Been Too Long

What a month!  It has been 21 days since I posted; totally wrong of me.  Our daughter has been sick off and on for most of the month and now has asthma. We have been refinancing our home, and now our only vehicle is dead to the world.  But enough about the bad!  :) 

I have been busy in the kitchen as well.  I made a batch of yogurt in the crockpot that turned out "oky" (nice consistency when refrigerated, but kinda bland).  It will work fine for our family since it gets cooked with or flavored and then frozen, but not my in-laws who eat the majority of theirs plain.  They have a yogurt maker they bought for $40 that makes AWESOME yogurt.  I need to tinker and tweak my recipe and see what I can do to make it more flavorful.  The current recipe is:

Crockpot Yogurt
1/2 gallon whole milk
1/2 cup yogurt without stabilzer (I used Axelrod brand)

Pour the milk into the crockpot and turn on Low for 2.5 hours and then turn off and let sit for 3 hours.  Ladle a cup of milk into a bowl and mix in the 1/2 cup yogurt.  Pour back into the crockpot and mix well.  Wrap crockpot in a thick blanket, making sure the crockpot is turned off and unplugged.  Let sit for 8 to 12 hours.  Refreigerate at least one hour before serving.

NOTE: After refrigerating a day the flavor was more developed.


I have also made a new recipe for Spaghetti Sauce and will can it tomorrow.  I got it from the same website as my old recipe (www.thefamilyhomestead.com).  I like the flavor and texture of this one better...plus being able to water-bath can it makes my life SO much easier.  Sometime this week I plan to make ginger syrup so we can make our own gingerale and ginger tea for when we're ill, as well as dehydrating mangoes for my Baba. 

Tonight I actually made out a menu plan for the week starting tomorrow that includes Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.  Hopefully this will be something I can remember/make-myself-do.  I also need to take an inventory of what is in the freezers (yes, plural) and pantry.  I think I need to make a very detailed To-Do list for this week; as you know I cannot function without a list of some kind. 

Then this coming weekend, weather permitting, we plan to cut down nine or so thinnish trees in our backyard, some of which are damaging out gutter system.  At least we'll get firewood out of it.  Then I can measure the backyard and graph how I want to grow the garden next year.  I am determined to grow some veggies next year, as well as small fruits.  So far my list of tenative crops is: tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, strawberries, blackberries, and maybe apples if I can find a place where I can grow a male and a female tree close together.  The blackberries will not produce until the second year, but then I will be able to make blackberry jam and freeze them and make cobbler in the dead of winter.  Kinda over-achieving for my first year, but they're all veggies I end up buying at the farmer's market.  We will just have to wait and see how things go.