Fage. No it's not pronounced F-A-G. It is Fa-yeh!

On with the Yogurt making!

I took all the equipment I would be using and I boiled it to sanitize the material.

I decided to try for a small batch of yogurt, 3 cups to be exact, and poured this amount of milk into a pot and started it on the stove.

Once the milk came to a gentle boil, I shut off the heat, removed it from the stove and spooned a few tablespoons of it into a sanitized bowl. To the bowl, I added a couple of tablespoons of room temperature Fage yogurt that I bought from Publix. I waited until the boiled milk got to 115 degrees and added the milk/yogurt slurry.


Now the hardest part...I just had to cover, set some where warm and wait!

I set the yogurt on my computer to keep it warm...like I said, I'm not putting anything in that oven!

I checked it in the morning about 14 hours into the process and the milk had not set. I got a little worried but I let it sit some more and went to work. When I got back around 7:30 PM the milk had set beautifully! All that's left to do is to strain the yogurt overnight and turn it into Greek style yogurt.

I've had enough yogurt...lets try making some!

If you've read my previous post, you know I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed and have been living with the misery these past few days. I had done ample preparation prior to my operation.
I had bought:

• Apple sauce
• Pudding snack packs (chocolate and vanilla swirl and vanilla)
• Ice Cream (Double Vanilla)
• Yogurt
• Eggs (for scrambled eggs)
• Milk (which I thought was Soy Milk at the time...OK so I don't always read carefully :))
• Odwalla Superfood (Jug size)

Every thing that was mushy and easy to eat...I even considered baby food! OK so maybe I did freak out about it too much...I almost felt that I could eat a burger on Friday (more on this later).

I actually got sucked into Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu. After not watching TV for 3 years I guess I've been sort of living under a rock. That Gordon Ramsay huh? Sure can yell. Anyway I looked up some of his recipes on Youtube and tried his recipe for scrambled eggs. His recipe called for beating the eggs in the pan with some butter and constant stirring, almost like a risotto. It was quite nice...the eggs turned out really fluffy, perfect for a person in my condition.

Other than that, my sustenance came from pudding snacks (healthy I know) and ice cream (even healthier!) and apple sauce. I did attempt to eat some ramen which turned out alright but I digress.

The main reason for this post is that I'm trying to figure out what to do with the half-gallon of whole milk I bought by accident. Being unfamiliar with the Kroger I grabbed the milk next to the vanilla soy milk (I hate flavored soy milk!) and thought it was just plain soy milk! I am lactose intolerant so I'm not crazy about the thought of having to drink it. I thought about baking something with it...but the oven in the house I'm renting is kinda groady...very groady! The owners melted aluminum foil! How do you melt aluminum foil in an oven???!

So I've decided to try my hand at making yogurt! Its healthy and the bacteria produces lactase so I won't have any lactose intolerance issues...hopefully.

I did some research online and found a great many sites detailing how to make yogurt, which doesn't seem that difficult at all!

The first site I checked out was MakeYourOwnYogurt. It provides all the necessary steps for making your own yogurt...but like the good little researcher, I never stop at the first one. Other sites used were wikiHow and BeanSprouts although I'm wondering about the thermos. It sounds like a great idea but from everything I've read, the bacteria need to breathe...isn't a thermos airtight? I'm going to be attempting to make a Greek style yogurt where a lot of the liquid is drained off. I'm planning on using this in cooking to substitute for sour cream and creme fraiche.

More on this process in the next post!

Where's the Wisdom in Teeth?

I just had my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday. I'm currently considering changing my pseudo name to include "Starving"...Starving Stickman...how's that? I did attempt to eat a can of Progresso Chicken Noodle soup yesterday, about 6 hours after my surgery and that took me almost 2 hours to finish. I decided to have a glass of Odwalla Superfood for dinner...."filling!"

It is quite nutritious though.

I've been prone to cravings...actually, I am prone to cravings, I'm just MORE prone to cravings now since I haven't really had any substantial sustenance in the past 22 hours. All I've had was some water...pills and more pills, can o soup and some Odwalla. Hmm what I wouldn't give to be able to eat a Chipotle burrito right now...or maybe some Steak n Shake! I know... no straws!

I am optimistically hopeful I will be able to eat solid foods by the end of the weekend, but for today I think I will have to stick with scrambled eggs.

I typically like my scrambled eggs made with butter. I know...not the most healthy, but you just can't top the flavor of butter.

Easy Scrambled Eggs:
Ingredients:

• 2-3 eggs
• 1/2 tbsp of butter (unsalted)
• 2 tsp of white wine / sake / cooking wine
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Add the butter to an omelette pan and let the butter brown a little
• In the meantime, beat the eggs with the wine and a little salt to taste
  
• Add the eggs to the browned butter and over medium low heat, stir so little curds form
• remove from heat before all liquid is evaporated and continue stirring

If you like your scrambled eggs a little softer, dish sooner, otherwise stir a little longer and the residual heat from the pan will cook the eggs after you remove it from the heat.

That's Broccoli?

Chinese broccoli bears only a passing resemblance to what most of us recognize as broccoli. It is far leafier and has smaller florets. I personally think it has a stronger taste, not in a bad way.

The way I like to prepare it is stir fried with some oyster sauce, granted it's not an option for vegetarians...so I guess the vegetarians can fall back on the preserved tofu sauce or even just a teriyaki sauce. I like the Lee Kum Kee brand, but they have many different varieties of oyster sauce...some quite expensive and others not. I haven't really conducted any research as to why some warrant the cost of $5 a bottle but you can typically find a different brand for a little over $2 in most asian grocery stores.

Preparation is really simple.

1. Wash the broccoli
2. Cut off the ends of the stems where it's dried out a bit
3. Cut the broccoli into bite size lengths, leaving the leaves a bit larger as they will wilt during the cooking process
4. Finely chop 3 cloves of garlic (you can adjust this to your taste)
5. In a saute pan, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil
6. Add the garlic and add the broccoli soon after
7. Stir and let the stems cook and the leaves wilt a bit, about 2 - 3 minutes depending on the flame
8. Add the oyster sauce or your sauce of choice. I don't measure but I would approximate that it's a tablespoon or so of sauce, adjust according to your tastes
9. Add a 2 tbsp of wine/beer/sake or whatever you have on hand
10. Cook until the alcohol cooks off and you are done!

Snow Peas!

So I've done a fair bit of blog dodging, a term I'm borrowing from a blog I recently visited. It's quite an interested food blog, based in the UK. Head over there and give it a read.

Snow peas...Snow peas are so great! They have a light flavor and are slightly sweet. When they're fresh you can even eat them raw!

I like to "de-vein" my snow peas first, otherwise you end up with a tough stringy fiber that runs the length of the pod. Not very tasty!

Once the de-veining is done the snow peas can go for a quick soak and rinse to wash off all the dirt.

From there it's just a quick toss into a skillet with some olive oil and some shallots and or garlic. Add a little salt or soy sauce for seasoning and you have a very simple little dish! Easy!

If you want to mix things up a little bit, you can always adjust the seasoning. Vietnamese fish sauce is always good to add a savory flavor. I've also tried using preserved tofu in the sauce and that works out quite nicely.

If you are NOT adventurous, then the preserved tofu might be a bit too much for you to think about, however it is highly recommended as it adds a particularly rich flavor.

Because snow peas are relatively neutral in flavor, they work well in combinations with other meats and vegetables.

Popular combinations include mixed vegetables , which include bamboo shoots, Chinese black mushroom/ or Shitake, carrots, onions tofu and cellophane noodles in a white sauce