Making Food

I have been wanting to try a few new things lately and so this weekend I just did it.  Wow.  I did it.  Haha.  Sometimes it feels like I don't have time for anything new so when I get to do something new I feel so accomplished.

I made pita bread/pockets, yogurt and cream cheese, and of course ice cream in our ice cream ball.  I feel like I'm leaving something out but I will show you in pictures and then post more if I remember more.

My recipe for all three of these things is actually not my own they come from Heavenly Homemakers blog.  (I LOVE HER!!!)   pita bread and yogurt and cream cheese  She has recipes for just about everything that I want to make!

I will write out the recipes here as well for quick reference but if you haven't gone to her blog you so need to.  She is brilliant!




Yogurt and Cream Cheese        Heavenly Homemakers      Yield: 1-2 quarts       Time: 7-24 hours

1-2 quarts of whole milk
¾ cup plain yogurt

1. Pour the yogurt into a quart jar (using glass container is important). Heat the milk on the stove in a saucepan until it is just under 100 degrees.

2. Pour the milk over the yogurt in the jar and shake.

3. Place the jar into a cooler of hot water, cover and leave in the cooler for seven hours.

There, you just made yogurt!

Now, you can eat the yogurt as I mentioned before, or you can take your yogurt and make cream cheese.

(When you serve you can add whatever you would like. Honey, vanilla, fruit, granola, etc.)

1. So, to make CREAM CHEESE, line a strainer with a tea towel. Pour the yogurt into the tea towel.

2. You need to secure the tea towel full of yogurt and hang it for 7-10 hours (I usually do this overnight) so that the whey can drip off. I’m sure there must be a more impressive way to hang your yogurt, but what we’ve come up with works just fine!

3. Here are the secrets to my effective cream cheese-hanging-whey-dripping process (I know, you’re on the edge of your chair!)

4. I fold over the top of the tea towel and hold it closed with a couple of rubber bands. Then, I use several more rubber bands to attac a long wooden spoon to the wadded up tea towel. Then, I use a rope to dangle the tea towel from a cabinet door. And, of course I leave a bowl under th whole contraption so that whey doesn’t drip all over the floor.

5. Then, after you can tell that the whey has all separated from the cream cheese (you can tell it’s finished if it isn’t dripping any more), then you pull the whole thing down and scrape the cream cheese into a jar.

 

 Here is my tea towel with the yogurt inside dripping out the whey.  The bowl was a little over a quarter full of whey when I got up this morning.

Here is my finished yogurt in the fridge getting chilled so we can eat it.  We ate some this morning with blueberries, honey, and some Grape Nuts.  It was delicious!  The gallon of milk that we bought was about $3.50.  We got 1 quart yogurt, 1 small jar cream cheese, and still have 1/2 gallon of milk.  Normally about 1 quart of plain yogurt costs me about $3.50 so I think this is a winner.

My yogurt right when it was done.

The whey

The small jar cream cheese.

 So yummy!  I tried a little of the cream cheese plain this morning and it was delicious!  I can't wait to make the whole wheat homemade bagels that Heavenly Homemakers has on her site.  I'll try and post that too.





Whole Wheat Pita Bread Yield:     8 pita breads, 16 pita pockets      Time: 1 hour 20 mins.

By: Heavenly Homemakers

3 cups whole wheat flour              2 Tbsp honey
1 ½ tsp yeast                                 1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sea salt                                 1 cup warm water

1. Stir together flour, yeast, and sea salt. Add honey, oil, and water, stirring until a nice dough forms. Knead the dough on a well floured surface for 4-5 minutes. (In other words: Mix dry ingredients. Add liquid ingredients. Stir well. Knead.)

2. Place dough back into the bowl, cover, and allow dough to rest and rise for about an hour. (My dough never rose very high, but that’s okay.)

3. Pull dough out of the bowl. Knead for about 30 seconds. Roll dough into a ball and cut into 8 equal parts.

4. Roll each part into a circle with a rolling pin, about 6 or 7 inches in diameter. Place circles directly onto greased baking sheet after rolling.

5. Allow the dough circles to rest/rise on the baking sheet while you heat your oven to 500 degrees. Place baking shee of pita circles into hot oven. Bake for 5-8 minutes-just long enough for them to puff up and brown slightly.

6. Allow pitas to cool, slice in half for pita pockets or use flat as pita bread.

I didn't get pictures of the whole process but I did get some of them finished.

 

I made the pita bread last night and then we made pita pizzas with them for lunch today.  They were so good!  I know this picture is kind of blurry but I think you can see it okay.  We did these pizzas on top of the pita bread but if you were to cut this in half you would have a nice pocket. 

I'm so excited to be making more things myself.  I like how it's a lot cheaper most of the time, that I know what is going into my food, and I get a sense of accomplishment out of it.  I look forward to a lot more fun baking and cooking in 2013!  WOW!!! 2013!  That's crazy :P