How To Make Yoghurt

Sounds a little like a Paul Kelly song, doesn't it?

Well, unlike the gravy the talented Mr Kelly sings of, anyone can make homemade yoghurt... providing you have a thermos or other temperature controlled capsule to keep it in while the cultures do their thing. I first started making yoghurt myself after reading Julie's post on it at Towards Sustainability - and I do love it when other people have done all the research for me! I played around with her methods, and have perfected my own method to come up with a consistent yoghurt of just the right texture and flavour for us.

I use an Easiyo thermos. I used to use the Easiyo sachets, but wanted a recipe that was more sustainable and contained less additives. Here is how I do it.

Ingredients (for first batch)

1 litre UHT milk

4 tablespoons powdered full cream milk (this thickens the yoghurt - I like mine thick and pot-set)

2 - 4 tablespoons biodynamic plain yoghurt (make sure it does not contain gelatine; most biodynamic yoghurts don't. I used Jalna - with the yellow lid)

Method:

Mix the yoghurt and the powdered milk together with a bit of the UHT milk until smooth. Add the rest of the UHT to the mixture in an Easiyo container and mix well. Pour boiling water into the Easiyo thermos to the recommended point and insert the container. Seal and let it sit for 14 hours (overnight). If set in the morning, refrigerate.

For continuing batches of yoghurt, keep two to four tablespoons of the previous batch to 'seed' a new one.

Scientifically speaking (and this is not a strong point of mine) using an Easiyo themos and UHT milk negates the need to meticulously pre-heat the milk to a particular temperature in order to kill off the 'bad' bacteria. UHT is already heat treated, and the thermos keeps the temperature steady for long enough for the yoghurt to form.

My Shopping Trolley.

I love shopping day. I get so swept up in the colour and flavour of fresh fruits and vegetables, which make up the bulk of what I buy these days, and love the challenge of shopping more consciously every fortnight. I get asked a lot about the cost of buying organically, and whether my food bill has sky-rocketed.

Well, here's the deal. My food bill is 75% of what it was before I started on my journey of local/organic/close to the source eating. It is true that often, organic products cost more than non-organic. This is not always the case, though. Also, when you eat natural foods that have not been processed and over-packaged, you are not paying for the processing and packaging. My food bill has gone down largely because my trolley does not contain pre-prepared, convenient foods. You pay for convenience. This includes jams, sauces, snacks, breads, yoghurts - things you can make at home, but that people often don't. As a society, we are time poor, this is true. We are also nutrient poor.

Here is a photo of what I would put into my trolley for a standard-ish fortnight. There are some things here, such as vinegars and bread mix, that would bump up my bill, but that would last me a good month to six weeks. The contents of this photo cost me $300. A more 'standard' fortnight, without these bigger items, would probably cost about $250 for the fortnight. We used to spend $400. Much of the fruit and vegetables is organic. It is ALL Western Australian grown. Most of it comes from within 200-odd kilometres. The flour is local, biodynamically grown. The meat is local, organic and free ranged. (Actually, the meat was bloody expensive. That bumped my bill up somewhat. I can't wait to be up North and shooting my own meat again.)

There are a lot of arguments against buying organic foods. The cost is the most common I come across - I shop for a family of four on a single social worker's income... this argument doesn't wash with me. Another is the science behind organics - this is a whole other post, but to my mind, it comes down to what we are prepared to put into our bodies. I would rather my children eat fruit that has not been sprayed with pesticides, or meat that has not been pumped with preservatives. I would rather know exactly what is going into their bodies - real, wholesome food, not a bundle of numbers on an ingredient list that reads like an algebra exam.

This is why I shop the way I shop.

Breakfast From Scratch.

 

This was my breakfast this morning. Homemade muesli, yoghurt and caramelised apricot halves. I just love putting a meal together from foods that we have been able to make ourselves, without any harmful additives. For the record, it was delicious!

Cooking With The Kids

 

Miya and Eden both had one of those rare three hour sleeps today, doing wonders for every one's moods. When Miya woke up (even she was surprised at finding out she had, actually, fallen asleep!) the first thing she asked for was whether we could make some biscuits together.
I recently bought a fantastic cookbook called "Additive Free Kids' Parties" by Tegan Benfell and Rachel Davies Burrows. It is full of fun recipes for treats that don't contain any harmful additives. As Miya reacts badly to additives, this is becoming a well-used cookbook in our house.
We chose to adapt a recipe from the book and made Wholemeal Vanilla Biscuits (with 'faces' on). The girls helped scoop, measure, mix, pour and spoon (oh! the learning that happens naturally!) and decorate their biscuits with sultanas and almonds.

The results were impressive, and I caught the girls on numerous occasions sneaking out the back door having stolen one or two from the cooling rack... with only 1/2 cup raw sugar for the whole batch, I feigned shock and horror while revelling in the joy of watching my children enjoy a food journey from beginning to delicious end.

Wholemeal Vanilla Biscuits 
(adapted from 'Additive Free Kids' Parties' Vanilla Cream Biscuits recipe)

2 cups wholemeal plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla essence
2 eggs
4 tsp milk (more if needed)
Sultanas and/or nuts to decorate


Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line or grease baking tray
Place all ingredients into mixing bowl and mix. Tip mixture out onto floured workbench and knead until all ingredients are well combined - adjust consistency with flour and/or milk
Roll dough out with a rolling pin until it is approximately 3mm thick
 Use a circle cookie cutter to cut biscuits. Place them on baking tray and decorate with sultanas and/or nuts.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges brown
Cool on wire rack

Healthy Earth, Healthy Me: My Twelve Top Tips

• Buy local as much as possible... go to markets, check the label. Try not to buy products that claim "local and imported" or "imported" ingredients. This isn't always possible, for example dates, which are a terrific dried fruit because of no preservatives and a great sugar substitute are a product of Turkey, I buy them anyway and try to look for "packaged in Australia".

• Buy organic where possible, and if not organic, biodynamic. Again, not always possible, and there is a real ethical dilemma about non-organic and local vs organic and imported. Personally, I choose local.

• Buy products with little or no packaging. Hmmm... very very hard to do!!! Markets are great for this, and always better to buy bulk as it immediately reduces packaging.

• Don't buy products you can make yourself. Bread, yoghurt, pasta, jam, snacks, dehydrated fruit, pasta sauces, pita bread, dips are all things I no longer buy, instead choosing to do it myself.

• Become acquainted with food additives. There are some great websites, otherwise a couple of books I highly recommend are "Chemical Maze" (can't remember author) or "Additive Alert" by Julie Eady. Buy products that are as close to nature as possible, with as few additives and preservatives as possible.

• Eat wholegrains. Fantastic health benefits and Earth benefits as white products require so much more processing. Pasta, bread, cereal etc.

• Replace cane sugar where possible. Use honey, agave, dates (chuck them in the food processor after soaking them to make a paste) or rice malt syrup. Cane sugar crops have a massive detrimental effect on the environment and require so much processing, and aren't very good for us anyway.

• Load up on vegies and to a lesser extent fruit. Market shopping can be so much fun and vegies should constitute most of our diet.

• Drink loads of water but not bottled water. http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

• Watch your portion sizes. If you are eating natural, unprocessed food mostly, and learning to take your cues from your body about when you have had enough, you will learn to eat like our predecessors ate, just enough to fuel our bodies and give us the good stuff :)

• Avoid Genetically Modified products or ingredients. Look for products that state "No GM/GMO ingredients"

• Buy Fair Trade where possible. Communities that Fair Trade supports are traditionally 'raped and pillaged' by "Corporation/Big Business" looking for our money when their products hit the shelves. The Story of Stuff website has another little video on it, which is the original Story of Stuff video, that goes into the "true cost" of the products we buy in really good detail.

Check out these websites too:

http://www.wholefoodcooking.com.au/

http://consciouscommunity.com.au/

http://www.towards-sustainability.com/

http://www.healthyshelf.com.au/

Big Changes, Little Steps

Some big changes have happened in our household over the last few weeks. Big changes that become the little steps our family is taking to reduce the impact we are having on the Earth. While they are undoubtedly the smallest of steps a family could take, they are exciting to us, because they are evidence of a shift in our thinking, and a commitment to the journey.

So, here they are:

• Making the switch to cloth nappies. Our oldest child, Miya, is toilet training and only wears nappies at night. Our youngest child, Eden, is two next month and only has about a year of full time nappy-wearing to go. We wondered if it was worth us switching to cloth at this late stage, but our hesitation was only financial, and Modern Cloth Nappies seem to only 'devalue' a few dollars when they are secondhand, so we have decided to go for it. We are buying mostly secondhand, and a few new ones from a local supplier (WAHM), and Eden loves picking which pretty nappy she will be wearing.
• Reducing our additive intake: This has involved learning to make a lot of the things we buy, at home. We now buy local, and where possible, organic fruit and veg, and have learned to make our own yoghurt, bread, tortillas, bacon, dried fruit, snacks, pasta sauces, pasta, self raising flour... next on the list are cheeses, beer and rum!!
• Collecting water from the sink, shower and laundry basin to use on the garden: we clearly have a long way to go in reducing our water usage. We fill a large watering can twice a day with 'wasted' water, which goes to show how much we use! I have invested in an 'Every Drop Shower Saver' which will significantly reduce our water wastage in the shower, but we need to work on the rest of the house!
• Reducing our landfill garbage: by buying bulk items, choosing products carefully based on the amount and type of packaging they use, purchasing sandwich wraps so we don't need to buy gladwrap, using cloth wipes on the girls' bums, making things at home, learning to sew (this is a work in progress!)

There are other little things we have done along the way also, but I guess these are the main ones. Every step we take, it does feel like our 'destination' is further away, but I keep telling myself that if I live each day more responsibly than the last, I'm heading in the right direction.

A Dawning Awareness

A few weeks ago, I embarked on a journey, dragging my beautiful family along behind me. Faced with the impact that I, as the major 'purchaser' in our family, have on this Earth, I no longer feel as if I can bury my (consuming addicted) head in the (plastic-ridden) sand.

In addition to this, it has become apparent that my children are sensitive to food additives. In researching healthier alternatives and strategies to reduce chemical consumption in our diets, I was struck by how many of our purchasing and consuming decisions have a negative effect, not only on our own health, but on the health of our Earth.

I am beginning to see that the closer to the source our food is, the better for our bodies and the planet. I am also beginning to see that as purchasers, we have the power to make a significant difference - individually, locally and globally.


This blog will be a record as I continue down this path of environmental awareness. I am new to this, I will fumble, I will learn things that are second nature to others who have gone before me. I have a long way to go, but I am going.