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.

Of Knitting

This is the photograph that appears with the pattern for "Hitchhiker" on Ravelry, which is a website devoted to works of yarny goodness. There are spinners, knitters, crocheters, independent designers, and all manner of patterns, both for purchase and for free.

I bought this pattern and two beautiful skeins of alpaca lace yarn, to give myself a Real Treat after I'd lost 35 pounds.

This is as opposed to baking the biggest pan of brownies in the free world.  It was a tough choice, but I'll have to learn sometime!

But I digress.  I suppose you can guess, even if you are a non-knitter, that knitting with yarn the diameter of a spider web, with needles that a very small makes for a time-consuming project.  But, it's summer and who wants an afghan on their lap, right?

This is the progress on mine.  My yarn is getting used up, since the rows are long now, so the end is in sight, as they say.

If you were here in the days of Good Guy's sweater, you'll think I'm hung up on this cranberry color--and you would be right.  I have a jacket that color too.  My new jacket is green though, so perhaps there will be a change.

Can you see the diameter of that yarn?  It is so fine, and so soft you would never believe it!

I love working with it.  When I bought it, I thought I'd made something really lacy with it, but I chickened out.  Wait for the next project.  That will be really lacy.  I had a close-up picture of the texture and yarn on here once, but blogger decided it wasn't necessary for you to see that.  Oops, it's back.

In other news, the surgeon will make short work of my gall bladder problems next week on Thursday.  At least that is my ardent prayer and hope.

Good Guy and I grabbed for the gusto on the last hot day we had and went for a swim in a actual lake.  We are in Michigan where, it is said, you are never far from a lake, river, or stream.  I wasn't worried about the getting into the lake part.  It was the getting into the swimsuit part that worried me.  (There will not be any pictures of that.  Trust me.)

With that chuckle, I will leave you for today.  Cheers!

We Love Words

The Limelighters (remember them?) had a line......"In answer to a diminishing number of requests..." which always cracked me up.

If you visit here often you know that I'd rather use words than pictures, and that photography isn't a skill of mine, but since you clamored so politely, I'll share such as I have.  This is the Words Quilt.

The largest view:

With the borders this puppy measures 92"x 92".  Winters are long here and our bedroom is about 62 degrees.  The basic pattern I used, for those who do this sort of thing and keep track, was called Olde Hickory designed by Pam Puyleart.

(Always give credit where credit is due.)  I needed something I could adapt to use the large funny cartoon pieces that I wanted to showcase.

This would have gone quickly if I had just followed Pam's excellent directions, but I needed to work in the word panels, so that caused some delays and extra fiddling.

There are fabrics with coffee words, and the language of flowers, quilting words, and these animal cartoons and sayings.  My favorite is a quotation from Groucho Marx, who said, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."   I can't get this layout to do what I want it to do, so I will leave it at that.  (Knitting pictures later----by next week.)

Have a great weekend!