Yogurt Routine

                I have gotten into a pretty good yogurt-making routine by now. The whole process takes many hours, but it is mostly hands-off. One area I’ve been having trouble with is heating the milk without burning it. If I do not stir the milk often enough while it is heating, it starts to burn to the bottom. Once, the burnt milk pieces come off the bottom of the pot while mixing the milk, and I ended up with little burnt flecks floating around the milk. To solve that problem, I strained the milk through a cloth to remove all of the burnt particles. I was glad that worked and I did not have to waste an entire gallon and a half of milk!

                I have read suggestions of methods to prevent burning the milk. They include heating the milk on a double boiler, stirring frequently, using a low flame, or heating it in a microwave. Until I invest in a very large double boiler, I will just have to be more careful about stirring the milk often, and of course not using a high flame.

                Even though I have made many batches of yogurt since I started making it a few months ago, I always am excited to see the results in the morning. For some reason, I am constantly surprised that the milk has yogurted!

looks like a science experiment...waiting for the milk to cool to 115⁰ F before adding the yogurt starter. 

the milk wrapped with a pot of boiling water on either side to keep it incubated all night 

it yogurted! you can see that it is thick because I am holding the pot tilted and the yogurt is keeping its shape

Post Passover…My Favorite Passover Foods

                One of my readers asked me to write about my favorite Passover foods. For starters, I will say that I have never gone hungry on Passover. There has always been an overabundance of food. The only thing I may have missed was pretzels. Actually, I definitely miss pretzels over Passover, but one week without them has always been more than fine. Especially when I am surrounded with such good cooks!

                I love my mother’s tongue that she serves for the Seder. This is the one time of the year that she makes this dish. Nothing says Seder meal to me more than this meat. Well, maybe the applesauce she serves for dessert can tie it as being ultimate Seder food.

                I always look forward to having matza lasagna during Passover. Instead of using lasagna noodles, square matza sheets are soaked in water and used as the pasta. This year I had matza lasagna twice! I was doubly fortunate. Maybe it makes up for the Passover a few years back when I did not have matza lasagna once.

                Because we are limited in the ingredients we can use for sides, I love that on Passover we tend to go overboard with the salads and vegetable dishes. I love having an entire course of salads at the meal before the entrée. My sisters make the most delicious and creative salads combining salad greens, fresh vegetables, sautéed vegetables, roasted vegetables, fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, dressings, and vinaigrettes. Of course we can eat salads year-round, but they are always exciting on Passover.

                What are some of your favorite Passover foods?

Another yogurt dilemma, this time it's a pizza solution!

                It was again a moment of too much yogurt in the house. Again a question of how to put it in other dishes. I saw a video about pizza dough made out of yogurt and flour, so I decided to give it a try. The recipe called for equal parts of self-rising flour and yogurt; then, you add flour as needed until you have a dough. I did not have self-rising flour, but quick research showed me that adding 1.5 tsp baking powder and 0.5 tsp salt to 1 cup of all purpose flour will make it into self-rising flour.

                I started with 2 cups of flour, to which I added the baking powder and salt. Then I added the yogurt and started mixing. I had to add a lot more flour because the dough was too sticky. I think that this could be remedied by using Greek rather than regular yogurt, or straining my homemade yogurt to remove more of the whey and make it thicker. I’ll try straining my yogurt next time I make this pizza dough. Anyway, I kneaded my dough until it looked like pizza dough.

I divided the dough into 3 balls and rolled each one out on a foil-covered toaster tray that I lightly greased with canola oil. Instead of using sauce, I spooned on some canned diced tomatoes (leaving the liquid in the can.) Then I sprinkled on some cheese and topped it with assorted vegetables. My favorite vegetables for decorating pizza are onions, mushrooms, colored peppers, and zucchini. It is a good way to add vegetables to themeal, and of course, they add so much flavor to the pizza. I like to sprinkle the top with oregano, garlic powder, and onion powder for some more yumminess.

After baking the first pizza in the toaster oven at 375⁰ for 20 minutes, the crust looked browned and the vegetables were getting toasted. I cut the pizza and I saw that the dough had gotten soggy from the vegetables, though it was clearly cooked through. For my second pizza, I upped the temperature to 400⁰, and the result was better. The dough was firmer and the vegetables were fully roasted. I will try par-cooking the dough for 10 minutes before adding the toppings next time I make this...I think that might work even better.

Definitely the second pizza tasted better, though they both looked nice. This recipe was a good idea, but I think that with a bit of tweaking for the recipe and cooking, I’ll have a better pizza next try.

it became dough!

all rolled out

got the diced tomatoes and cheese

and some decorations

out of the toaster....(note that the decorations don't match the prior picture...this was the second pizza. that one was the first.)

now I cut it into slices

Sunbutter banana cake (peanut-free, gluten-free)

                Back in the fall, I was visiting my cousin and his family for the weekend. He is a great bargain hunter, and he had found a 5 pound container of Sunbutter on Amazon for a few bucks. Thinking that he would use it to make sandwiches for his daughters’ lunches, he purchased 2 containers. Unfortunately his daughters did not like it...but fortunate was I! He offered me the closed container, and I took it hoping to use it in baking. And I did! I made oatmeal cookies, thumbprint cookies, and a banana cake. But I definitely had not used up the entire 5 pounds of Sunbutter.

Yesterday, the baking bug hit me again, and I remembered that I had 2 bananas in the freezer that were waiting to be used in baking. I even had extra time today, because my office closed early for the falling snow… It was baking day!

This recipe is great, not just because it is yummy. It happens to be gluten-free, which makes it work for those with celiac disease. It also happens to be peanut free, which is awesome for those with a peanut allergy. It is definitely not a health food. It is a yummy cake that those who can and can’t eat gluten can eat. It looks like a cake, tastes like a cake, acts like a cake, and has a nutrition profile of a cake.

I got the recipe from the Sunbutter website. It was intended to be a muffin recipe, but I put it in a loaf pan lined with parchment paper and baked it for about 50 minutes. For the ingredients and instructions, click here.

Sunbutter cake!

Wait, what is Sunbutter? It is a sandwich spread made from sunflower seeds. It looks fairly similar to peanut butter and spreads like peanut butter does. It is great for kids with peanut allergies and kids who go to peanut-free schools. 

Dinner idea: salad, marinated beans, and hard boiled eggs

                My favorite supper might be lettuce salad with marinated beans and hard boiled eggs. It is so yummy, fairly cheap, and packed with nutritious ingredients. It does take some prep time for cutting all the vegetables, but that can be done while the eggs are boiling. And of course it always is nice to recruit someone to help with the prep….

1. Boil eggs. I have found that the best way to do this is to bring the pot of eggs to boil, and set the timer for 10 minutes once the water is boiling. When the timer rings, spill out the water and refill the pot with cold water and let sit. The yolks should be perfectly cooked and still yellow.
2. Next is the lettuce salad. wash and tear a head of romaine lettuce, chop some tomato, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, or whatever other vegetables you like. (Save your peppers for the marinated beans.)
3. The beans. Open and rinse 4 assorted cans of beans. I usually use chickpeas along with some combination of black beans, pink beans, kidney beans, black eyed peas, or whichever other beans I have on my shelf. Pour the rinsed beans into a large bowl, and add a small diced red onion, and half each of red, orange, and green peppers. The dressing is about 2 parts oil to 1 parts vinegar. I never quite measure these. I just pour from the bottles into the bowl with the beans. I use either olive oil or canola oil, and regular vinegar. Then, season with some salt, and a bit more generously with pepper. Mix well. The beans taste best once they have marinated for an hour at least, but they are also fine right away.
4. To assemble: place some lettuce salad on your plate. Place 1-2 spoons of the marinated beans on top. Finally, top with a hard-boiled egg sliced in half.

                There you have it. A work of art!

yummy supper!

                This meal is full of vitamin, mineral, fiber, and also a nice portion of protein to help keep you full. 

Yogurt Dilemma, Pancake Solution

                I had a yogurt problem. I had about 4 quarts of yogurt left, and the weekend was approaching. It was my yogurt-making weekend. What do I do with the extra yogurt? Well, I gave about 2 quarts to my grandmother who enjoys yogurt. Then it was time for creativity. I looked online for recipes that called for yogurt. A pancake recipe came up right away. Of course I was going to make pancakes. This was the yummy recipe I found, and I was ready to go!

                I like that the recipe was not super-sweet and did not call for butter. And they were so fluffy! As I was frying them, I realized that I could use less oil than I had originally used...aiming to make them less greasy. I have yet to master the perfectly light brown pancakes—you’ll see the darker color of these—but they were delicious. I wonder how they would have tasted with whole wheat flour.

my first pancakes on the stove while my milk for my new batch of yogurt is heating

some pancakes

some more pancakes

yummmm... yes, I did put some sugar on my pancake...we had no syrup! 

What's the Problem With Margarine?

What’s wrong with margarine?

1. The process of turning oils to margarine changes the chemical structure of the fats into trans fats. These fats act like saturated fats in our body. Saturated fat intake is associated with heart diseases.
2. Margarine is a high calorie food, so large amounts can contribute to excess calories in our diet.
3. Usually margarine is in foods that are not the healthiest…such as cakes, cookies, and pastries.

                Okay, okay, I know, most people do have treats every so often. Here are a few points to consider. Having margarine-containing foods as a regular and frequent part of the diet—that is not ideal. If you are baking at home, you can often substitute an oil for margarine, but you will have to decrease the amount and possibly alter other parts of the recipe. See my cookies post. I know that many people do not feel adventurous enough to do that. Instead, you can look for recipes that do not contain margarine (or other solid fat) to begin with. I guarantee you can find recipes that use oil for everything from cookies to fancy pastries. Remember that using oil instead of margarine does not make your dessert into a health food. You are just eliminating the negative effects that margarine has on heart health. Of course, occasionally having a dessert that contains margarine is not the end of the world, but recommended intake of trans fat is as close to zero as you can get.