Another busy week & Homemake Yogurt

Another busy week has just flown by. TF and I will be going to our last wedding for this summer today, tonight will be the reception. I have been grocery shopping for Felicia this week. She was completely out of meat and chicken in her freezer and hadn't been grocery shopping in a while. She gave me $ 120.00 for food and off I went on my shopping spree. It's taken me three days of morning shopping to fill her freezer and get her back into shape. I found some real bargains at my favorite stores and she should be able to eat for a good month on what I got for her.

I picked up my grandson from kindergarten several times this week. The other day, I discovered that he had filled his pockets with small toys and brought them home to play with. I gathered up the toys and put them in a plastic bag and told him that he had to leave those toys at school. The next morning, Jennifer handed them back to his teacher and explained what had happened.

Our church group has been working on a plan for helping people in emergencies. One of the things that we are doing is dividing our group up by neighborhoods. We will have a group captain that everyone reports to when a weather related emergency happens. If a hurricane comes our way, we will report to our captain and let him know if we are “sheltering in place” or leaving. We found a computer program, called Microsoft Streets and Maps, that we will use to plot each group on a map. We will know where each house is, who lives there and how to get to them in an emergency. Yesterday we learned how to use the program and I am anxious to see the finished product.

Homemade Yogurt – Make it Yourself

4 cups of milk (scalded)
Allow milk to cool to 120 degrees (30 minutes)
Stir in 1 heaping Tablespoon of active yogurt (I use plain Dannon)
Pour into quart jar –

Try to keep the milk from cooling quickly buy placing in a thermos, putting in a crockpot of very hot water (do not turn the crookpot on) put the lid on and let it cool down, or use heating pads on low and wrapped in a towel. This process will take from 4-6 hours. Sometimes I leave it overnight. You can tell when this is done because it will solidify and pull away from the jar as you tip it. Next step is to allow it to cool in fridge for about 8 hours.

You may add jam, fruit, honey, granola, make freeze pops, send for school lunch, top potatoes (instead of sour cream) and the list goes on and on. Have fun!

Notes from Lucy:
Several years ago I taught a class at church on food storage. One of the ladies there was doing a demonstration on how to make homemade yogurt. She gave out the recipe and I went home and gave it a try. She told me that I could just heat up my oven to 150 degrees and put the yogurt in there, turn off the oven, and let it sit till done. I followed the recipe and was thrilled when it worked. I just put the lid on the jar and put it in the frig to chill. It really was good. It does not have a sweet taste to it because there is no added sugar, so you will have to add fruit or artificial sweetener to take away the tartness.