Life in the Kitchen

Outside, things are greening up. We just had two lovely, warm, sunny, non-windy days in a row. Tiny green seedlings are poking up in the garden, the asparagus is growing inches a day, and I spent a good bit of yesterday digging up perennials and moving them around the yard. It's much like arranging furniture and wall art; I'm never satisfied with the initial placement.

Meanwhile, as we've been looking forward to green, leafy, fresh-from-the-garden things, the kitchen has been busy with other kinds of activity lately. Sprouts in a jar on the windowsill make me happy all through the winter and early spring.

These guys are mung beans:

Nick and I also recently signed up for a weekly raw milk share. One day he told me he was buying a cow. I almost believed him (and if you know Nick, you know why). A share of a cow, which translates to a gallon of milk per week, turns out to be a more manageable proposition.

Most weeks, I turn half of it into yogurt. It's surprisingly simple. Heat two quarts of milk to 180 degrees.

Let it cool back down to 110 degrees. Stir in half a cup of last week's yogurt as a starter. Pour it into the jars.

Then it just needs to sit at around 110 degrees for 7 or 8 hours. Some people put it in the oven on low heat or set it on a heating pad. My oven doesn't go that low, I don't have a heating pad, and I'd prefer a passive solution anyhow. I've found that it works just fine to tuck the jars into a small cooler with a bottle of hot water and a couple of cozy wool socks for the night. I love waking up the next morning and hurrying downstairs to see how it came out.

So far it has always worked. But here's a word to the wise. Note the re-used canning jars? I made a batch in a jar that had just been vacated by dill pickles. Washed, of course, but apparently still holding onto some residual pickle-ness. The yogurt was edible, but distinctly vinegary and dilly. Lesson learned!

In another not-quite-as-planned scenario, I started a batch later than usual in the week. As I heated the milk, it turned clumpy. Apparently it was too old to make good yogurt, but was ripe to become cheese. Who knew? So we heated it a bit more, stirred in some vinegar, and ended up with a jar of ricotta instead.

In addition to the tiny sprouts and even smaller bacteria working away in the kitchen, these larger life forms can often be found hanging out there as well.

I'm rather fond of them, too.