Made some cream cheese so we could make our favorite frosting… 🙂
We place a coffee filter in a strainer & pour our plain yogurt in it. Just let it sit all day or overnight & the whey will have all separated out. We have lots of uses for the whey: soaked oatmeal and lacto-fermented saurkraut or kimchee are just a few of our favorites. 🙂
Mmmmm – sounds fantastic! Thanks, Jill! 🙂
http://pathsofwrighteousness.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/real-food-no-sugar-vanilla-ice-cream/
I’m not a big fan of “making” lasagna… I just don’t make it enough to be consistent with it – it’s either too soupy or too dry. But, I DO like making stuffed shells – especially when we have fresh ricotta & mozzarella cheese made (or last year’s frozen cheese needing to be used up). 🙂
Why is it that each time we go to make big batches of stuffed shells to freeze, there are NONE to be found in our local grocery stores?? I know – it probably means we should just make homemade noodles, but I don’t have the time to tackle that today, sooooo – welcome, lasagna rolls! We made our regular filling for stuffed shells, spread it on the partially cooked lasagna noodles, & rolled ’em up! Fun & easy – tasted pretty good, too. 🙂
Side note: one lasagna roll uses lots more filling than we’d put in a shell. We have lots leftover that we freeze – perfect for 2 growing boys who are ALWAYS hungry, lol! 🙂
Here’s our recipe for the filling:
4 eggs, beaten
4 oz. romano or parmesan cheese
4T dried parsley
2t sea salt
1t pepper
2 lbs. shredded mozzarella cheese
2 lbs. ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese)
Perhaps a future post will have pics of when we make our homemade ricotta, mozzarella, & cottage cheeses this year… 🙂
Thought I’d try to get some of my sourdough recipes posted. For the past 11 years, we have not had to purchase our daily bread from the store. 🙂 It used to be soooo frustrating to read the labels on the bread at the bakery outlets (where we used to go & buy a bunch & freeze it). Even many of the “healthy” breads had soy or high fructose corn syrup in them! As we began to research the health benefits of using natural leaven, we knew it was something we wanted to try. We purchase 50# bags of Sir Galahad, King Arthur Unbleached Flour at Yoder’s in Minerva.
Fortunately for me, my starter is very forgiving 🙂 I’ve made many mistakes, but never so bad that it didn’t recover… I use my starter daily for a couple weeks straight. I make an assortment of bread, pizza crusts, crackers, & english muffins. These are all my “staples”, because they freeze really well. (We all really enjoy a chocolate cake recipe, too!) Once I have a nice stash in the freezer for us and our customers, I’ll put the starter in the fridge for a week or so to get a bit of a break. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but once a routine is established, it really goes pretty smoothly. If anyone ever wants a “start” to try, I’m always happy to share. And anytime anyone wants to “shadow” me to see what I do, you are welcome to come out – just check with me the day before to be sure my starter is out & “active”! 🙂
So here are some of the recipes I have typed up:
Thought I’d share a bit about our mornings around here. Every morning, we drink kefir. A wonderful, probiotic, lacto-fermented beverage made from raw milk. Here’s a link to get you started on research, if you’re interested in learning more about kefir. 🙂 Here’s a pic of what you normally see on my countertop, everyday. At minimum, I make 1 quart/day. As you can see, right now, I’m making 1/2 gallon/day.
After 24 hours +/- (totally depends on weather and humidity), the kefir grains change the milk into a thick & sour tasting drink. Here’s a pic of the strained grains.
I always measure the weight of my grains with each straining…partly because I’m weird & LOVE to notebook progress (hard to believe, I know, lol…), and also because then I know when to thin my grains. These grains LOVE our milk & grow very well for us. Just let me know if you ever want any grains for yourself – I always have PLENTY!! 🙂
I keep a piece of masking tape on the tile under my cupboards where I log the date & weight. Can you tell I’m a lefty?? 🙂
Then I add more raw milk over the grains, cover with a rag & rubberband, and we’re good to go for another day! Since we are a seasonal dairy, we rely on our frozen milk from last year during these winter months. 🙂
While we CAN drink it straight, we all MUCH PREFER to turn it into a kefir shake. 🙂 Paul is our “official” kefir shake maker! He LOVES food, and does have aspirations to become a chef some day… He got a blender for Christmas, and makes a tasty shake for us every morning. Here’s his recipe: 1 quart kefir, 7 banana chunks (we buy them when they’re super ripe & on sale, & then chunk & freeze them), 5 ice cubes, 1 T vanilla (we make our own), 1T jam (we make different kinds…strawberry, pear, peach – all with evaporated cane juice as the sweetener, FYI). We are all out of our honey right now, or we’d use that instead. Paul says we use a “4 second drizzle”, when we have that, lol! 🙂
Now we are ready for our family devotion time. Thank you, Lord, for building our immune systems up through the many health benefits of kefir! 🙂
What do you like to drink while you read your Bible?
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