Steaming Veggies - yogurt - preserving papaya

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Ruth,

I actually made yogurt once using a Hindu's recipe from skim milk. I used dannon as a starter (1997). Wasn't bad at all. I guess the only reason I don't use too much yogurt, cottage cheese, or even any cheese is it falls into that category of "processed" foods. If you let them play in your food, they'll play in your food. So mostly I eat "plain" food.

One problem I've had is with papaya - very hard to preserve for any length of time. Freezing will keep a month or so, but I'd like the fresh. Dried ahs too much sugar. Chilled canned is ok, but something happens to the stuff in the papaya when you heat it. So I tried cubing it into small jars and pour a sugar syrup over it. The syrup is about 3 oz per quart heated to 212 deg. Then put it into frig. The cans didn't bulge, but when I opened it the syrup had gelled. Tasted ok, but I didn't eat it - worried it might be some kind of spoilage. Maybe it's just gelled like preserves?

Regards.

----- Original Message -----

From: Ruth

Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:50 PM

Subject: Re: [ ] Re: Steaming Veggies

Yes, Dannon is the only real yogurt out there that I find, (Here in Washington state, I can get a yogurt, Brown Cow, made in Oregon that is a superb yogurt, but has FULL fat in it; yummy, but oh my, the fat! and it is not all that "real". If you make yogurt, or some years back, it had a lot of fluid. Idea was to strain the solids. Fifty years ago the yogurt was the solid stuff and very sour. The liquid, whey??, can be carefully stirred back into the yogurt, or used for other purposes, but then the mass is not as solid. Yogurt becomes 'sour' when the fermentation is not stopped soon enough. For my taste, I stop the process at four hours to keep it from being too acetic (sour). Straining the solids will make yogurt cheese, if you let it drain long enough. The bacteria in acting on the milk is what thickens the milk into yogurt and the time it takes to complete this process is what determines the acidity. So they added a thickener and called it all yogurt. The thickener, gelatin, agar agar, or ???, was added so us frugal types couldn't use their product as a starter to make our own yogurt. Gotta be a thickener in their somewhere. Yes, it is the active cultures, L. Bulgaricus, S. Thermophilus, L. Acidophilus and Bifidus. Yogurt like cottage cheese is one of those things you have to check the label each time you buy it, so I quit buying it.