I'm from the Yoghurt camp

[Guest guest]

I know that yoghurt has bad connotations in many circles; naturally prepared yoghurt does not have any negatives that I can find, or have found over many years of preparing my own, with non-fat milk most of the time. Probably the biggest attribute to making your own yoghurt is that you can determine the acidity of the finished yoghurt. When you buy the natural, unadulterated yoghurt taste it to see if you like it; if it doesn't have an off taste, the product you can make with it should taste good when completed.

To make your own you will need:

3-4 Tblspn of started WITHOUT any additives; just plain milk with the yoghurt starter. This may be difficult to obtain; the best source I've found is a Middle Eastern Restaurant that will sell you some of their own home-made yoghurt. (Any gelatin or other additives will kill the bacteria.) The best of the commercial products is Dannon Plain Yogurt, but they do add thickeners of some sort to their product so you can't use it to make your own.

1 pot about 3 quarts.

1 qt. milk (whole milk is likely to work best for you to start. When I used non-fat milk I always added 1/4 cup powdered Milkman dry milk enough ahead of time [night before, sometimes] to allow the powdered milk to be dispersed and become part of the milk product. This is enough to give it added 'body'.

I use a 2 qt. Corning Ware casserole with lid to make my batch.

Add the starter to this clean container.

Using a medium to low temperature, heat the milk in the pot until small bubbles form on top of the milk against the pot side, a 'skin' is formed on the top and the milk starts rising in the pot. When the milk rises almost to the top of the pot remove it from the heat. Let it stand until the temperature is about 105º to 110º. (For those of you who care to use the time tested method, the temp should be just cool enough for you to swish your little finger in the milk for 10 seconds w/o losing the tip of your finger.)

Pour the milk over the starter, stirring gently, as you pour to incorporate the starter into the milk. Cover the bowl with a towel or large face cloth. Put on the lid. Wrap in a heavy, large bath towel and put into an oven to keep it out of any drafts. It should have thickened and have a good flavor at about 4 hours after being left to do its thing.

Carefully remove the towel, lid and 'small towel. The small towel will absorb the extra liquid rather than letting it drip back into the yoghurt.

Refrigerate. Only use clean stainless or other material that will not interact with the yoghurt and spoil it. Any liquid that gathers where you have 'cut' into the solids can be carefully drained off.

Save 3-4 Tblspn. for your next batch.

If you want a sharper taste, let it sit longer; for less sharpness, remove the covers and refrigerate it earlier.

I have been making my yoghurt by this method for over 40 years, not without failures to be sure, but with far more success than failure. Even that which is a failure can be used for making pudding, or in bread, pancakes, etc. I used to use a dry non-fat milk reconstituted to make mine, but this product is no long available in my area so I've reverted to store bought milk.

I hope that you have success. For me this is by far the best way to do it.

Ruth

Jajuq: (Cucumber and Yoghurt)

Finely chop one cucumber. Mix in yoghurt. More yoghurt gives a thinner result like a soup. Less yoghurt makes it thicker as in a salad.

Topping:

Mix yoghurt with crushed fresh garlic to taste and salt. Top your vegies with this instead of butter.

Drink:

Mix yoghurt and water to a drinkable consistency. Add salt to taste, a couple of ice cubes (figure this in the liquid you add to the yoghurt) and enjoy.

Cheese:

Allow the batch to sit in cotton muslin in a colander until all of the whey has drained from it. This is Yoghurt Cheese. It will be soft, but not as soft as Cream Cheese which has a lot of additives.

____________________________________________________________________

From: " john roberts " <johnhrob@...>

Reply-

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 10:00:34 -0500

< >

Subject: RE: [ ] Kefir Learning Curve

I believe taste issues surrounding Kefir are somewhat exaggerated. Since the Lactose has been fermented, Kefir will not be naturally sweet. I suspect raw plain yogurt is likewise un-appealing.

When you add fresh fruit and some sucralose, Kefir is comparable to if not better tasting than yogurt.

I recall experimenting with making my own yogurt years ago, making Kefir with a floater is soooo much easier.

I have replaced my one a day 8oz yogurt snack with one 8 oz Kefir snack. Besides costing 1/2 the store bought yogurt, my kefir doesn't contain any, " modified food starch, gelatin, locust bean gum, carrageenan, aspartame, FD & C red-40 and Blue 1. " Admittedly I wasn't buying premium yogurt but then the cost delta would be even higher.

There are many health claims made for kefir which I can't confirm. One that I feel pretty confident about is as a natural source of calcium. I see it as an incremental improvement over the yogurt I was consuming.

JR

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

From: Francesca Skelton [mailto:fskelton@...]

Sent: Monday, August 12, 2002 7:42 AM

support group

Subject: [ ] Kefir Learning Curve

Suz (or death by Kefir survivor) wrote:

" When I'm making every calorie count, it's psychologically difficult to

include any calories in my diet for a food that I really don't like, unless

the health benefits are immediate and obvious. Fortunately, that is the

case with kefir. "

Suz and/or other kefir eaters: could you please summarize what kefir does

healthwise that we can't get from easier to obtain/learn- to- like foods

like yogurt? Perhaps we've discussed it before, but since it's been such a

major topic of discussion lately, wouldn't hurt to remind us why one would

go to such lengths to learn to love this stuff.