I've been staring at the dairy recipes in one of my recipe books for weeks now wanting so badly to make yogurt and cheese but to be honest I've just been afraid. Mostly of wasting ingredients because money doesn't grow on trees.
But I finally bit the bullet and made an attempt at yogurt. I read the recipe over and over making sure I had everything I needed and understood what needed to be done. Which really is something you should do with any new recipe.
Fruit at the bottom yogurt was first on my list. I was surprised at how easy making yogurt is. It's kind of like bread in a sense that there is just a lot of waiting. Waiting for the milk to come to the right temperature then wrapping up the jars of soon to be yogurt in towels and waiting for the cultures to do their thing and waiting just a little bit longer for the yogurt to cool in the fridge before you can dig into the creaming yogurty goodness you have created.
I have to say that even though I love the yogurt that I made it was very plain and very tangy. It's a far cry from the sweetened yogurt you buy at the grocery store but with a bit of homemade granola thrown on top and the fruit bottom I'll take homemade any day.
My Dad is a Greek yogurt convert that wasn't too fond of the above yogurt that I made and asked if I could try making Greek yogurt. With my new found yogurt making confidence I agreed, found a recipe and off I went. Up until that day I didn't know that you could make yogurt in a slow cooker but seeing how you make it without one and reading how a yogurt maker works it made sense. Again, there was a lot of waiting. I started this yogurt in the afternoon because it needed 8-12 hours for the cultures to do their thing so by the time that part rolled around we were all snuggled in bed.
The next morning was like Christmas! I went running down to see if the cultures worked their magic, and they did! I haven't done any research on why Greek yogurt is different from regular but I came to my own conclusions when the recipe said I had to put the yogurt in a tea towel lined colander to drain the whey from the yogurt which after a few hours left a rich creamy Greek yogurt. I had some small tupperware containers hanging around so I spooned some homemade jam into the bottom and filled them up with yogurt and put them in the fridge to cool. I prefer the Greek yogurt to the plain, I think anyone would. It's just creamier and richer and sooooo good. I will add the link for this recipe at the bottom of the page for those of you brave enough to take the challenge!
With my confidence at a very high point I decided that yesterday I was going to take on mozzarella cheese! Yes cheese! I can't even say cheese now without getting excited because I'm still on cloud 9 about what I have created. Not like I'm the first person to make cheese ever but I feel unstoppable!
With Alana Chernila's recipe book by my side (I've mentioned this book more then once I'm sure) I dove in head first. There were two ingredients I had to order to make this happen which were liquid rennet and citric acid. I ordered them from Glengarry Cheese Making Co. (http://www.glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/) but there are a ton of places you can find these things online, thank you world wide web!
There wasn't as much waiting with cheese but there were a lot more steps to the process. Heating milk, curdling milk then curds and whey (no tuffets or miss muffets) then heating and pulling and stretching and then...cheese, a beautiful ball of cheese. Something to be enjoyed warm or cold or melted or as my kid likes it pulled like a cheese string. We are going to enjoy our cheese in a homemade lasagna tomorrow and I just can't wait.
I didn't know there was a cheese maker hidden inside me but I'm happy that I can call myself a 'dairy queen'!
But right now this blogger has to go to the store to buy some more milk.
Could there be a cow coming to My Not So Pioneer Life?!
Here is the recipe for the Greek yogurt;
http://www.overatjulies.com/2012/03/easy-crock-pot-greek-yogurt.html
A few notes - I added some of the plain yogurt I made as a starter. You can buy plain Greek yogurt at the store and use that as a starter
Instead of letting the yogurt sit in a towel in a colander, I hung mine in a jelly bag over a colander and let it drain that way
This is Alana Chernila's blog, you can find her recipe book there as well as her awesome blog!
http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/
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