Yogurt....... Easier than you think.

I love the internet!  In my effort to be more self-sustainable, nothing has proven more helpful and user friendly than the internet.  It seems like anything you want to know about you can find online.  I have watched amazing videos on gardening and composting, reviewed countless rain barrel systems for catching and storing your own water, and my latest and greatest find how to make my own fresh yogurt.

 

Yogurt is an amazing food.  Full of beneficial bacteria that help your digestive systems function properly. And made fresh it is even more delicious than you can imagine.  (It seems like everything tastes better when you make it and or grow it yourself doesn’t it.)

 

You don’t need any fancy materials or equipment, it’s really quite simple.  Here are the steps that I use based on the video that I watched on YouTube.  I actually had everything that I needed for the first two batches and only had to buy milk. 

You will need the following things. 

2 Glass Jars (Quart sized)

2 Plastic Lids for Jars (I use the wide mouth)

2% Milk

Sugar

Dehydrated Milk (I used the packets)

A pot big enough to hold two quarts of milk

A Candy Thermometer

A small sized camp cooler

An old towel

A heating pad

The process is pretty simple really.  You start by mixing up your ingredients in the pot.  Measure out how many quarts of milk you want, I always do two quarts at a time because that is the prefect amount to use just one dehydrated milk packet.  (1/2 cup of dry milk per quart if you’re not using packets) To this you add 1/3 of a cup of sugar for each quart.  The resulting milk mixture tastes very sweet.  Over medium low heat, you need to bring this mixture up to 160 degrees F.  Be sure to stir as you go so you don’t scorch the milk.  This takes about 15 minutes to get up to the correct temperature.  (A note on flavoring, at 150 degrees, you can add flavorings such as vanilla, mint, or the like if you want flavored yogurt.) Use the candy thermometer to check it along the way and then pour the milk mixture into the sterilized jars. 

You can Sterilize jars as you normally would, by boiling them, or, you can use the method that I learned in the video, which is to Microwave them for 2 mins.  This makes them unusable for canning as it makes the glass brittle, so be sure to label them so you don’t accidently try to can peaches in them.   I wash them first in some soapy water, rinse them good, and then 2 mins for the jars and 1 min for the lids will get them sterilized and ready to be filled. 

At this point your jars are filled with the warm milk liquid that is hovering somewhere around 160 degrees F.  We had to get it to that temperature in order to kill anything that might have been living it.  You know this process as pasteurization.  Yogurt is living bacteria that would be killed in this process, so if you added yogurt culture now, it would be killed by the high temperatures.  So, I put the jar lids on loosely just to keep anything from settling into the jars, and leave them sit on the counter for about an hour.  At this point, the milk temp should be around 110 to 100 degrees F, which is the perfect temp for bacteria to grow.  While I am waiting I get the cooler ready to go. 

To prep your cooler, simply lay the hot pad in the bottom of the cooler and drape a towel over it.  I like to leave all sorts of towel hanging out the top so I use a full sized towel.  We will use this to pack the top of the cooler once we add the jars.  I start up the heat pad while the milk is cooling to get the “incubator” pre heated.  I have a typical Wal-Mart style hot pad.  The kind you use when you have sore muscles  and what not, so I use the lowest setting possible on mine, which is “warm.”

Ok, so once your milk is cooled down, it’s time to add the culture, take one large table spoon of yogurt and add it to each jar (store bought is okay for the first batch, but after that just save a bit to start the next batch.)  Stir it around briefly to distribute the bacteria throughout the solution and close the lids tightly.  You are now ready to add the jars to the cooler.  Simply place them into the cooler and stuff the towel around and over the top of them. 

Incubate in this warm environment for 8 to 10 hours and then refrigerate. 

Now, a note on this incubation process. The nice gentlemen on the YouTube video used the same hot pad that he started seeds with.  I have seen these in my seed catalogs and if you have them, feel free to use them.  I have the Wal-Mart special which has an automatic shut off so you don’t burn yourself.  This is great when my back hurts and I fall asleep with it on, not so good when I want 8 hours of gentle heat for yogurt making.  So, I just check on it periodically and if the light is off, I kick it on again.  I have done this twice now and learned something on accident the second time around.  On my first attempt I kept kicking the temp back on through the whole 10 hours.  The yogurt was very good, but came out a bit runny.  Some research led me to think that it was either too hot, or too cold during the “incubation” process but I had no way to tell which it may have been.  Then, on my second attempt, we left the house to visit some family.  I had intended to take it with me so I could keep checking on it, but I forgot.  So, my incubation process included about 3 hours of kicking the heat on whenever my wife or I saw it off, and then like 7 hours of just sitting in the cooler, insulated by the cooler and the towel wrapped around the jars.  When I got home, I was sure I had ruined it, but to my surprise the jars were still slightly warm and the resulting yogurt was thick and delicious.  I haven’t replicated this procedure yet again to see if this is my secret for the tools I am using as I am still eating that second batch, but it was a pleasant surprise. 

If you like fruit flavored yogurt, you can always add some fresh fruit to this yogurt and just stir it in.  I have enjoyed adding just a spoon full of my homemade jam and mixing it in before I eat it.  Taste better than anything I have ever gotten at the store and I know exactly what I am eating. 

Might be a fun project to try this time of year while we are all stuck inside during the colder weather. 

Here is the link to the YouTube Video that got me started. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BK7VIvMLSc

Happy Living and God Bless.

Beginning with the End in Mind

Ok. So we're going to have a backyard homestead this year.  What on earth does that mean?  I think that this could mean all kinds of different things for all kinds of different people.  It just depends upon your circumstances at this given moment.  The most useful thing you can do given that it is January 1st is begin by thinking about what you want out of your backyard.  Do you just want a garden with some tomatoes, garlic, peppers and onions so you can make your own salsa?  Or do you maybe want to dive into canning and preserving some fruits and veggies from your garden?  Do you have any animals in mind?  If so, which ones and how many?

I think the simplest thing to do is to start by thinking about what your family will actually use.  This is often dictated greatly by your resources for storing your surplus.  How much freezer space do you have?  Do you have a root cellar or cool basement?  Have you ever canned anything at home?  It is very, very easy to grow tons and tons of food in a back yard if you put your mind to it.  But, being able to store or use what you grow is a totally different matter.  

So, what do you want out of your garden?  Here is a sample list of things that I am considering for this year.  

1.     Canned Cherries

2.     Canned Nectarines

3.     Canned Tomato Juice

4.     Canned Jams (Raspberry, Blackberry, Cherry, etc. etc.)

5.     Canned Tomatoes

6.     Canned Green Beans

7.     Canned Peas

8.     Canned Whole Berries (to add to homemade yogurt)

9.     Canned Dill Pickles

10. Canned Pickled Jalapenos

11. Homemade Wine

12. Frozen herbs and Jalapenos (ice cube trays)

13. Frozen Zucchini

14. Frozen Soybeans

15. Frozen Salsa

16. Frozen Green Beans

17. Frozen Carrots

18. Frozen Corn

19. Frozen Peppers

20. Dried Cherries

21. Dried Strawberries

22. Dried Apples (Maybe)

23. Dried Tomatoes

24. Potatoes (Root Cellar?)

25. Onions (Root Cellar?)

26. Garlic (Root Cellar?)

So, you can see from this simple list that there is a whole host of options available from a back yard.  If I had nut trees then we could have easily added frozen nuts like walnuts or almonds.  Once you identify what types of food products you want from your garden, it is then time to determine how many of each you feel is reasonable.  For this purpose I created a spread sheet to both monitor and plan my canning resources.  Simple tools like this allow you to plan such things as how many cans and freezer containers you need to buy so that you are ready when the harvest time comes.  Planning this out ahead of time lets you make small purchases here at the start of the year and over the next few months, instead of having to do it all at once, when everyone else is, during the canning and bottling season. 

Take some time now and think about what you and your family might actually want from your yard/garden and write it down.  Look through your cupboards and see what types of products you are buying at the store and ask that glorious question….. What if I could make/grow this myself?  What you think you can and will use should drive your decisions when planting time comes. 

Happy Living and God Bless!!

Existing Components

Due to my love of gardening, I am fortunate to hit the ground running in a sense.  I have a few things in place already in my back yard to help get the food production machine going.  Let me give you a quick overview of what have going already.

First of all, for this area, we are blessed with a very deep back yard.  Our house faces east, which means the back yard has good sun exposure throughout the day.

Over the past few years we have added a few plants that provide us with food every year.  We have two cherry trees, a nectarine tree and a recently planted apple tree, which was a great find, combining four apple varieties on one tree.  Two years ago I planted some raspberry bushes along the back fence in my small garden area, and a black berry bush as well.  And, we planted a grape vine in front of our shed.  I have a few strawberries growing in a side bed but not nearly enough to produce an appreciable amount of food.  I have plans to add more this year.

And, we have an existing garden area that I have been working with for the past few years, although the raspberries and blackberries have taken up a bit of the already somewhat small space.  In the past we have grown tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, corn, radishes, summer squash, green beans, spinach, carrots, potatoes and winter squash..... although not always in the same year.  This is a great resource at the moment because we have been "building" this soil over the past few years with copious additions of grass clippings, leaves, manure, and compost.  The earth worms love this area and my yard in generals o I am blessed with was is some very fertile garden soil.

It is from this humble beginning that I embark on this journey into back yard homesteading.  Don't worry if you don't have these types of components in place.  Just start adding them to your yard where they make sense.  I think I maybe payed 15 or 20 dollars each for the fruit trees.  This means of course that they were small when we started and it was at least 2 or 3 years before they produced any appreciable amount of fruit.  In fact, last year was the first year that the cherries did anything.  It will probably be a year or two before the apples do anything of consequence.  Just get a few that you think you will enjoy and get them in the ground.  Fruit is one option, but nuts are also great additions.  The most important thing is to get started somewhere.  If trees are not an option for you then keep checking back as I plan to detail other ideas a projects that you can add to your yard and often incorporate into your existing landscape with ease.

Happy Living

Why Try??

If you ended up on this blog and are taking the time to read these posts, then you like me are probably a bit concerned about the food available in this country.  I live in Eastern Oregon, just a few miles from Boise Idaho, so I have access to all sorts of food options. I am not going down this road because we live in the middle of no where.  Rather, I have learned over the past few years what exactly is going on with our food and as a new father, I think my daughters and wife deserve better.

Like wise, I am not what some of you might refer to as a "granola." My involvement in this "movement" is new and growing every day it seems.  Perhaps in time I will reach full blown "granola" status, but for the moment, I am just as normal as any of the rest of you.  I get up in the morning and slip on my slacks to head off to school where I teach 3rd and 4th grade.  When life is crazy, we reach for the Mac and Cheese (whole wheat these days, can't even taste the difference in my opinion) just like many of us do.  I love college football, coach middle school basketball and love nothing more than spending time with my wife and daughters.  I am just your typical, everyday American.  

So why try?  Well, I guess it all really started a few years ago when my wife and I stumbled across a movie you may have heard of.  The title was "Food Inc." and what my wife and I saw was a food system that we felt was out of control.  Animals being treated cruelly and living is horrible conditions.  Farming practices that we not in the best interest of the farmers who were working hard to provide for us.  Which was further emphasized when we watched "King Corn."  I remember looking at my wife in amazement. We literally had no idea how the world was really working.  My daughters videos about farms show cute old farmers with bib overalls, a sheep, goat, pig, cow and horse all living side by side while ducks and chickens pecked in the yard while the rabbits jumped around happily.  This is what everyone thinks a farm is, but this type of farm is virtually non existent these days.  Instead it has been replaced by super farms that typically focus on just a few specific crops.  

I know this old boy who grew up on the farm he still runs with his son and brother.  He tells me stories about how when he was a kid the farm that they now own supported no less that 5 or 6 families.  When he was a kid, they raised chickens, for both meat and eggs, rabbits, and pigs all while running a small dairy operation. Today, they grow corn, wheat, and alfalfa.  Most of which from what they have told me is used for animal feed both here at home and abroad.  They have a small herd of cattle, but other than that, this "typical american farm" focuses on just a few specific things, mostly from what I gather is because it would be far too expensive to get the equipment necessary to try to grow anything else, and because in our area, there is not much of a market for anything else, other than onions. 

I fear that the industry has lead farmers down a road that isn't designed to provide actual food. Instead, they grown feed for animals to feed our ever growing desire for meat...... particularly beef, but also pork and chicken as well, which I am sorry to say appear to in large part be treated as resources instead of living creatures. And of course, to supply the raw materials needed to make that ever popular ingredient, High Fructose Corn Syrup.  

So, why try?  Because I think that we all have the capacity to do a little something for ourselves and our families.  I feel that we can all generate a significant portion of our own food right in our own back yards, and in the process, provide our families with food that is not only better tasting, but also better for us, and better for the environment.  

So, here is to a great year and making the choice to get started.  

Greetings

Welcome to my blog, dedicated to being as self sustainable as I possibly can on my standard sized lot here in the middle of town.  My goal for this year is to see just how much food and other resources I can produce and preserve, and who knows, maybe even share a little with family and friends along the way.

Along the way, I will share projects that we have already started and new projects as they come into play.  As I find great resources online I will share them with you here, as well as the successes and failures we encounter along the way.

I hope that once we get up and running this blog will provide you not only with resources and ideas, but with some real world experiences (and realistic expectations) for just what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it.

Happy Living!!