How to make homemade hummus

                As you know, I am a fan of making homemade food when I can. I have wanted to make hummus for a few months already. One of the ingredients in hummus is tahini, which I had bought a few months ago already. For some reason, I never got around to it until a few weeks ago.

                The ingredients are 1 can of chickpeas, ½ Tbsp parsley, 1 large clove of garlic, ¼ tsp ground cumin, 3 Tbsp lemon juice, 4 Tbsp water, 4 Tbsp tahini paste, 2 Tbsp olive oil. I blended these using an immersion blender until they were pretty smooth, but with a bit of texture remaining from the chickpeas.

                Besides for it being really yummy, it is definitely cheaper to make this at home. A can of chickpeas is 50 cents, and the container of tahini was about $4.00, and that will last a while. A small container of hummus from the store often costs around $4.00.

it's hummus!

How to choose a healthy yogurt

Regular yogurt have around 6 grams of protein per serving, but Greek yogurts can have up to 17 grams per serving. This makes it a great source of protein and it can be the protein source for your meal. Protein helps contribute to feelings of satiety after a meal, so it’s important to always have protein at a meal

Some yogurts have a lot of added sugar, often listed as various names such as sugar, cane sugar, fruit juice, juice concentrate, and honey. Plain yogurts, while they do contain the sugar naturally found in milk called lactose, they do not have any added sugars. You can add your own fresh or frozen fruit to yogurt for a sweeter treat.

Yogurts with live and active cultures contain probiotics. These are bacterial species that are good for health and can help promote adequate quantities of good bacteria so bad bacteria can’t flourish too much. Look for a package that says "live and active cultures" or lists the bacterial species in the ingredients. 

Yogurt contains calcium, which we need for our bone health. Regular yogurt actually has more calcium than Greek yogurt, because some calcium is lost when the whey is strained out to turn regular yogurt into Greek yogurt.

Spreading the (yogurt) joy

                I visited my parents for a weekend recently, and I made them a batch of yogurt. I tried out the double boiler method to prevent the the milk from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pot. They have a larger supply of pots than I do, so it was a good place to try this! I did stir the milk occasionally, but I never once began to feel burnt milk building up on the bottom. This definitely is a good idea in order to make yogurt-making a more hands-off project. I left the milk on the stove, and whenever I happened to pass through the kitchen, I stirred it. Once I inoculated it with starter yogurt, I left the milk incubating between two pots of boiling water covered in towels and went back home. I asked my mother to put it in the fridge the next morning. But before she did, she added it to her breakfast smoothie! After the yogurt was transferred to a container, I received a report that there was no burnt milk stuck to the bottom. 

the milk is in the top pot, and water is in the bottom pot

in a container