What the kids are Eating

I realized the other day that I put 11 (11!) ingredients, minimum, in our morning oatmeal.  No wonder it takes me two hours min. to get myself and the bub ready in the morning. The good news is that he LOVES it – as evidenced below:

(side note – I’m so proud of him – he feeds himself completely these days and managed to just about lick that sucker clean!)

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That bowl started looking like this:

Into the mix: 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup whole milk, dash salt, 1 T ground flax, dash cinnamon, 1/2 banana cut into chunks, 1/2 t vanilla.  Cook on stovetop till cooked and tasty.  Mix in: frozen mixed berries, 2 T cottage cheese (sounds gross, but I swear it is fantastic and gives oats true “staying power.”) Top with: 1 T peanut butter, smeared around, and a drizzle of honey.  It makes my little guy happy, I swear it will make you happy as well.

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How does the rest of his day of eats look?  I’ve finally simplified the art of packing lunches for the wee one.  It helps that he can basically eat the same thing as Lyndo and I now…

The general plan is that he gets yogurt, fruit, and a generous helping of dinner leftovers.  Sometime I skip the fruit and give him another side, because right now his nap falls right over lunchtime, requiring a 1st and 2nd lunch, much like a hobbit.  Today’s eats:

This lovely concoction is leftover mash:  Mashed taters, peas, roasted broccoli, and baked cod.  Cod is hard to see – same color as the taters

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Second lunch: Egg, spinach, cheese, and beef scramble.  It actually started as a frittata.

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Finally, yogurt with berries and flax.  I made “vanilla” yogurt by mixing my homemade yogurt with vanilla and stevia.  You can see I didn’t have perfectly homogeneous mixing:

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All stacked up:

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Dinner was roasted sweet potato and broccoli, a ground turkey taco casserole, and chunks of mango for dessert.  No pictures, sorry…

But I can state with confidence that good food makes for a happy guy – and a happy mama:

Homemade Yogurt

is so easy!  Really.  I promise.  I’ve been making it for 2-3 years now, and have never looked back.

There are probably many ways to modify this – add sweeteners, flavors, etc…but I prefer to just make “plain Jane” yogurt and add the flavor afterwords – that way, I can flavor it to my liking, and if I want to use it in and Indian meal or as a sour cream-like substitute, or in baking, I have it on hand.

The recipe below makes enough for my “Eurocusine” yogurt maker, which I love and can’t say enough about.  It comes with seven 7-ounce glass jars, and I bought a replacement kit of eight more jars so that I can constantly have a batch on the go and never worry about running out, or having to eat up the last jar before I can make another batch.  I would say this thing has paid for itself many times over – not to mention the amount of waste reduced by not buying yogurt in containers.  It also has a timer, which is fantastic – I can set it and go, and not worry if the yogurt is due to finish in the middle of the night – it will turn itself off!  My mom has an earlier version of this same maker, without a timer, and she has to think quite a bit more than I do because it is either “off” or “on” – and you don’t want to “overdo” your yogurt you’ll get nasty results!  A timer is totally worth it.

Here is my plan:

Plain Jane Yogurt

5 generous cups of milk – I’ve used skim, whole, and every combination in between.  Honestly, no noticable difference between any of them, so use what you have on hand or prefer.

3/4 cup dry milk

1 pack yogurt starter**, or one 6-7 ounce container of PLAIN yogurt

**I order mine from www.newenglandcheesemaking.com – it has more varieties of  bacteria than you get in a store-bought starter or plain yogurt, and you get a discount if you order 12 or more 5-packs at a time, which I do and then store in the freezer.

Scald milk on the stove till it just boils – this is the only tricky part.  I’ve got it down to a science after much practice, but you have to watch it closely, and stir often.  Use a whisk and keep the milk moving, and the SECOND it starts to raise in the pan, take it off the heat.  Pour it into another container and let cool to room temp.

Once cooled, whisk in dry milk (this adds extra protein and makes your yogurt more solid – but it totally optional) and yogurt starter.  Mix till combined, pour into yogurt containers, and let “yo” for 10-12 hours.  It is done when it doesn’t jiggle when shook.  This will depend on your maker, a bit of experimentation will give you the ideal time.

The produce guide for this maker comes with several recipes – which I have never tried.  I just like to have plain on hand.  The only modification I’ve gone with is to make vanilla yogurt, by adding 1 generous teaspoon of vanilla and 2 scant teaspoons stevia to the mix along with the yogurt starter.

That is it!  Boil, mix, and let “yo.”

What you do with it is up to you – here are the family favorites:

Pumpkin Pie Yogurt – mix equal parts yogurt and pumpkin, stir in vanilla, cinnamon, and stevia to taste, and enjoy!

Apple “pie” a-la-yo - microwave chopped apple** with cinnamon and stevia for 1 min till warm and slightly softened.  Mix with “vanilla” yogurt (yogurt mixed with vanilla and stevia), and top with granola.  HOLY yum!

**if you are feeling super decadent, include a dash of milk and peanut butter with the apple mix.  Oh wow…

More to come – I use this stuff in everything!