I did it! I cleaned all the crap out of the cutlery drawer. I also showed the newly cleaned drawer to anyone who walked in the kitchen, although most didn't care as much as I did.
I've been making yogurt regularly and using a bit from the last batch to start the next with great success, until this past week. I had it in my head to try making the yogurt from almond milk instead of soy, in the interest of variety and just to see what that would be like. For my first batch I decided to mix half soymilk and half almond milk. The mixture bubbled and fermented a bit but didn't make yogurt.
Never one to give up, I reheated the mixture, let it cool and added fresh starter. Still, some bubbles and a fermented smell but no yogurt. I'm left wondering if I messed something up in the preparation or if almond milk isn't a good base for yogurt.
I'll be trying again Sunday night. This time I'll do one thermos batch of soymilk and one of almond milk. I'll also be sure to pay very close attention to my thermometer. I confess, I often put the giant measuring cup with the heated soymilk and thermometer in it next to me on the coffee table to cool. I glance at it while I'm knitting or enjoying an old movie with Jim. Usually I catch it just in time but sometimes I lose track and it gets too cold. That might have been the problem with this batch.
BTW, a batch of yogurt that doesn't quite set works wonderfully in place of clabbered milk in biscuit recipes. If your yogurt does set, the whey that you drain off to thicken the yogurt works really well in biscuit recipes too.
The beautiful weather yesterday distracted me from my inside tasks and lured me outside so I haven't really decluttered much more. I've got the itch for summer. Fortunately, we're heading upstate this weekend. A quick call to town hall in our little Adirondack town yesterday revealed that there is still some snow on the ground up there. No planting this weekend but I'll hopefully be able to plan the new home for the currants since there are blueberry bushes in their original place.
My worms have been given strict orders to work overtime so I can adequately fertilize these thrice transplanted bushes!
2 comments:
Congrats on the drawer, Katie. I would have been impressed (and wanted to see the crap you took out of it, too!)
Were you able to use your failed almond soymilk not-yogurt for baking?
I was too embarassed to take pictures of all the crap I removed. Honestly, if you'd seen the shape some of those knives and rubber scrapers were in you would have been mortified. The funny thing is no one can tell what's missing. That's how crappy and disfunctional it all was.
The failed yogurt was wonderful in biscuits and pancakes.
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