...is not-particularly-authentic but still mightily yummy Mexican food.
And, it uses the yogurt we made the other day!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Thrift Store Finds
Some pics of great kids clothes, almost all from thrift or consignment stores.
This is a teaser for my entry - - - whenever it comes - - on buying and selling kids' clothes.
But, for now, pictures!
dressed for Easter
I love this tee... it's from an Australian company, hence "mum" instead of "mom"
The jacket is nearly everybody's favorite.
This is a teaser for my entry - - - whenever it comes - - on buying and selling kids' clothes.
But, for now, pictures!
Yogurt!
OMIGOD!
I made yogurt! I feel like I did the first time I baked bread. These things are more chemistry (or, acutally, more alchemy) than cooking.
After last week's abysmal failure at making yogurt, I decided to buck up, buy good ingredients, follow directions slavishly, and do it right all-around... I also decided to follow a slightly different recipe / method. You, too can follow it, here.
So, on to the good stuff.... milk.
Now, I'm not a big fan of milk. I love my cheese, don't get me wrong, but I just don't groove on milk. We get our milk delivered from the nice people at Smith Brothers, who do us right. But the problem is that we get organic milk delivered, and I've come to understand that organic milk is, almost always, ultra-pasteurized - - which means that it won't grow our little yogurt beasties.
So, to the fancy-dancy grocery store we go, to buy fancy-dancy milk. Pretty milk. Whole milk.
Say what you want to about milk, but it's really hard to resist when it comes packaged so beautifully. Not only that... it wasn't homogenized, so it had really pretty cream floating to the surface. Taste it... taste it!
Yum.
Into the crock pot it went. On Hi for an hour and a half. Then, I set it out to cool until it reached a temp of 110F (about two hours with the crock outside the electrical business). It got a yellow buttery skimmy top.
After it cooled down, I set my oven to preheat to 170F, the lowest temp it will go to.
While my oven was preheating, I took a half cup of yogurt with live active cultures and put it in a bowl. I added some of the warm milk...
...and mixed it together to temper the yogurt - - to get the little beasties happy with the warm bath they were about to take. Then, the whole business got mixed into the warm milk, and I put the crock pot crock into the oven. Turned off the oven. Turned on the light.
And walked away.
Seriously - we went for a walk at the track. Well, Bella went for a run. She tried to challenge the track team kids, but they smoked her.
About six hours later...
YOGURT! And, oh, is it good yogurt. Now, part of that is because of the whole milk. But part of it is that stuff-is-really-really-good-when-you-make-it-at-home thing... it's like the difference between homemade chocolate chip cookies and Chips Ahoy.
Breakfast...
mmmmmmmmmm.
I have to say: It was so easy to make, and so rewarding, that this is definitely going to be something we do all the time now. Fresh fruit season is right around the corner, and we're trying to kybosh sugar as much as we can, so it's all just perfect.
You really should try this. It requires very very little hands-on time, and produces great results.
I made yogurt! I feel like I did the first time I baked bread. These things are more chemistry (or, acutally, more alchemy) than cooking.
After last week's abysmal failure at making yogurt, I decided to buck up, buy good ingredients, follow directions slavishly, and do it right all-around... I also decided to follow a slightly different recipe / method. You, too can follow it, here.
So, on to the good stuff.... milk.
Now, I'm not a big fan of milk. I love my cheese, don't get me wrong, but I just don't groove on milk. We get our milk delivered from the nice people at Smith Brothers, who do us right. But the problem is that we get organic milk delivered, and I've come to understand that organic milk is, almost always, ultra-pasteurized - - which means that it won't grow our little yogurt beasties.
So, to the fancy-dancy grocery store we go, to buy fancy-dancy milk. Pretty milk. Whole milk.
Say what you want to about milk, but it's really hard to resist when it comes packaged so beautifully. Not only that... it wasn't homogenized, so it had really pretty cream floating to the surface. Taste it... taste it!
Yum.
Into the crock pot it went. On Hi for an hour and a half. Then, I set it out to cool until it reached a temp of 110F (about two hours with the crock outside the electrical business). It got a yellow buttery skimmy top.
After it cooled down, I set my oven to preheat to 170F, the lowest temp it will go to.
While my oven was preheating, I took a half cup of yogurt with live active cultures and put it in a bowl. I added some of the warm milk...
And walked away.
Seriously - we went for a walk at the track. Well, Bella went for a run. She tried to challenge the track team kids, but they smoked her.
About six hours later...
YOGURT! And, oh, is it good yogurt. Now, part of that is because of the whole milk. But part of it is that stuff-is-really-really-good-when-you-make-it-at-home thing... it's like the difference between homemade chocolate chip cookies and Chips Ahoy.
Breakfast...
mmmmmmmmmm.
I have to say: It was so easy to make, and so rewarding, that this is definitely going to be something we do all the time now. Fresh fruit season is right around the corner, and we're trying to kybosh sugar as much as we can, so it's all just perfect.
You really should try this. It requires very very little hands-on time, and produces great results.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Bare Necessities
Yes, there's more to life than those bare necessities... like today's topic.
Play.
I was going to write this great post, with pictures and everything, all about play. But Xander won't let me. He's hungry, therefore cranky and won't let me type without being in a yoga position.
I will get back to Play. I promise.
In the meantime, please comment with thoughts and ideas about play... it's a nice topic to share on, don't you think?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Jane, how do I work this crazy thing???
OK, it's not quite that bad. I'm fairly web savvy and all that. But I haven't been successful at blogging for more than a week, probably because I've tried to restrict my blogging to one thing or another.
So, my latest attempt is about everything... and nothing. Maybe it's more Seinfeld than Jetsons.
The reality is that the necessities of life are what consume me most of the time. Feeding the kids (breastfeeding, toddler feeding) and the husband.... and, you know, ME, because I like to eat sometimes, too. Clothing the kids, which I honestly take great joy in doing, and doing super economically. And renovating our insane factory we like to call our house.
What I'll include:
- Food blog stuff. Recipes. Photos of pretty food. Photos of food that isn't so pretty. Thoughts about cooking and eating out. Links to interesting food news and information.
- Clothing blog stuff. Pictures of cute kids in clothes. Thoughts and hints about thrift store shopping and consigning.
- House blog stuff. Renovating. Designing. Decorating. And Ikea trips... lots and lots of Ikea trips.
Because robots are cool.
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