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!

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast....

... you've got to make the morning last!
Kicking back the cobblestones,
Looking for fun and feeling groovy!

(49th Bridge Street Song, Simon and Garfunkel)

It's been a crazy week. I finished work on Friday, and we spent the weekend doing what we do best... gathering bits and pieces for various projects from various places. We are getting used to hitching the trailer up and setting off on trips around the countryside to pick things up that we have sourced from Freecycle, friends and family.

This weekend, my mum needed some things removing from her yard, so we travelled down and collected some star pickets, an old pond shell (the ducks will love this.... they are getting too big for the baby bath we currently use as a pool for them) and a raised timber garden bed complete with stakes. We will head back down next weekend to pick up an aviary that we plan to use as a larger chook shed, freeing up the moveable one to use on the fallow garden beds.

We also picked up my old bunk bed that my parents bought me when I was probably six or seven. This has replaced Miya's single bed and Eden's cot, now that Eden is big enough to sleep in a bed. The girls stayed down at my parent's place for a couple of nights, and I can't wait for them to come home and see their bedroom.

Also on our 'collecting foray' we stopped at my grandparents' house to borrow some tools to help us with our latest project. We were very lucky to find an old cubby house advertised for sale locally, and we plan on 'renovating' it ready for Christmas, with the help of some paint sample tins generously donated to use by friends. Grandad loaded us up with timber from his shed, some power tools and, as a bonus, a Fowlers Vacola electric preserving kit and about 50 Vacola bottles. They will come in handy around here!

I've also been preparing jars of layered hot chocolate mix for a local Christmas "Cooking Co-op" that I am involved with this year. Seven friends and I have each chosen one Christmas-y food item to cook or make in bulk, that will be shared among us for gifts at Christmas. The premise is that it is cheaper, easier and less wasteful to prepare a larger amount of just one food than it is to buy ingredients for smaller batches of many items. I got the idea for layered hot chocolate at Getting By On A Dime and am very happy with the results. I can't wait to see everyone else's goodies!

With all this running around, I am once again reminded of how I have the tendency to 'busy' myself, and forget to slow down and enjoy a steadier pace to life. This blog, and my values, are about a healthier me (and family), as well as a healthier Earth. Since finishing work on Friday, I feel as if I have had to begin all the things I have been postponing until I am at home full time, all at once. I want to cook, sew, rearrange, sort, clean and I want to do it all today! I have to remember that I stopped paid work to give myself time to do all of these things, at a steady, sustainable pace, and that my days now will be about finding a new rhythm with the girls that is about things happening naturally, involving all of us. Over coffee today, a good friend said something in the context of a conversation about the 'more, more, more' mentality of many in our society that resonated with me: "It's like we have to go backwards to make progress". This is what I'm after... a relearning of traditional ways of keeping house, feeding the family and finding fulfillment.

I went to the gym today. It was the first time in months, and a lovely re-affirmation that my non-employment means that I can and will prioritise myself and my family above all other things.

I am looking forward to a slower, simpler life.

1000 Page Views! Time For A Giveaway...

Thank you to everyone who has been visiting my little blog. To mark the occasion of 1000 page views, I would like to offer a fabulous prize to my readers.

I will be giving away a set of Onya Weigh Reusable Fruit and Veg Bags from Divine Harvest to one lucky reader. All you have to do is comment on this post, and I will random.org the winner tomorrow night (Wednesday the 1st of December) and let you know. If you don't know me personally, please keep checking back to the comment thread to see if you have won.

Onya Weigh Reusable Fruit and Veg Bags are made from tulle, are see through and strong and reduce the amount of plastics you bring home from your grocery shop. There are five in the set and they can be used to rinse your fruit and veg in before you store it. They are lightweight, so they do not add any weight to your fruit and veg on the scales.

Thanks to Divine Harvest, a fantastic business operating out of the Wheatbelt in Western Australia, for making a range of sustainable products available to us country folk! Divine Harvest have a great online shop... check them out using the link above.

Happy reading!

Spitikos Domatopoltos (Homemade Tomato Paste - Greek Style)

I borrowed this recipe from here but will write it out in full anyway.


Ingredients:
2 kilos end-of season, overripe tomatoes (peeled)
1 sweet red pepper (I used a dried chilli instead)
1 - 2 tablespoons of sea salt

Peel tomatoes by cutting the tops off, immersing in boiling water for a few minutes, then plunging in cold water. The skins should then peel off easily.
Place tomatoes and pepper into food processor and blend until well pulped.
Transfer to a pot and bring to the boil. Boil for 2 or 3 minutes.
Place mixture in a muslin lined metal sieve and suspend over a large bowl in the fridge for 12 hours, to drain all excess liquid away.
Transfer mixture to a glass or ceramic bowl and stir in salt. Leave standing until mixture is at room temperature place into oven to dry for 15-20 minutes at 95-100 degrees celsius.
Spoon into warm sterilised glass jars, avoiding air pockets, and cover with 1 cm of extra virgin olive oil. Let cool then store unlidded in fridge. Will keep like this for a year.

As the tomato paste is used, add more oil to the top as needed.
Jars can also be loosely covered with foil (does not replace oil - always use the oil), if desired.

A note on sterilising jars:
My method of sterilising is to wash the jars and lids thoroughly in hot soapy water, and dry well. I then place them into a cold oven and heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius, and leave jars in there for 10 minutes after temperature has been reached. Make sure the jars are not touching each other in the oven, and be sure to keep them hot until your preserved product is spooned in, as hot foods being put into cold jars will cause the jars to crack.
If using screw top lids, I boil these in a saucepan of water until needed, and use tongs to lift them out and place onto jar. Seal immediately, because as the food cools, it will cause the lids to 'pop' inwards, creating a full seal.
To remove labels from jars easily, I soak all jars in a tub of hot water with some eucalyptus oil, then use a soft scourer to scrape labels off. Make sure jars are then thoroughly cleaned, dried and sterilised as eucalyptus oil is toxic.

Well, my large box of tomatoes is nearly gone, just a few stragglers remain in the bottom. I am thinking I might oven dry these and use them in the pasta sauce that will be accompanying Nath's freshly caught squid tonight!

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/