Growing Bacteria in My Kitchen...On Purpose.

Doesn't that title just make your mouth water in anticipation of a dinner invite from our family?

Yesterday, I decided to try my hand at a new kitchen adventure: home made yogurt. Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why would someone want to make yogurt, when there is perfectly good yogurt you can buy at the store?" I know there are people asking themselves this, because those were the exact words that ran through my head when a friend offered me a yogurt maker 4 years ago. I ended up passing it on to my mom because, "she does weird things like that" and never gave it a second thought...Until I had a 10 month old who is consuming yogurt at the rate of 2 quarts/week. You read that correctly: 2, $3.50 quarts of yogurt per week. That would be $28 dollars in yogurt/month, $336 in just yogurt/year. Ouch.

Milk however, is $4.00/gallon from a local dairy here. So yesterday, with the aid of my favorite kitchen appliance the crock pot, I turned 2 quarts of milk into 2 quarts of yogurt. Each quart of yogurt now costs ~1.00, a savings of $240/year. Not too shabby.

Without further ado, here's how I grew bacteria in my kitchen on purpose:

First, I poured 2 quarts of milk into the crock pot and set in on low for 2.5 hours. The milk is heated for sterilization purposes, since you will be leaving it at room temp for quite a while, you only want the right kind of bacteria growing.

Next, I unplugged the crock pot and let it sit (lid on) for 3 hours. The milk must cool to a good incubation temp for the bacteria, somewhere between 90 and 110 degrees.

Then, I wisked in 1/2 cup of plain yogurt with active bacteria (I just used the bottom of the tub from the store) and let it sit, wrapped in a towel for 8 hours.

Honestly, I was a little skeptical. Could it really be that easy? At 10pm last night, I unwrapped the crockpot and found...yogurt. It tastes like and has the same consistency of the store bought yogurt for a fraction of the cost.

It's probably not something I'd bother with if I didn't have such a voracious yogurt eater, but I have a feeling I'll be making quite a few batches during this season of our lives.

Caleb wasn't so sure about his first bite of yogurt way back in March, but now, it's a breakfast staple

Adventures in Gardening

Isn't it funny how once you're out on your own, your parents suddenly get even smarter? When I was in high school, my parents grew the most incredible garden in our side yard. I was usually too "busy" with homework to help (it's such a convenient time to do homework when your parents are slaving in the hot sun to weed and manure the garden...). Now that I'm out on my own, paying for my own groceries and missing the taste of fresh vegetables...lets just say I wish the homework had waited. So, despite the fact that my parents are wonderful gardeners, I'm totally making this up as I go.

Our fist major gardening challenge is the fact that we only have a 10' by 20' rectangle of our yard that gets full sunlight. The rest is shaded by a gorgeous maple 95% of the day. Now, this may sound like a decent sized garden, until you consider much of it was already planted with flowers and bushes by the previous owners. I realize we could just rip those things out, but I happen to think they're beautiful so we're trying to co-exist.

Before

Our tangible journey towards gardening began about a month ago when Money Saving Mom featured a deal where you could pay $5 shipping and receive 30 random seed packets from an organic seed company. Sold. Our seeds arrived with about 10 packets of lettuce, another 10 of an assortment of veggies, 5 packets of herbs, and 5 flowers. Apparently we would be growing lots of lettuce. I know nothing about growing lettuce. So I went to the most reliable information source, the internet, and did some reading. These are the basics I came away with: sow 2 lettuce seeds/inch, water consistently, and thin out the plants as they pop up so you're heads grow 8-12 inches apart (thinnings can be used in salad, yum!).

So armed with that mighty body of knowledge I had David dig up the grass in the yard, dig a few trenches that I filled with potting soil, dug an itty bitty trench with my trowel, dropped the seeds in, covered them up and watered them. Are you aware that a lettuce seed is about the size of the period at the end of a sentence? I found it almost impossible to drop only 2 per inch. I was lucky if there were only 3. It's survival of the fittest in our garden for sure.

Breaking ground on our garden

Planting. And yes, I am wearing ear muffs. It was 65 degrees and crazy windy. I have sensitive ears, ok?

Finished. Check out my awesome sticks marking each row. I'm planning to replace those with Popsicle sticks with the lettuce type's name on them. Each row is a different type.

The heads won't come to maturity for about 2 months according to the back of the seed packet, but I'm sure we'll have thinnings to eat on before then. Assuming anything grows that is.

Here are some more pictures of the project (and of our littlest big helper!)

May: New Goal and a Caleb Update

May has arrived (though I'm still not quite sure how we are nearly halfway through the year already) so I guess I ought to set a goal for this month...

To recap, in January my goal was routine. Specifically, to take time in the morning to eat breakfast, exercise, shower, dress for the day and have a quiet time This has been a little sporadic with all the moving, but I'm finding my groove again : ) Though things like exercise have moved to the evening as David and I are taking our daily walk or gardening almost every day.

In February, I wanted to focus on being more loving both in the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth. It was an eye-opening and transforming month that I'm thankful to say has had a long term effect. David was and is amazingly helpful at keeping me accountable in this area.

During March I followed along with Simple Mom's Project Simplify and in April I took a break to focus on moving and Easter.

I've also achieved some mini-goals of mine along the way. Two weeks ago my friend Jen agreed to be my guide at our local farmer's market (somewhere I've been meaning to visit for quite some time). I was amazed at the variety of produce, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese and meat...80% for far less than I pay at the grocery store. I guess that's the beauty of living in Amish country. I'm totally hooked.

Along that line, another mini-goal I've just started is using cash to pay for our groceries. Partially because I'm buying so much at the farmers market now, and they don't exactly take debit, but also because I've heard so many people swear by how much less they spend when they can see the cash leaving their hands.

Yesterday was my first experience of handing over cash at the grocery store (yes, I still shop there too!) and I can definitely say there is something about parting with a portion of money from an envelope that is far more real feeling than just swiping a card. I'm excited (and nervous) to see what's left in our envelope at the end of the month!

My big goal for May however, is to get our garden going. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I've heard the best way to learn is by doing. So, with a few basics in mind I'll be planting lettuce this week and tomatoes after we get home from a week long conference in Baltimore for David's work.

I would put off planting in general until after our travel, but with David's schedule that would probably mean not having a garden at all by the time I put it off for a week here or a week there. Hopefully one of our neighbors won't mind getting paid in vegetables in exchange for doing a little watering while we're gone. If not, it'll be survival of the fittest : )

Last, but not least, a Caleb update! As I mentioned in an earlier post, he hasn't been a big fan of finger foods thus far. I decided to just offer them each day, encourage him to pick them up, but not to push the issue. After a week of alternately smearing the food and completely ignoring it, Caleb has decided it's kind of cool to put food in his own mouth.

Yesterday he fed himself several chunks of banana covered in rice cereal (to stop it from slipping out of his fingers so easily). Then today he ate chunks of mushy carrot and even tried a cheerio (though after he gagged on that I decided I'd either spray them with a little water first or wait a bit to introduce them again). I wish I'd gotten a picture, but I couldn't find my camera. It was a beautiful mess! It's so incredible to watch him grow and change each day.