Let's Make Yogurt

I have made yogurt at times for many years, and it is easier with a commercial incubator such as this one, than to incubate it at low temperature in the oven.  

Using my incubator, I first make sure that all utensils are spanking clean.  That includes the pan for heating the milk, the spoons, the thermometer, and the container on the right which will contain the yogurt mixture.

Heat four cups of milk in a saucepan to the temperature of 185-190 degrees.  If you don't have a thermometer, watch for bubbles to form around the perimeter, and for skin to form on the top.

Remove from heat until it gets cooled to 105 degrees, when you can remove about 1 cup of cooled milk and stir about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of plain yogurt in with it.  When there are no clumps or lumps add this mixture to the other three cups and stir it all together and pour it into the incubator.

Plug it in and leave it alone for a minimum of four hours.  Some directions advise letting it process for many more hours, and the longer it sits the more firm it will get.  So there is an element of personal preference there.  

Do not add sweetener or fruit or anything else until you are ready to eat some.  Any other things will affect the process, I am told.  

I use a little of my previous yogurt as starter for the next batch.  I know you can Google yogurt makers and find them available in even more convenient configurations.  My daughter's has individual cups, which you may prefer to having one large container such as mine.

Bon appetit!

End of the Impasse

I am pretty sure that the owners of the NFL teams aren't especially concerned about my reaction to the officials' strike, or lockout, or whatever they called it.

They don't care that I was disgusted with the whole picture--which to me symbolized greed (on both sides), and massive ineptitude, and was putting an asterisk on the season.  I feel bad for the replacements, who did the best they could in a difficult situation.

But I'm happy to read this morning that an agreement was reached.  That's a relief.

Playing Ketchup

Yoo-hoo!  Over here.  (Waving arms, frantically...)

1.  I'm safely back from Virginia and North Carolina where we visited with Younger Daughter, met a really nice man, and visited with one of my longest known friends in my whole life.  It was a great trip in every respect and I bow in thanks to my dear husband who drove through clouds and sheets of rain in the mountains.  Very scary stuff, but he's a champ!

2.  I'm healing and feeling fine!

3.  I used a basket of tomatoes on some fine spaghetti sauce, which now resides in my freezer.  The house smelled wonderful during that process.  I look forward to a taste of summer in January sometime.

4.  Do you have animal companions?  The first night we were back our cats drove us batty.  They walked all over the bed and stuck their cold noses in our ears and were so forgiving of our leaving them, we hardly got any sleep.  Enough, already!

5.  Another foodie endeavor was yogurt making in Daughter's incubator.  She hadn't used it before so we made a batch on the Sunday we were together visiting.  When I got home I used her recipe instead of my usual one and the resulting product is excellent.  Mild with a nice firm consistency.

She had an incubator with separate cups, and mine makes a quart container.  They both work fine.

6.  Today is a blue sky, golden leaf sort of day and I'm going outdoors and enjoy it now as much as possible!  I hope you do too.

Checking in and checking up

It's Monday and it's in the midst of a couple of fairly eventful weeks.

Thursday last week saw me showing up for the appointment for separation from my stone-filled gall bladder.  When I was a student during the Dark Ages, this surgery entailed a week in the hospital and considerable pain, incisions, stitches, long recovery time. 

This wasn't quite an ambulatory care procedure, but I did get to stay overnight.  The surgeon--a very solemn fellow---declared that the surgery had gone perfectly.  I managed to get a smile from him when I told him so many people were praying for him that I thought he'd be able to fly to work under his own power.

The whole day went fine, but I found another medicine that makes me feel icky during the night.  I had a headache from not having coffee for 24 hours, a victim of my own bad habits.  

I was happy to return home to my own bed where I could sleep without interruption, until the phone rang.  But it's a blessing to have friends who care if you're okay.

So our next adventure will take us off to see a Daughter and meet her Sweetie.  We are planning a way to pack lightly.  (Feel free to laugh right here.)  We are always trying to plan to travel light.  But this time I'm not supposed to carry heavy stuff, so I'll enforce it better than ever.

I'm setting off without any computers or electronics that would help me stay in touch with you.  But I'll let you know when we are safely home again.  

I will be trying to avoid watching the teams I root for.  I feel like Bad Luck for them.

Take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Turn Turn, Turn

Even after all these years of retirement, Labor Day weekend and the beginning of the school year seem like a new beginning.

Can you think back to that delusion you had that once you didn't have to gear up for another school year (as a student), that life was going to be really easy?  My goodness, that seems like a long time ago!

From grade school to the awfulness of Middle School, and then the pressures of High School.  I'm sure that's harder now than when I was in High School.  Even though I went to class and worked as a waitress in a truck stop after school.  (I'm sure I didn't work every night----though it seemed like it.)

In nurses' training we were up at six a.m., worked on the wards until after the morning coffee break, then we had classes until three p.m.---after which I used to collapse in bed and sleep through supper.  Then we had enforced study hours until nine, and we had to be back in the residence by ten.

That doesn't leave much time for a social life.  I don't think the enforced study hours lasted much longer past our class.  I can't imagine that kids in the next few years buckled under to that.  In order to try to have a greater percentage of the class make it past the first six months, they tried to help us have good study habits.

Now when I look back on the busy-ness of having five kids and two of us parents with jobs, and kids playing sports in a town twelve miles from our house, I think we must have had a lot of stamina.  All of us.

I have finally settled into a life style that matches my energy level.  Retirement suits me well.  Though today I read about a woman who took up body building when she was 71.  

Hmm.