My First Homemade Yogurt

So, one of the things I am trying to eat more of is yogurt.  There is very little of it that I actually like from the grocery store... correction make that none, but I do like Atlanta Fresh yogurt.  The only problem with that is that in addition to being quite expensive, it is also largely unavailable without a pretty long drive from where I live.  So, while there is yogurt I like at grocery stores, there is none I like at the grocery store in my town. Making yogurt is something I have wanted to try for a long time to try to get better tasting yogurt that is readily available and less expensive, and I also have this crazy DIY need to try to make things that other people buy ready made. So, when I saw this recipe for making yogurt in the crock pot on Pinterest, I knew I had to try it.  The original recipe can be found at the wonderful blog The Girls Guide to Guns and Butter.  I changed the recipe a bit to use homogenized organic one percent milk.  I am trying to stay pretty low fat and raw milk is not available here legally.  I wish it had been a bit thicker, but I think the lower fat prevented that.  The best part is that I loved the taste!  Now I can have really good yogurt without having to travel out of my small town!  And, it is a much better price.


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Basil Shrimp with Feta and Orzo

This is another adventure in low calorie eating, and again, it is not my recipe because my creativity doesn't usually extend to low calorie adventures.  But, now that I have tried a few, I might see some ideas of my own for the future.  Speaking of which, I may be missing in action some while dieting.  I am going to try my best not to be, but you know cooking and thinking about food is kind of detrimental to the whole dieting thing.  Now, back to the shrimp... you can find the recipe here at Nutmeg Notebook.  It is a quick and easy recipe that is full of flavor, and flavor is something you definitely need when dieting.



Here are some more photos:

Daring Cooks' Challenge: Patties

I am trying to loose weight, so I opted for baked patties.  My original recipes also lean towards the highly caloric, so for this challenge a started looking through the low calorie blogs I frequent to find a suitable recipe and wound up with this recipe for crab cakes from Skinny Taste.  They were delicious and easy to make.  I doubled the recipe because I knew my husband and son would want more than one crab cake.  Using a half cup measure, I only got six patties/cakes instead of eight though, so if you are doing Weight Watchers, you might to adjust the points value depending on how many you get.

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Valentine's Candy Hearts

 When I saw this idea at Pleasant Home I knew I had to make them for my daughter.  She loves the white chocolate peppermint combination, and of course I want to send her a Valentine's Day care package to college, and with a plethora of leftover candy canes from Christmas, this was the perfect project.  Yes, I know I run the risk of her seeing this before she gets the package, but she is not really into food, and I don't think she even looks here.  I made both small and large.  The small ones were MUCH easier.  The large end up oddly elongated unless you break a bit of the end off.  Sounds easy enough, I know.  Trust me, getting candy canes to break or cut where you want them to is not an easy task.  I used pink candy melts in the center and decorated them with heart shaped sprinkles.  I made six small and four large and used a little less than a pound of melts.

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Pumpkin, Cranberry, and Apple Baked Oatmeal

I have really been struggling with dieting and cooking/baking.  Most of what I want, I just can't reasonably eat and try to loose weight.  So, when I tried this and it was absolutely wonderful, I was very happy.  You can find the recipe here at Emily Bites.  (By the way, if you are dieting, and especially if you are on Weight Watchers, I highly recommend Emily Bites.  She has a huge number of low calorie recipes and even includes points for those on Weight Watchers).  I did not change the ingredients, but I did change the procedure a bit.  I am NOT a morning person, so cooking breakfast is generally not on the day's agenda, so I mixed all the ingredients the night before - except the apples and pecans because I didn't want the apples to turn brown or the pecans to become soft.  I left it in the refrigerator over night in a covered glass bowl.  You could probably also go ahead and put it in the baking dish, but I didn't because I knew I wouldn't want to have to wait to bring the temperature up on the glass dish I was using in the morning before baking.  The next morning, I chopped and added the apple, poured it into the baking dish, topped it with the pecans, and baked it.  It took about 30 minutes to bake instead of 20 minutes due to starting out cold.  Not only did I love it, so did my husband and son who are not dieting.

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