Us

OK. You like to read our blog. Maybe not everyday (especially since we don't post everyday)... but often. We love our readers and we want to get to know you and it feels great knowing you are out there. Well, Jackie and I want to remind you of ways to can stay in touch with our Two Blue Houses and not miss a post.

• First, "Like" us on Facebook. We share pictures and comments on Facebook that we don't share here. Facebook not your thing? I completely understand. There are other ways to keep up.
• Second, join us on Networked Blogs. Networked Blogs is what publishes our posts to the TBH Facebook page and in the last couple weeks some posts haven't published correctly to Facebook. In order to not miss ap post. Follow us on Networked Blogs. 
• Third, follow us on Pinterest. 
• Fourth, not into the whole social/online networking thing but like to read our blog. Sign up for emails. Daily or weekly. You will get the latest and greatest sent directly to your email inbox. All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the blog and submit your email address. It is that simple and trust me we aren't using your email address for anything.
• Fifth, at the top of the blog is the "blogger bar". You can search our blog from that bar, as well as, follow & share. 
• Sixth, leave us a comment. If you have suggestions for ways you would like to stay in touch with us,  types of posts you just love and would like to see more of,  just want to wish us a happy day, or tell us about something you are working on... we would LOVE to hear from you. Really and truly. 

It is that simple to stay in touch and let us know you are out there.

P.S. We are thinking about doing giveaways this year. How would you like that?!?

A Little Craft Space of My Own

Welcome to the New Year!

I welcomed in the new year with the completion (using the terms loosely) of my own craft space. It took the entire week between Christmas and New Years to complete the project because the room was trashed. So trashed in fact that a before and after picture would have been humiliating, but believe me when I say trashed it was the kind of mess that you could barely walk into the room and walk around. In a small house, 950 square feet and almost five people space has to pull double duty and my craft room is no exception because it is also my bedroom. The room has to be functional, organized but relaxing at the same time.

If you are wondering why the room was such a mess and a week long project I would have to go back to three years ago when we bought this house. The little blue house needed a large amount of work and the house closing took longer than expected. About a month longer, so Gary had about five days to move out of his apartment and into the blue house or else renew his lease. I had an apartment (we wouldn't be married until later in the summer) and the thought of my rent, his rent, and the mortgage was just too much. A hasty move was made and it just set the tone for the next three years. I cringe because I know there is still a box or two in my tiny one car garage attic that needs to be unpacked.

At times it seemed like the project list would never be done and we would never be moved it but the completion of this craft/bedroom is very significant. It marks the beginning of being truly moved in and the last major "to do" item to cross of my list before baby boy number two comes into this world. We are in a much, much better place than when Wade was born. Don't get me wrong. There are lots of projects left for this house and some of them are major but none of them involve the unpacking and organizing that this one did that lingered for three years over my head.

I finally have my supplies at my finger tips! Let the crafting begin. 

The Giant Eagle bag holds a wreath that is waiting for completion from the holidays. I will finish it soon... now that I have the space! My computer, painting, block carving, wood burning, screen printing, sewing, drawing, markers, collage supplies, etc. are all easy to grab and find and put away. 

More supplies, pictures, stationary, and books. I really don't like the maroon baskets but I will have to live with them for now. 

Markers, highlighters (I have no idea why we have so many), and glue! Now that I have my craft space, I can begin to focus on the hundreds of ideas I have for crafts and creating beautiful spaces around the house.

What is it about the new year that just makes you want to clean, purge, and organize? What projects do you have planned for the new year?