Yoghurt in all it's glory

In the scheme of things easily added into a self invested lifestyle yoghurt has to be right up there. The first thing we made ourselves from scratch was yoghurt. We purchased a cheap incubator that has 7 small glass cups and plastic lids and made about a litre of yoghurt.

Our yogurt maker

Batch 1 was awesomely delicious and so we were encouraged to keep on keeping on.

Batch 2 was unusual and had an odd stretchy texture and a mild taste. It was still delicious.

Batch 3 we thought we mixed up the yoghurt culture with the cheese culture (silly bunnies) and we also overheated the milk and it boiled - testament to not making yoghurt when excessively tired. The result was quite thick and had air bubbles in it, but the flavour was still really good so yoghurt must be pretty bomb proof in this house.

At this point we became unsatisfied with the quantity we could achieve in one batch and went shopping for a single large glass dish with a lid that would fit in the incubator. Success! we found the perfect dish with a 1.6 litre capacity and so we now have the means to make 1.5 litres of our delicious yogurt all in one go!

Batch 4 awesome!

We then bought another incubator so I guess you could call us, at this point, yoghurteers with a potential problem of oversupply.

Natural Yoghurt

Ingredients
1.5 litres full cream milk
3 drops calcium chloride solution
1 dose yoghurt culture

Method
Heat the milk to 93 degC in a stainless steel pan and maintain for 10 minutes then add the calcium chloride solution. Remove from heat and rapidly bring down to 40 degC - We used a sink with cold water and ice packs. Add culture and pour into your incubator. Incubate for 8 hours and then refrigerate.

Makes 1.5 litres of natural Yoghurt.

Doesn't keep long cause we eat it too fast!

Quick Breaky

Quick Yoghurt Breakfast

1/2 cup of yoghurt
1 teaspoon Chia
2 tablespoons raw rolled oats
fresh fruit of your choice (grapes and passionfruit in picture)

mix the yoghurt with the chia and oats and top with fruit .. easy!

Bircher Oats

1 cup of raw rolled whole oats (you can use quinoa flakes or flakes of your choice)
1/3 cup chopped dried fruit of your choice
2 teaspoons chia seeds
1 cup whey from cheese making (you can use apple juice or milk)
pinch salt

combine your ingredients and soak overnight in the fridge. Top with yoghurt and fresh fruit and if desired a drizzle of honey.

Riata

Riata

1 cup yoghurt
1 cucumber grated
1/2 cup coriander leaves finely chopped
2 tablespoons mint finely chopped
good pinch of salt

Combine well and serve with your hot curry

Soured Yoghurt Cream

1 cup yoghurt
juice of 1/2 lemon

combine well and use instead of sour cream

Mango Lassi

Mango Lassi

1 mango flesh cubed
350ml natural yoghurt
1 tbs honey
1sprig of mint finely shredded
blend mango, yoghurt and honey serve with mint on top

Frozen Yoghurt

4 cups yoghurt
3 passionfruit
1/2 cup honey

gently fold the ingredients together without completely blending. Place in a freezer container and place in the freezer. Gently stir every 1/2 hour. Serve after 2 hours with fresh fruit or fruit salad.
Alternatively use an ice cream maker as directed.

Coconut Yoghurt Pudding

coconut yogurt pudding

4 cans Ayam Coconut cream (the purest on our market shelf)
warm the coconut to 40Deg C
1/3rd cup sago
2 inches vanilla bean
2 teaspoon chia seeds
whiz the sago, vanilla and chia in a spice grinder until as fine as possible
stir into the warmed coconut
3 tablespoons of natural cultured yoghurt
whisk the yoghurt into the coconut mixture and place all into a yoghurt incubator for 8 hours
serve with clotted cream and fresh berries

Labna (labaneh, labneh, labni)

All this amazing yoghurt allows us to make yoghurt cheese and as we upgraded our production to 1.5 litres batches and subsequently doubled our production with another incubator we now have plenty of yoghurt to play with. Labna is thick and creamy and much like cream cheese with a beautiful texture.

Pressed Labna

Ingredients:
1kg fresh home made natural yoghurt
20gm cheese salt
6 large cloves of garlic (optional for garlic Labna)

Method:
Combine the yoghurt and salt mixing well. Spoon the mix into a cheese cloth placed in a bowl, gather up the edges so that the yoghurt is in a tight ball, tie of and hang in a cool place over night. When the yoghurt ball has stopped dripping untie it and place into a container and chill in the fridge.

Roast the garlic cloves in a 180 degC oven for 15 mins. Squeeze the garlic flesh out of the papery casing and mash. Pass the garlic mash through a sieve and mix into your yoghurt cheese.

Eat with crackers, as a creamy spread for sandwiches, as a topping for baked potato ...... any where a savour cream cheesy flavour would go!

We pressed ours in the cheese press for a denser creamier labna wheel

Looking for Local and what it means to Me

In The Beginning:

Life threw a few curve balls at me and I made the choice to bring healing into and simplify my life, but what should that, could that mean?

Village life, coastal living, local people, environment, neighbours and self invested projects became a life's focus for me and I make daily effort to be in my moment and in my own choices.

Challenges abound! But that adds to the flavour of all things about living, Meeting the challenge, rising to it and doing my best is a recipe for success, not just to overcome, but to learn, grow, experience and move forward.

Challenge 1: Grow our own food

What a joy it is to have fresh home grown foods right here in our own garden. In 2 years we have changed a neglect blasted barren waste into a productive Eden. 43m2 has been unearthed from under building rubble, fibreglass and rusting hulks and raised up into vegetable beds of bounty. A food forest of similar dimensions has been established with perennial potential and permaculturesque leanings. A herb spiral and henge is verdant and giving as well as a small olive grove and an acid garden for those acid lovers like blueberries. We just this year fulfilled our dream of chickens and a duck and our plans include an aquaculture garden.

Challenge 2: Forage and utilise local wild offerings

Any coastal region will have it's own bounty of wild foods and our location is abundant. We have fished, foraged, scampered and snorkelled our way to amazing foods such as flathead, cockles, abalone, sea urchin and cod with promise and potential scope for blue swimmer crabs, crayfish, scallops, mussels, prawns, mud crabs and more varieties of fish.

We also have foraged for seaweed for the benefit of the garden for the riches of micro minerals and nutrients as well as shell grit for the poultry.

Our acid garden will benefit from pine needles and Autumn is mushroom time! I have also spied on common and vacant land blackberries, loquats and other edibles so our area is full of possibilities

Challenge 3: Spend what little money we have with local owner operated businesses with locally sourced produce

Yes this means asking the hard questions of our shop keepers, but I find the topic a very good one for creating happy relationships with providores. I know a few of the local suppliers and it makes me happy to have my money in their pocket. These salt of the Earth, real and genuine people know and love their produce and their live stock, they treat their life's work with respect and value what they put in as well as what they get out .... how can I not respect their efforts and products and support them? I choose to keep as much as possible local for all these reasons


Challenge 4: Reduce food miles

It's not just enough to grow it or get it from as close as possible, but to also scrutinise the extras that go into the market trolley. Getting the extras from Australian grown or manufactured so that the amount of travel for each component is seen. The cheapest product from a labour devalued country just simply costs too much for me to pay that price.

Challenge 5: Creative food from scratch

To me it's not enough to just cook food. I want to challenge my food to be gourmet offerings at my hands. Involve myself in the process of bringing flavours together to tantalise and amaze my audience of family and friends. I am not happy to just use tried and true food combinations but to mix up tradition with avante guarde and allow my harvests to come together as unique flavour filled feasts.

Being held to gastronomy that is only limited by my harvests and my imagination is it's own challenge and joy.

Challenge 6: Self invest in all I do

Back to basics does not mean limitations so to celebrate this we have taught ourselves and with the help of friends and the internet we have had successes in many self invested projects such as making cheese, soap, pasta, sausages, port, beer, yoghurt, icecream, curry pastes, chutneys, sauces and preserves and allow ourselves few limitations in our creativity.

Together we have built dry stone walls, raised garden beds, chicken layer boxes, chicken run, roosting shed and gates. We have rebuilt a trailer and I have learnt to drive. There is nothing we won't try to pursue our locavore dreams and our self sufficiency endeavours.

Challenge 7: Care for the environment

Our foraging and scampering, our every foray into the great outdoors to me carries with it an inherent duty as custodian of even my small portion of it. Looking after the beauty and cleanliness of the beaches and forest and the wilds is paramount in all we do. We take as little as we need, leave nothing but footprints and remove the detritus of mankind as we go so that even though we use and enjoy it .. it benefits from our passage. We tread as lightly as we can.