Thursday, November 19, 2009

Lessons Learned

In an effort to increase Second Daughter's fat intake, we want to feed her more yogurt. Unfortunately, the organic whole milk yogurt at the store is very expensive, even the big containers that don't have pictures of babies on them. I was recently reminded by some friends that I can make my own yogurt.

Only I learned making yogurt in my crockpot is not going to work in the wintertime. I ended up with cold milk, a little soured. It's just too cold in my kitchen. (I should have known since even in the bread machine I have to increase the amount of yeast I use in the winter.)

I tried a more traditional method (cooking the milk on the stove then placing it in the oven) but managed to end the process halfway through by letting the oven get too hot and killing the bacteria. (The chickens liked it, though.) It would be fine if I could get six hours of guaranteed interruption-free time.

So, the moral of the story is: we buy our yogurt until spring. (Kansas Dad joked we could just set our thermostat higher, but I think that would be more expensive in the long run than buying the yogurt.)

Also, in case you were wondering, shelling popcorn is not as easy as all the books and websites would have you believe. (They all just say "Shell your popcorn, store and eat!") I spent a few hours (while also overseeing snack time and paper plate turkey construction) shelling it by hand and ended up with half a quart jar of popcorn and a big blister on my thumb. We're going to try one of these, even if they say it doesn't work. There has to be a better way. (I'd be happy for any advice on the matter.)