Yoghurt, yogurt, yoghourt, or yogourt... is great stuff. There are quite few stories about the origins of yogurt (as I was taught to spell it). One story is that the Bulgars (people who migrated to the Balkans in seventh century AD) created the first yogurt cultures with bacteria in their goat skin bags. Of course, no one really knows where the idea of yogurt came from but there are quite a few theories.

Yogurt is amazing! Who wouldn't want to claim it? First of all, yogurt is easier to digest than milk. Often people who cannot properly digest milk, either because of lactose intolerance or protein allergies, can tolerate yogurt. There are quite a few great articles and studies that talk about why yogurt is easy to digest but to simplify: yogurt contains helpful enzymes that improve lactose absorption. A great source of calcium, yogurt is also proven to keep your colon happy by promoting the growth of helpful bacteria and ridding your system of harmful nitrates. Here are some other great facts about yogurt: reduces the instances of yeast infections in women, lowers cholesterol, a single serving contains 20% of the daily recommended amount of protein, and it helps children to grow. BUT most yogurts on the market are not that great. In fact, only Stonyfield Farm's yogurt and a few others (like Dannon All Natural) are even good for you. Most yogurts are watered down with sugars, corn syrup, coloring agents, and artificial flavors.

Many people think that children won't eat yogurt that doesn't come in a tube or have crazy colors. Wrong! My stepson happily created and devoured entire fruit and yogurt parfaits at age five. Parfaits are a wonderful and quick breakfast or dessert! They are beautiful, kid-friendly, and very healthy. Simply create multiple layers of granola, fresh fruit, and plain yogurt in a glass, then serve. I like to serve them in fluted champagne glasses or even brandy snifters and use iced tea spoons to eat them with. You can also use frozen and fresh fruits with yogurt to create healthy and delicious smoothies:

When looking for live yogurt cultures... look for labels like this:

Getting sick of buying yogurt? Make your own. Here is a great recipe given to me by a terrific lady from Virginia, Cheryl Heatwole. (Thank you, Cheryl!! You are the BEST!)

What you need:

1 13 ounce can of evaporated milk (1 2/3 cups)
2 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup nonfat dried milk
1 rounded tablespoon of live culture plain yogurt

Mix and pour the water and evaporated milk into a kettle over low heat with a candy thermometer attached to the side.  Scald until bubbles form around the edge of the kettle and the thermometer reads 180 degrees F.  Remove from heat and stir in dried milk.  Let cool to about 100 degrees and add the starter.  Use a whisk to stir the mixture until smooth and silky.  Pour into clean glass jars that have lids (I boil the jars first but let them cool before use)   Now for the options.  I love options.

If you have an electric stove:  Preheat the oven to 150 degrees, turn off heat and leave the oven light on. Set covered jars on a cookie sheet in the oven.  Close oven door and do not disturb for 3 full hours even though you are just aching to mess with them.  Resist! 

Don't have an electric oven?  Use a crockpot by preheating it on low for about 15-20 minutes (walls should be very warm).  Put the covered jars in the crockpot, cover, and turn off the heat.  Every 30-40 minutes, turn the heat back on low for about ten minutes. 

After 3 hours, tilt the jars ever so slightly to see if they have firmed up.  If firm, stick them in the fridge for four hours or so (I like to make yogurt before I go to bed so I can have fresh yogurt for breakfast but do whatever makes you happy. 

Serve with any fresh, frozen, or canned fruits.

Quarks and Soft Set Cheese

A quark is a subatomic particle. Yes. But it is also a soft, smooth, spreadable European cheese which is not aged and very much like cream cheese. It is made with pasteurized milk and a starting culture. Quark can be used in place of sour cream on potatoes, cream cheese in cheesecake, as a substitute for ricotta in lasagna, in macaroni n' cheese, and to make delicious appetizers. I much prefer it to cream cheese and like to serve it with hot pepper jelly on whole wheat crackers. Guess what? It can be made in your kitchen with plain yogurt, a colander, and some clean cotton fabric or several coffee filters.

I have made quark using buttermilk and milk, but find that the yogurt is much easier. Here is the deal:

Wash and rinse two 10" X 10" pieces of organic cotton cloth. Place one piece in the bottom of a colander in your sink.

Take a small container of plain live yogurt or however much you desire (for your first batch you may want just a half cup) and scrape it onto the fabric in the colander.

Place the other piece of fabric over the yogurt and weigh down with a saucer & some sort of jar(I usually use a jar of preserves).

Let this rest and drain overnight. It will be ready to serve in the morning. Simply scrape it into a dish, cover, and refrigerate until you need it!

Some nice ideas for quarks:

- Chop up onion, chives, sun dried tomato, salt & pepper then blend them into the quark for a savory spread for fresh bread

- Dice some fresh strawberries, raspberries, or peaches and mix them with your quark with a little sugar for dessert

- Serve with jams and jellies for a lovely snack at tea time

- Use quark to make delicious quiches

For individuals with a great deal of time on their hands, the buttermilk recipe I used can be found here: http://rheology.tripod.com/QuarkMakingOfHenning.htm Truthfully, the yogurt quark tastes exactly like the buttermilk quark. No difference except that you don't have to wait around for three days!

All historical information comes from Wikipedia which means that it might be completely inaccurate.  But then again, maybe not.  Who knows?  It sounds cool though, huh?

Note: There are many methods of incubating yogurt – even pricey little yogurt incubators which can be purchased with relative ease – but the ones I have listed are them only ones that I have tested.  My advice?  Just make sure that your kettles and utensils are clean and save yourself the expense of buying an official yogurt incubator. 

Congratulations, Angela!  You won a handmade grocery tote!  Please email me lacy@razorfamilyfarms.com with your address and I'll send it to you.  Enjoy!  We're all jealous!

Another tote bag will go to a lucky commenter on this post.

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Soap is essential to our existence and enjoys a rich history of prolonging human life (and enabling us to tolerate close quarters with one another). As with any process that dates back a few millennia, there is quite a bit of legend and myth surrounding both the origin and the manufacturing of soap. One of the best known legends is that soap takes its name from Mount Sapo, the location of many animal sacrifices by the ancient Romans. Rain then washed the mixture of animal fats and wood ash onto the clay banks of the Tiber where women scrubbed their families’ clothing and first discovered that the soapy water made the clothes much cleaner. Of course, animal sacrifices would probably not have created enough fat to make soap but “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” right?

Most experts credit the Ancient Babylonians as the first to produce soap since they carved a tablet with the first known soap recipe in 2200 B.C. While the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Mayans were bathing regularly in sudsy bubble baths, the early (and stinky) Europeans were still whacking each other over the head with wooden clubs in caveman fashion. During this time, soap making was actually quite dangerous. Soap makers boiled animal fats, water, and lye in large kettles outdoors. The only test for the strength of their lye solution was to float an egg in it. All of that changed when LeBlanc, a French chemist, figured out how to create sodium hydroxide (lye) from sodium chloride (table salt) in 1790. Thank goodness for the French, eh? Soap making practices dramatically improved and soap no longer “took your hide right off.”

So how do you make soap properly and why bother doing so in today’s world where it so readily available? Isn’t making your own soap expensive? Isn’t lye dangerous? 

Truthfully, making soap can be as expensive and complicated as you decide to make it. If you want to keep it inexpensive and simple, well… you’ve come to the right place. Here’s how (I’ll dispel the myths along the way):

The first step is to make friends with your local butcher and ask him/her to save the trimmings of fat from the steaks and cuts of beef that come in. Since those scraps are usually tossed, you can obtain the tallow for free (cha-ching!). Gather a large pot, sieve, and cheese cloth. Set them up so that you can drain the fat into the pot. Now grind up the fat with a cast iron meat grinder or food processor.

Take the ground trimmings and put them in a kettle with 1 Tbsp of salt per pound of trimmings and cover with water (the salt ensures that when you make soap – it makes nice firm bars). Let this mixture slow cook on low heat until all that remains is a gray bubbling brew with gray hamburger meat floating in it. Be sure that you keep the fan on above the stove.

Pour the contents of the kettle into the sieve which is lined with cheese cloth and let it strain out. If you have lots of trimming to process still – refill your kettle with water, salt, and ground trimmings. Continue processing until all is finished. Now refrigerate the drippings overnight.

The next morning, scoop out the solid fat on the top and throw out the brown jelly. Weigh the rendered fat and use the fat calculator to figure out how much lye and water you need. Just plug and chug with your amount of tallow and that you are using water and sodium hydroxide (lye). Need conversions? Click here.

Gather lye, distilled water (or rain water), scales, stainless steel kettle, resin cake pans or soap moulds, glass measuring cup with a handle, two candy thermometers with kettle clips, and the tallow. Goggles and gloves should be handy, too. Lye (sodium hydroxide) can be found in your local hardware store in the plumbing section. I don’t advise making it from wood ash, actually.

Measure out your lye and water. Now, pay attention!!! Make sure that you are either outdoors or the fan above your stove is on. Put on your safety goggles. Add the lye to the water. The water will get VERY hot. Watch the thermometer temperature climb. It’s amazing!

Place the tallow in the kettle and begin to melt it on low heat. Stir frequently with the fan on. Make sure that you attach thermometers to lye water measuring cup and the kettle full of tallow. As soon as the tallow has melted completely, remove from heat.  Once the lye water and the fat reach the roughly the same temperature – about 100-120 degrees Fahrenheit – add the lye water to the fat. Stir. Now keep stirring. I like to use a hand mixer (a yard sale find) but stick blenders are nice, too. I stir for a while and then take a break and then come back to stir some more. Some people will tell you that you must stir constantly and never leave the mixture alone. But I'm not some people. Stir at least every 5-10 minutes until the temperature rises 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you wish to add scents or colors, stir them in and pour the soap into moulds. I use the resin cake pans because I don’t have line them and the soap is easy to remove after hardening. In twenty-four hours, remove the soap from the pan(s) and cut into bars. Let the bars air or age on cooling racks or use produce containers. Some people will tell you that you MUST age the soap. You don't actually have to age the bars. They really are perfectly safe for use if you have followed the advice of the lye calculator – no more acidic than pool water.

How much did it cost? I purchased the lye for $1 a can (on sale) and used about ¼ of the can, got the rainwater from the sky, and obtained the fat for free. I made four pounds of soap for 25 cents. At no point did I feel that I took any health risks during the manufacturing process.

What do I do with all that soap? First, I take a bar and make a few gallons of laundry detergent. Want to know how?

You will need the following:

2 cups or 1 grated bar of unscented, organic soap (Fels Naptha, Sunshine, Octagon, or homemade soap)

6 cups water (to be added cup at a time)

3/4 cup Borax Natural Laundry Booster

3/4 cup all natural washing soda

1 quart HOT tap water

1 gallon tap water

Using an old kettle, heat soap and two cups of water (add the other four cups one at a time, stirring constantly). Don't let it boil even if you are really enjoying yourself and have begun to cackle while quoting "Macbeth." Measure & mix the Borax and washing soda. Pour the mixture into your bubbling brew. Stir. Continue to stir until dissolved and then remove from heat. Resist the urge to stick your feet in even though it does look totally inviting.

Add 1 quart of HOT tap water to the bottom of a large tub.Pour the soapy mixture (which should be thickening slightly) into the tub and stir. Pour in that gallon of tap water now. Stir some more. Your arms will hate me.

While stirring, you have my permission to add scent to your goop. I like lemon or lavender or cucumber – something refreshing. I think apple scent would be pretty nifty, too.

Now you can refill your detergent bottles and enjoy some more cackling. You savvy thing, you. Let the mixture cool before pouring it into the bottles and don't be surprised if it separates a little bit. That's normal. Really. Use 1/2 cup per load. It works like a dream.

Making your own soap really pays off. Not only do you have your very own homemade soap, know exactly what’s in it, but you can go on to make your very own laundry detergent. You'll be hooked faster than long hair on fly paper. NOTE: The homemade detergent will not create any suds (this is disappointing to many people who associate cleaning power with sudsy froth).

The historical information comes from the book Smart Soapmaking by Anne L. Watson. If you don't currently own this book and have any thoughts about making soap – I advise picking up a copy of your very own. The woman is a genius.

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What is so great about simple living? That is a rhetorical question. Yep. When I am not sailing past shoppers in the Commissary (that is the military’s idea of a supermarket) giggling at buggies which are piled high with prepackaged foods, laundry detergent, yogurt sticks, dog treats, bread, and soda – I am enjoying the look on people’s faces when they discover that I make everything in their cart, cupboard, or pantry in my little kitchen. That is a swinging-on-the-gate feeling if ever there was one. Hey, don’t judge me. I’m just easily entertained. I still get a kick out of scrubbing my baseboards with an old toothbrush, a pail of water, and a bar of homemade soap.

Simplifying life is a reward in itself. In today’s world, it is easy to get discouraged because of all of the bad (violence, oppression, chemical warfare – in our supermarkets as well as on a global level – healthcare or the lack thereof, waste, disease, and more). While I am certainly not in denial about the state of things, I choose to focus my attention on making a difference in my own home, community, and life. As Mohandas Ghandi so eloquently put it, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – but in being able to remake ourselves.”

Here’s a simple living joy that I personally love: Sourdough Starter a.k.a The Mother Sponge. This little bit of genius – bowing to the breadmakers of yesteryear – can be kept indefinitely at room temperature if fed a simple diet of flour and water. A sourdough starter is not only a handy way to produce fabulous breads but a great way to stop paying ever-rising prices for yeast and/or bread at the grocery store.

Here’s my method (possibly not the best method but it works for me):

2 cups unbleached, unbromated flour

2 cups warm water (I use the water that I’ve boiled potatoes in to provide additional starch)

Add water to the flour in a bowl. Blend the ingredients and pour into a plastic gallon-size zip-loc bag.

You should keep the starter in a warm place; 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal because it allows the yeast already present in the flour (and in the air) to grow rapidly. I keep mine on top of the microwave. Feed the starter by using a cup of it (or throwing it away – which is wasteful so just make pancakes with it, ok?) and then adding a half-cup of flour and a half-cup of water. Do this every day. Within three or four days (it can take longer, a week or more, and it can also happen very quickly) you should see lots of bubbles and a pleasant beery smell. The starter will begin to puff up, too. This is all very good. Once a froth develops: you have made a sourdough starter. Now you can reduce your daily feedings to just once a week. This starter can be passed down through your family.

Did that sound ridiculously easy? Well, it should. People who thought you could fall over the edge of the world made this stuff all the time.

Any bread recipe (that does not call for quick-rise yeast) can be altered to use a sourdough starter — just substitute the yeast/water/sugar mixture with a cup of sourdough starter. Never made bread in your life? Terrified of trying it? Click here and see the tutorial. Email me if you have questions.

Oh yes, one more thing: the hooch. I personally think that is the coolest word in cooking. The hooch is a dark liquid that will form on the top of your starter. Do not panic. Just pour it off. And say “hooch” a couple more times. Have a good chuckle and hum the theme song to The Dukes of Hazzard.

Check out all the good sourdough stuff at GRIT here.

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