Britt's Blog

Every once in a while, it’s a good thing to just surrender yourself to a Big Damn Project.

We were invited to a Film Food potluck, where you bring a dish to pass inspired by a movie. In a move that is either sheer genius, or totally gross, I decided to make prawn spring rolls in honor of District 9.

This turned into a Big Damn Project.

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I’ve been enthusiastically rearing all sorts of unusual housepets—if by housepets one means creatures that one captures, enslaves to do one’s bidding, and finally devours.

Some of my favorite housepets are Lactobacillus delbrueckii subspecies bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, the primary bacteria used to make yogurt. After many years, I refined the yogurt-making into to a relatively efficient science. Most of the process involves just waiting around until something beeps.

1. Obtain 1 quart of skim milk, 1/2 cup non-fat dry milk, and somewhere between 2 tablespoons to a 1/4 cup of plain yogurt containing live cultures.
   

   Use whole or 2% milk if you like; I like to skip the saturated fat. Various yogurt recipes recommend different amounts of dry milk, up to an entire cup, but I find 1/2 cup works best. Less, and the yogurt comes out too thin (or the milk fails to become yogurt at all) and more, and your yogurt tastes like instant milk (bleh!).
   

   I’ve made yogurt with all different kinds of cultures, including blended fruit yogurt, which is a little dangerous, because the fruit and sugar can cause yeast to develop, but which worked out okay for me. Anything that says “contains live and active cultures” on the packaging will work. My favorite, though, is Dannon All Natural, because its only ingredients are milk and bacteria. Also, it comes in a full quart container, which is not typical since the yogurt industry en masse suddenly decided circa 2002 to reduce the standard serving from 8 oz to 6 oz because it made the yogurt look like it had fewer calories. (One was wearily unsurprised by the fact that they did not reduce their prices by 75%.) Of course, after you’ve made a batch of yogurt, you are freed from the oppressive yogurt industry, because you’ve already got the perfect incubation vessel, and you can just save a little as starter for the next batch.

2. In a large microwave-safe mixing bowl (preferably one with a spout for easy pouring), combine the cold skim milk with the dry milk.
   

   It’s counter-intuitive, but the dry milk dissolves much better in cold milk—probably because it’s designed to be dissolved in cold water.

3. Microwave the milk until it reaches a temperature of 190° F.
   

   You can do this on the stovetop, too, but you’ll need to stand at the stove to stir the milk and prevent scorching. When you use the microwave, though, you can (through trial and error) figure out exactly how long it takes to nuke the milk to 190° (for me, 10 minutes 30 seconds) and once you know, you can just put the milk in, enter the time, and walk away. Alton Brown suggests that you just heat to 120°F, but other recipes go higher, perhaps to kill all the other non-yogurt-making organisms that might be lurking in the milk. I’m not quite sure why 190° is the magic number, but my experiments with lesser temperatures did not end in yogurt. Experiment at your own risk.

4. Cool the milk to 120° F.
   

   A thermometer with a low temperature alarm makes this step much easier, since you can walk away and ignore it until it beeps. Otherwise, just check the temperature regularly as the yogurt cools. The amount of time will vary depending on the type of container and the temperature in your kitchen.

5. Add the yogurt.
   

   In order to distribute the yogurt culture throughout the milk, I pour a little of the warm milk into the yogurt and mix it well to make a nice slurry, and pour that back into the bowl.

6. Pour into the clean incubation container.
   

   This is where the 1-quart Dannon container comes in handy. If you get one of those dinky 24-oz containers, you’re not going to be able to use your full quart of skim milk, and as a non-milk-drinker who lives with a dedicated 2%-milk user, I find it most convenient to buy and use an entire quart of skim for yogurt.
   

   Back in the day, I used to just re-use individual 8-oz yogurt cups, but this is pretty much impossible nowadays, because 1) all the yogurt cups are 6 oz now (see above rant) which wouldn’t be so bad, but also 2) They all come with peel-off foil lids instead of reusable plastic lids, which is probably a good thing overall in a reduction-of-waste sense, but a blow to the home yogurt-maker. I have my eye out for something that would work as well as the good ol’ yogurt cups, but I haven’t had much luck yet.
   

   Of course, you can use any container that is big enough to hold the yogurt with a little head space. Whatever you use, clean it thoroughly. For a while, I sterilized containers with boiling water, but, strangely, I ended up with more contamination problems, not fewer! So I stopped doing that and cleaned the containers with hot water and dish soap. If the yogurt gets contaminated, you’ll be able to tell—it will taste moldy or otherwise gross.

7. Keep the yogurt at a temperature between 100 and 120°F for a few hours (mine usually averages around 4-5 hours), checking occassionally, until you find that you have yogurt.
   

   While you do other things, your housepets are hard at work, growing, dividing, consuming the sugar lactose (which is why some lactose-intolerant people can eat yogurt), and excreting lactic acid (which provides the tart taste and curdles the milk to thicken the yogurt). I use a heating-pad-and-towel-in-a-stockpot incubator á la Alton Brown [yogurt incubator starts around 8:00] . (Bonus: I also have the ability to make turkey stock, dry my hair, or ease various aches and pains with theraputic heat, although admittedly I cannot do these things at the same time as making yogurt).
   

   To monitor temperature, a thermometer with both a high and low alarm is ideal, though these seem to be produced mainly for the catering industry, with the requisite level of accuracy and reliability, so they are rather expensive. Thermometers with a high alarm are easy to find, and they’ll keep you from killing the yogurt bacteria, which is the key thing, and you’ll just have to keep half an eye on the temp at 100+ where the bacteria are most happy. I happened to find a thermometer that has can do a high or low alarm, but not both at the same time, so I use it with the low-alarm set at 100° and a separate thermometer with the high alarm at 120°. The thermometers don’t have to be in the yogurt, just alongside the container is fine.
   

   Of course, you don’t need to mess with thermometers if you have an actual yogurt making machine, available from many fine retailers.

8. Enjoy or refrigerate and enjoy later.
   

   You now have a quart of plain yogurt. You can stir in fresh fruit, honey, jam, or whatever else you like. But don’t forget to save some to start the next batch.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about “the Critter,” which spends most of its life snoozing in the fridge, but sometimes comes out to feed…

• Watching Star Trek: TOS: I believe the young persons would call this “kicking it old school.” Surprisingly good stuff, interspersed with nigh-unbearable cheesiness. I gotta say though, young William Shatner? Yeah, I’d hit that. Although I don’t think I’m soft-focus-y enough for him.
• Peer reviewing a paper and revising a paper for publication: not especially diverting, but, *sigh*, it makes the Science go.
• Watching Witchblade: Absolutely an overlooked gem of the edgy-comic-to-TV-series genre. None of the characters are cut and dried. Kenneth Irons is a billionaire mastermind is locked in an ambivalent dance with the Witchblade’s bearer, Sara Pezzini—will he steal the Witchblade from her, or nurture her and her connection with the Witchblade, or is he just biding time until she continues her bloodline, hoping that the next generation will be more pliable? His über-creeptastic henchman, Ian Nottingham, is torn between his fanatical loyalty to Irons and his puppy-dog special-forces stalker crush on Sara. Some of the camera work and FX are a bit corny, but the story somehow bears up under that. I was even willing to ride out the whole thoroughly embarrassing interlude wherein Sara falls in love with an Irish bard/rockstar named Conchobar. Yes, it’s just as lame as it sounds. Yet it barely dilutes the concentrated awesome that is the First Season. (The second season? We will not speak of this. *Jedi handwave* There is no second season.)
• Shoveling the driveway: The joys of home ownership.
• Playing Agricola: The tagline, The 17^th Century: Not an easy time for farming. is not promising. Neither are the intimidating number of cards, animeeples, veggiemeeples, assorted-colored discs, and other fiddly bits. However, the game is clearly not #1 on Board Game Geek for nothing. J and I are still somewhat at the “thrashing around randomly” stage of strategic development, and we have no clear idea why we or lose, but we hope someday to get a clue.
• Earning my Junior Weathercaster’s Badge: Yeah, didn’t make it to La Crosse for Christmas Eve. :( We’re hoping to be able to make it to family celebrations later this week. Did you know that the Wisconsin DOT has a nifty map of road conditions for interstates? ‘Cause they do.
• Making Christmas cookies: I’m currently chillin’ dough for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies and Ginger Poppy Seed Cookies, and I’ve made a large number of Chocolate Gingerbread Bars, which are awesome. Nothing like harnessing one’s neglected inner homemaker to decompress after the semester.
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So a few days ago, I made waffles. We were out of buttermilk, which meant I couldn’t use my usual recipe, so I pulled out the Joy of Cooking.

The amount of butter in the Joy waffle recipe is subject to the cook’s discretion. You can use 4 Tbsp for the low fat version, a whole honkin’ stick for the regular version (that’s 8 Tbsp), and more (eep!) for a super-crispy version. I judiciously decided to go with 6 Tbsp, and so I hacked 2 Tbsp off the stick and put the rest in a small bowl and nuked it to melt it.

Fast forward to yesterday. Jason asked me, “Why is there a bowl of melted and resolidified butter in the microwave?”

Hmmmm.

So, apparently 0 Tbsp of butter is also an option.

I can’t figure out why exactly the waffles weren’t permanently welded to the irons, ’cause that’s what usually happens with lowfat waffles. But they cooked up fine and were durned tasty, if I say so myself.

p.s. Apropos of nothing, a bird drawn in a tophat with no other identifiable characteristics is clearly a penguin, e.g. the Broaster Chicken logo. Jason thinks this is funny, but I think it’s just obvious.

Jason and I are experimenting this summer with community-supported agriculture. (Let us just say that Jason read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and life in our household hasn’t been quite the same since.)

We got together with one of my colleauges and sharing a subscription to Wright Way Farm, a local organic outfit. Each Saturday we journey down the stairs and around the corner to the Beloit Farmer’s Market to buy some grass-fed beef (see The Omnivore’s Dilemma comma Jason’s reading of) and pick up a bushel basket filled to the brim with organic produce, the majority of which is salad greens.

So we’ve been eating a lot of salads.

A lot of salads.

This has lead me to discovering the joy of making my own salad dressing. I always thought that whisking up some vinaigrette was terribly sophisticated. Shaking it in a bottle is just not the same. (And, in my experience, not nearly as effective.)

I won’t bother giving a recipe, because, firstly, there are a kajillion recipes for vinaigrettes, and secondly, that kind of misses the point. I start with the smallest splurt of Dijon mustard that I can manage, though for some reason the mustard bottle always has a mind of its own and ejects much more than I want. This is whisked together with a health splash of balsamic vinegar and a goodly squirt of honey (because all I have around is cheap, acidic balsamic—though I used some of the last of an expensive bottle in a dressing and it was sublime) plus a pinch of kosher salt and as many twists of finely-ground pepper as I have the patience for. The delicate flavor of an expensive olive oil is overwhelmed by the balsamic vinegar, anyway, so I just use the sautéing-and-baking kind. The magic happens when you briskly whisk in a thin stream of the oil. You must beat vigilantly to create an emulsion, and you will be rewarded when the dressing becomes pale and silky. I find that the more oil I can coax into emulsion, the better. (The mustard helps.) A beautifully balanced dressing clings, spreads and coats each leaf (be it romaine or arrowleaf, or arugula, or mizuna or whatever crazy thing is in the basket this week).

Despite my amazing alchemical accomplishments, Jason refuses to eat vinaigrette every day. He wants his Hidden Valley Ranch. (Jeez.) I whipped up a very satisfactory French dressing in the blender today—though it was based on ketchup, something I have trouble associating with the word “French.” Making dressing is cheaper than getting it in bottles, and probably better for you—fewer additives and what not (ketchup-based blends aside).

Lettuce leads to more adventurous eating and cooking! Hurray!