The things smoothies are made from

I typically don't indulge in smoothies.  Don't order them out.  Don't make them at home.  I can't afford the calories.

I've mentioned this little problem before, ahem  ::  the lack of sugary snacks to eat in this house!  It's intentionally rigged to not have temptations that will make me gain weight.

Tonight my sweet tooth was talking to me enticing me to look for a fix.
I looked in the pantry.  Nothing.  You ate all the Iced Zoo cookies, remember?
Nothing in the fridge OR the freezer...pretty desperate. I did, however, find a bag of frozen mixed berries.

Frozen berries in the freezer; homemade yogurt in the fridge....those are the things smoothies are made from.  I tossed half the bag of berries into the blender and a container of my homemade yogurt.  As it puréed, the yogurt became frozen from the berries and in no time the blender was labouring.  So I added milk.

What a delicious purply-raspberry colour.  A taste test revealed it was tart and not satisfying enough for a sweet tooth.  To be expected with....unsweetened berries and unsweetened yogurt. So I got out the sugar bowl and added some sugarrr!

What a treat.  Utterly d-i-v-i-n-e!  I'll have to remember this healthy way to satisfy a craving.

Cake and yogurt

No not together!  

Yesterday afternoon I made my sweet friend, who is such a blessing in my life, a birthday cake for her 70^th birthday. She has a host of visitors staying in her home, and I knew a tea time treat would be enjoyed.

Where the yogurt comes in is this :: I read on the blog, Two Red Wellies, how Emily has experimented with making yogurt in her oven and not in a yogurt maker. It was a hundred blooming degrees outside and I was regretting having a hot oven after baking the cake, when all of a sudden, I thought aha!  Make some yogurt. 

This is what I did.  I heated 4 cups of 1% milk to the boiling point in the microwave.  Then I added one of the cups of yogurt I’d made the week before as a starter.  I have a glass jar with a sealed lid {it’s blue – imagine that!} After mixing the yogurt and milk together gradually so there weren’t lumps in it, I poured it into the jar.  I wrapped the jar in 2 towels and secured them.  Then I popped the little bundle into the still warm oven and closed it.

This morning I have a full jar of 4 cups of yogurt.  Now that was easy.  So much easier than all the measuring into the cups.  However,  I do love the ease of slipping a cup of yogurt into my lunch bag {in a morning rush to get out the door} each day, so I may use the jar of yogurt and make a mega batch of yogurt cheese to use as a substitute for sour cream, ricotta, cream cheese, you name it… yum, cheap, only the price of the milk I used!

Maybe yogurt would be good on cake though?

Thanks, Emily!

More on yogurt cheese

As I wrote recently, I’m back into yogurt making and yes, more yogurt cheese making.  This time around I’m loving the results more than I ever remember.  Last weekend I needed to make an appetiser so I made a smoked salmon pâté.  I didn't have a recipe, but I remembered how we used to make smoked snoek pâté in Cape Town, and I basically did the same thing, except I used yogurt cheese in place of the creamy cottage cheese we use there. 

This is how I made the pâté :  I flaked some wonderful Norwegian smoked salmon from Costco, mixed it with wasabi, a squeeze of lemon juice and dumped in all the yogurt cheese* I had on hand.  *{made with 2 containers of yogurt}  To serve it, I formed it into a little patty, dusted it with black pepper and served it with baguette.  It was very good and so easy.  I forgot to take a photo of the finished product but the next day for lunch I made myself an open face sandwich with avocado. Yum-yum-yum!

I baked banana bread and discovered how divine it is with yogurt cheese.  Ditto on baked potatoes - it has a sour cream taste, but it's so creamy and yummy.

Almost every weekday I take fruit to work for lunch and a container of home made yogurt. I’ve been reveling in summer’s bounty – peaches, berries, and cantaloupe with yogurt is a match made in heaven.  {Just thinking out loud here, but melon, yogurt cheese and prosciutto would be extremely light and summery and....mwah!}

Dusting off the yogurt maker

I bought a Donvier yogurt maker and loved making Bulgarian-type, plain yogurt but when life went to hell in a handbasket four years ago, many things in my life came to an abrupt halt.  Yogurt making was definitely one of them.

I don’t know what got into me, but a week ago I dusted it off and made a batch.  I remember now why I love homemade yogurt so much.  I simply adore the pure, delicate taste.  This week I made another batch, as well as some yogurt cheese.  Yogurt cheese was the basis for the caramel tarts I made this weekend, and not crème fraiche as Jamie Oliver stated that he used in his recipe {I still have not seen a written version of this recipe – just my notes jotted down on the plane ! }

Five years ago, when I bought my yogurt maker {online} I heard of yogurt cheese for the first time.  I’ll confess.  I thought, yug.  I could not have been more wrong. It is fabulous.  It’s a lot like the texture of softened cream cheese, but, again, it has a delicate taste and it has umpteen uses.  It can be spread on bagels and crackers, used in dip recipes, and in fact, used in any and all recipes that call for sour cream, cream cheese, creamy cottage cheese {not really available in USA}, ricotta or for crème fraiche.  Best of all, it’s healthy and low fat or non fat depending on the milk used, and did I say, quite delicious?  Here are some facts about yogurt cheese.

This is how I make it.  I place two containers of my homemade yogurt in a special funnel that I purchased for this purpose.  {The funnel has a plastic mesh liner and the point is open.}  I place the funnel over a jug,

cover it with plastic, and place it in the fridge overnight.  The whey separates from the yogurt and drips into the jug, leaving creamy cheese in the funnel.  I store the cheese in a sterilized glass jar in the fridge.

I see that the type funnel that I have is no longer available for purchase, but there are others if you do a search.  But the cookbook that I bought, Not Just Cheesecake, can still be ordered here.

Yogurt cheese is a spreadable consistency

  

Mwah on fresh fruit and berries

Caramel tartlets before caramel

...and after