IT IS ACTUALLY EASY

My family like eating yogurt. I did not like yogurt due to my first experience with it, my pottery teacher back in Indonesia made one and it was very sour. I hate sour, so I hated yogurt. My pottery teacher here in Canada convinced me to try yogurt, so I did. It is pretty good, but they are not cheap.

I look up on the internet, it seemed kind of complicated with the temperature, the sanitizing and stuff. So, I kept looking and looking until I found one that seemed simple enough.

Here is the original website where I found the how to make yogurt : http://girlsguidetobutter.com/2011/11/fool-proof-homemade-yogurt-science-techniques-and-troubleshooting/

Here is how I do it:
ingredients:
- 2 Litter milk
- one tablespoon plain yogurt for starter

what you need:
- a cooking pot/saucepan big enough to fit the milk
- spoon
- meat or candy thermometer
- a cup
- clean containers
- bath towel

How to:
- Heat milk until it reach 180 F, make sure it does not boil over by keep stirring.
- Turn the stove off and wait till the milk is 110 F. If it is too cold just re heat until it reach 110 F
- Take about half a cup of warm milk into a cup and put one tablespoon yogurt in it, stir up and down and side to side.
- Stir the mixture into the pot and stir up and down and side to side.
- After you stir it good, put them in clean container. I just put it in any plastic container or old yogurt container.
- Lay the bath towel over a baking pan, put the containers on the towel, wrap it up and put in the oven with the light on. I usually turn on the oven for a bit before I put the containers in there, just to warm it up a bit.
- Leave it for 8 hours (people like to make it before bed time so they can leave it undisturbed all night long).
One time some of the containers still liquid, so I just move it around closer to the light and leave it for another couple of hours.
- Store in the fridge. Should be good for about a week or two.
- take a table spoon and store in the freezer for your next batch starter, so you don't have to buy anymore yogurt. If you don't make it regularly, apparently the frozen one stays good in the freezer for three months. I just take it out when I plan to make the new batch, so it thaw out before mixing it with warm milk.

The yogurt tastes so smooth and not sour at all. I eat it every day now drizzle with honey. I tried it with my homemade strawberry jam and it is so yummy.

Too bad my daughter does not like it, and my husband thought the texture is off. They are so used to the store bought ones, or we usually buy yogurt that already mixed with fruit, or just fruit flavoured, no actual fruit pieces in it, I can only make plain yogurt then mix it with fruit. Maybe I should experiment putting some blended fruit with the milk (I will let you know if it actually works). My son is liking it if I put it in magic bullet with frozen mangoes and I throw in some sugar, so it is like the drinkable yogurt mango flavour. My friend and neighbour are loving it though. Anyway I am still making this as part of my healthy diet. Well, I got to take care of me, too, right :), and I surely share with my friends and neighbour, too.

I am still persuading my family to keep trying it, maybe one day they will like it.

TIME TO START

Reading about GMO and all kind of chemicals getting into our everyday life, kind of freak me out a lot. So, when we move to Moncton and get better financially, I tried to dive into organic products right away. Just to see if we can afford it or not. The result is, no we cannot afford it. So, I kind of give up and start looking at items on sales and start stocking up on them.

Later on, thanks to my friend who showed me some links on how to make stuff yourself, so you control what you use and save a bunch of money because there is no fillers and no paying for company advertisement, and  employee and their building etc. I started thinking my options over.

I am kind of a person who likes to dive into things, I ended up spending too much money on stuff and not using them. So, I need to pace myself now, not easy but I have to. Since I don't earn any money right now, I really have to budget on spending. How do I do that, remember all the stuff on sale that I bought. Yes, I still have a lot of them in the storage. Now, the things that I immediately need, or need very very soon before I ran out of it, I can start making. One day at a time, I will plan what needs to be made, before I ran out, so if it does not work I still have some to use before I really run out.

I thought making everyday stuff like laundry detergent, lotion, soap etc are very hard, I am amazed when I search through the internet on how easy to make them. The problem is, I live in a new town, I don't know where to buy these ingredients that seems like readily available all over US like in Walmart, they are not available in Canada's Walmart. But that won't stop me, I search on to find other place to find such ingredients. And of course the price here can be a lot more than in US. Still I hope to save some money in making them myself.

Now, I already use or made some everyday necessity, I think I should tell the world about it. It is not to make the factory go bankrupt, but for people who would like to save every dime, and have some time to make their own necessity and want to make sure they are not bombarded by all GMO and chemicals. I am no expert, I just started, like last week, I think :).

What I want to share, I will make sure they work for me first, and I am looking for the simplest recipes. So, I will not post every day or every week, I will tell people when I already try it and liking it. I will also try to help out with where to find the ingredients. I am trying to live green, we owe it to our kids for a greener and healthier tomorrow.

Enough said, my first share with you is fabric softener. The simplest one ever, one ingredient and very easy to find in any grocery store, white vinegar. That is right, just replace your costly fabric softener with the cheap vinegar. I have this washer with the softener place at the top, usually I put fabric softener and diluted it with water. With vinegar, I just fill it with vinegar straight about half a cup. So, if you use softener ball, try using the same amount as you put the softener first, and if that is not enough you can put more vinegar. 

I've been using this vinegar since last week, my laundry smells like nothing, you won't smell vinegar in your laundry and man they are so soft and fluffy. None of the softener I used ever give me that soft feel to fabrics like vinegar does. Also I see less wrinkle on the clothes. I hang my clothes in the basement because it is winter now. Since the heater is running, it helps dry the laundry, it might take a couple of days to dry but it save some dollars rather than running the dryer. 

I usually had to close the door and still smell the fragrant from the softener fill the house, now I don't smell anything. Oh for the people who like the fragrance, you can mix vinegar with hair conditioner and water. I never try it, because the simplest it is the better it is for me and I don't like too much fragrance anyway.

There is a lot of use of vinegar, but since I haven't try it yet, I can't really tell you the result and how it is. I did use vinegar to clean the kitchen and it works well. That greasy yellow stuff on appliances that stays there because you deep fry a lot, scrub it with straight vinegar. After you clean, the vinegar's smell just disappear. I only use it once, though, since my husband do not like the smell of vinegar. Next time I am cleaning with vinegar, I will make sure he is not around, because he won't smell it afterward. And I haven't heard him complain about the clothes, so, there is no smell.

I cannot guarantee what works for me will work for you, there are things that is out of our control like the water we have here most likely different from your water. So, if this does not work, try to find that works for you on the internet.

Until next time.