Make Your Own Yogurt

 

I warned you I'd be writing lots of posts on what to do with goats' milk.  Last weekend I made homemade yogurt for the first time in a couple of years.  If you don't have a yogurt maker, this does take a little time and attention.  I've found that if I'm short on either, the yogurt still turns out OK, and if the consistency isn't quite what I'd like, I stick it in the freezer and make frozen yogurt.  Here's the recipe I follow to some extent.  Much of my yogurt making experience has been trial and error though.

 

Yogurt

First, you need to scald 4 cups of milk.  I've only ever used our fresh goats' milk, so I'm not sure how pasteurized, homogenized milk from the supermarket works.  Watch and stir this often so it doesn't burn and stick to the bottom of the pan.  Once scalded, cool it to a temperature of 95-115 degrees.  I use a dairy thermometer to keep track of the temperature.  You'll be using this all day if you don't have a yogurt maker.

 

Once the milk is the desired temperature, pour into a Pyrex dish, and add 1 cup dry milk powder, 4 Tablespoons of plain yogurt with active cultures (I use Stoneyfield plain organic yogurt,) and 2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin that has been softened in 1/4 cup cold water.  Mix well.  The gelatin is optional.  I use it to make the yogurt more firm.  Place the lid on the dish and put in a warm oven with the oven light kept on.  I usually warm the oven to 170 degrees, and then turn it off.

Every couple of hours, you'll need to take the lid off and make sure the temperature of the yogurt remains between 95-115 degrees.  If it's getting low, turn the oven back on to a low setting for a few minutes, and then turn off again.  I have also tried placing dishtowels around the Pyrex plate to maintain warmth.  That's also why you keep the oven light on.  Incubate for 3-9 hours.  There's just no way of knowing when you start, how long it will take until your yogurt is the consistency you desire.  Mine usually takes most of the day.

Once it is finished incubating, I add ingredients for flavor: fresh fruit or vanilla and honey.  This time I added raspberry syrup.

 

If you like, you can place the entire container in your freezer for frozen yogurt.  Mine was still a little too watery for my family's taste, so I froze it.  Even with over 1/3 of a bottle of syrup, most of my children didn't think it tasted sweet enough---which goes to show how much sugar is put in the commercial brands that my kids love.  My children did like this frozen though---after I let them add some sprinkles or chocolate syrup.  I really prefer using fresh fruit and vanilla, with just a little bit of honey.   

Natural yogurt with live, active cultures is one of the best foods you can give your digestive system.  Give it a try this weekend. 

Super Easy Butter-Making Without a Butter Churn

 

If your images of making butter are like mine, they involve someone sitting with a large butter churn in front of them and spending hours there, just churning and churning.  I'm remembering an episode of The Waltons where Mary Ellen churns with book in one hand and complaining about her life to her mama and grandma.  One of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, Farmer Boy, also stands out in my mind because Almonzo Wilder's mother was always making butter to sell.  But today's post will show you that making your own butter can be simple, easy, and requires no equipment other than a jar with a lid, and a marble.  Even the marble is optional.  Here's what you do...

 

Simply skim the cream off the top of any refrigerated milk you've collected over the past few days (non-homogenized, of course.)  If you left the milk uncovered in your refrigerator, the cream is even easier to skim off.  Just make sure you don't shake the milk up first or the cream will mix in with the rest of the milk.  We typically have over a quart of milk each day, and 3 days worth of cream is typically enough to make butter.  Put the cream in a small Mason jar or jelly jar or even a cup with a tight-fitting lid.  Add some salt if you like salted butter.  You can also add some herbs like dill or chives for added flavor.  Then I place a marble in the jar because it helps me know I'm shaking vigorously enough, and it lets me know when the butter is getting thick.  Put the lid on the jar and start shaking.  This is when a number of children in the house come in handy.  We take turns shaking while we read a book or watch a movie.  After about 30-45 minutes of vigorous shaking, the cream has turned into whipped butter.  Then refrigerate.  We make ours with raw milk, so it needs to get used up in about 4 days.  It's so good that using it quickly is never a problem. 

 

Summer Saturdays on the Patio With Yet Another Uninvited Visitor

 

How I love summer weekends spent at home with extended family, lounging on the porches, patio, and by the pool.  Most weekends we make a different flavor of hand-churned ice cream from our goats' milk.  This Saturday we were celebrating our daughter's 8th grade graduation from the only school she's ever attended.  It was rainy at times, but that didn't prevent us from enjoying ourselves outdoors and creating and consuming some of our favorite traditional summer foods.  This vanilla ice cream was our first homemade ice cream in two years since we've been waiting for our goats to become mamas again.  Our 9 year old son even climbed the cherry tree to pick us some ripe cherries to  place atop our dessert. 

 

He was also one of our most diligent churners, and the ice cream turned out perfect.

To get our goats' milk ice cream recipe, you can access it here in Preppy Mountain Farmhouse's archives.

 

As usual, we had an uninvited guest.  This little guy crawled out from under our front porch and hung with us for awhile.  I couldn't find his mother anywhere, and it's odd that he was out during the day.  I felt kind of sorry for him...but not sorry enough to take him in and feed him.  I'm really not keen on having a pet opossum.

 

As we took turns churning ice cream and playing yard beanbag games with the children, Hubby grilled us one of our favorite summer chicken recipes: Chicken Teriyaki.  Below is the recipe for the marinade.

Chicken Teriyaki Marinade

Mix 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 Tablespoon vinegar, 3 Tablespoons brown sugar, and some dried ginger.  Add about 1.5 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and coat with the marinade.  Refrigerate for at least several hours or overnight.  Put on the grill for about 20 minutes.  If you double the recipe like I did, it easily feeds 10+ people.

 

It is our tradition to sip Gin & Tonics while we churn ice cream, cook out, and celebrate the beginning of summer.  This has always been my beverage of choice in the summer, next to Arnold Palmers, that is.

 

Some vanilla porter was also tested for the first time with a big thumbs up.

 

In fact, some of our guests came up with the idea of combining the porter with the homemade ice cream to create their own version of vanilla beer floats.  And the consensus was that this is a great summer treat to be made again in the future.

My vote hasn't been cast on that yet because I steered clear of that combination, but it seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed.

 

As for our little opossum friend, the last I saw of him he was climbing out of sight.  I'm hoping he hasn't met up with any of the numerous felines on this mountain and he's alive and well...as long as he doesn't take up residence under my farmhouse porch or cabin months from now as an adult.

Two and a half more days of school here, and then it will truly feel like the beginning of summer!

Goats' Milk Vanilla Pudding: Like Nothing You'll Find in a Store

 

I am so thrilled to have goat kids on our farm again, and with them comes an abundance of delicious goats' milk.  Just warning you that there will be a number of recipes and how-to sessions on creating all kinds of dairy products from goats over the next few months.  This vanilla pudding recipe doesn't take too much time and does not compare to any of the ready-made puddings or boxed mixes from the grocery store.  Cows' milk will work in this recipe too, of course, but I do think the milk from our Nigerian Dwarf goats is richer and creamier than any other milk I've had. 

 

Vanilla Pudding

(adapted from Better Homes & Gardens New CookBook)

In a medium saucepan combine 1 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons cornstarch, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. 

 

Stir in 4 cups of goat milk.  Cook and stir over medium heat till thickened and slightly bubbly.  (This takes awhile.  You might want to read a book while you stir.)  

 

Remove from heat while you gradually stir about 2 cups of the hot mixture into 4 beaten egg yolks.  (Don't use the egg whites because they leave little clumps of cooked egg in the pudding.)  Return all that to the pot and cook and stir for 2 more minutes.  It should be quite thick now.  Remove from heat, and add 1 Tablespoon vanilla and 4 Tablespoons of butter.  Stir until the butter is melted.

 

Pour into a bowl, and cover the surface with plastic wrap.

 

You want the plastic wrap right against the pudding to prevent a thickened film from forming on the top.  Don't stir it again, but just put it into the refrigerator to chill.  My family actually likes it warm too.  Either way it's sooo good.

 

Add toppings if you like.  We've topped with berries, whipped cream, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and sprinkles.  Tonight we used my friend's homemade salted caramel sauce warmed up.  I still need to get that recipe from her.  Bananas and vanilla wafers or crumbled graham crackers taste great in this, as does cooked rice.  But we also really like it plain.

Run out to your local farmers' market or goat dairy this week and pick yourself up some goat's milk and give this a try.  Or better yet, I highly recommend purchasing yourself a couple of miniature goats to keep as pets and grass cutters, and you'll have your own fresh milk right outside your door.  I'll save my milking tales for another day.

 

Summer Traditions: Making Ice Cream

One of my fondest memories growing up is attending ice cream socials where every family would bring a different flavor of homemade ice cream.  We also attended annual barn dances where everyone would do the same and sample the flavors after square dancing.  My family had both an electric mixer and a manual churn, and we always felt the hand-churned ice cream was the best.  I have tried to revive this tradition in my own family by making a variety of flavors throughout the summer, especially when we have cookouts with friends and family so everyone gets a turn to churn.  We sit on one of our porches, the patio, or even poolside with our feet in the water during the really hot days of July.  Sometimes the adults even multi-task by imbibing in a Gin & Tonic while churning.

It all starts with our nanny goats and their babies.  We milk the mothers first thing in the morning, and then their babies get to be with them the rest of the day.  That gives us plenty of milk, and no one has to bottle feed the kids.  Of course, cow's milk works too; we just have goats, so that is what we use.  We find that the Nigerian Dwarf goat's milk is so rich that we do not need to use whipping cream; we simply make our ice cream with their milk, leaving the cream in it.  Our churn is a White Mountain ice cream churn, which we are very happy with.  We were able to purchase ours from a local store that carries many Amish goods, but other brands can also be found in the Lehman's catalog.  So far we have made the standard flavors of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, but we have also made peach, cherry, black raspberry, blueberry, Heathbar Crunch, Oreo cookie, and coffee, just to name a few.  Everyone takes a turn churning, even the youngest.  It only takes about 45 minutes, and then we place the churn in the shade with a blanket around it for insulation until we are ready to eat.

Below is the recipe we use.  No cooking and no eggs required.

Basic Vanilla Ice Cream

8 cups of goat's milk with cream intact; 2 cups sugar; 1/4 tsp. salt; 3 tsps. vanilla

Warm (but do not boil) 2 cups of the cream over low heat.  Keep a watch at all times so it does not scorch.  Stir in all of the sugar and salt until dissolved.  Chill in refrigerator overnight.  Add the remaining milk and vanilla with it into the canister of the ice cream freezer the next day.  If you want other flavors, add these at this time too.  Alternate layers of ice and rock salt around the canister and churn.  We check it after about 30 minutes or so to see if it is the desired thickness.  You can usually tell when it is done because it gets much harder to churn.  Ours is typically the consistency of soft-serve ice cream after 45 minutes.  If there are any leftovers, they go into a container in the freezer.  The ice cream is much more solid by the next day.

From toddlers to grandparents, everyone gets a chance to churn!