After my recent yogurt and cream cheese making post, I was motivated to try again. Reading all the great comments and suggestions there (from YOU), I was determined to make my homemade yogurt come out with a better consistency.
Well, I didn’t exactly succeed…
I didn’t have any yogurt starter, so for my first batch I used the Yogourmet packet – one packet for 2 quarts of milk, just like it said on the package, and the same as I’ve always done. I kept it warm in a crock pot full of water overnight on “warm”, and covered it with towels. The next morning it hadn’t thickened at all, so I let it sit on the counter TWO more days, and still it hadn’t thickened even as much as I normally get. I went ahead and poured it into the cheesecloth to drain for TWO or THREE days, it just wouldn’t drain all the way! I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I figured I’d better just call it good enough and the extra whey left in the cheese would be good for us, anyway.
Surprise, surprise
I put the whey in the frig (I love having some on hand), and as I scooped the cheese into a bowl, I realized it came out sort of in between a sour cream and a cream cheese consistency… and that’s how it tasted, too, it was so good! I added garlic, some onion powder, sea salt & pepper and ate it with crackers and celery for a dip, Mmmm. Then for dinner I made spaghetti (with ground beef and ground heart in the sauce for more nutrition – no taste difference, HONEST!), and served this cheese with it. It reminded me of a very creamy garlic Boursin cheese, but homemade!
It was DELICIOUS…all from a big flop!
This was one of those meals I felt so good about serving my family – full of nutrients from the ground beef and organ meats in the sauce, along with some frozen local tomatoes from last summer, enzymes and probiotics in the homemade raw cheese, not to mention all the garlic health benefits.
Kent didn’t agree with me!
I almost finished writing this post before asking Kent what he thought, and here was his response: “That’s terrible whatever you did to that cheese.” Apparently I added a bit too much garlic for him…you might want to be careful with that.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FLOPS IN THE KITCHEN!
Were you able to salvage any part of it?
(photo credit: pabo76 – you’ll just have to picture chunks of meat in the above picture and a big dollop of creamy homemade cheese, because once again, I forgot to take a picture before we ate it!)
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Julie 04.16.09 at 7:11 am
I think what you ended up with is what is called Greek Yogurt.
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Jen 04.16.09 at 9:14 am
I strained organic, grass fed, whole yogurt to get whey a few days ago. I doctored the thick “cheese” with honey and chopped walnuts, and ate it on homemade sourdough bagels. It was out of this world good!
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Julie 04.16.09 at 10:08 am
I didn’t read the part where you ask readers to submit comments on their own personal flops in the kitchen, and how the flops were salvaged. I have numerous flops, only a few have been salvaged.
Here’s a recent one. I read about an easy crock pot meal which calls for chuck roast and a jar of pepperocini. The meat is put in the crock, the perpperocini, including the brine are poured on top. Turn on crock pot and come back 8 hours later. I like roast and I like pepperocini, but you cook a roast in pepperocini and the result is a meal that is too hot and spicy to eat. The only way I could salvage it was to take out the pepperocini and drain off the juices and then stirring in cream cheese and sour cream. Even then it was almost too much.
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Laryssa @ Heaven In The Home 04.16.09 at 10:23 am
Kelly,
I’m with you on liking the tomato pic! Fresh tomatoes here we come! I don’t even buy the winter tomatoes at the grocery store. They are bland, grainy and never taste anything like the real deal! Thanks for saying hi.
Laryssa @ Heaven In The Home’s last blog post..Works For Me Wednesday: Local Food
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Jenny @ Nourished Kitchen 04.16.09 at 1:24 pm
I made a beautiful raw milk feta once. It was delicious and just wonderful. Then I did the EXACT same thing – step-by-step – and the next time I made it was a total flop. Can’t figure out the mystery error.
Jenny @ Nourished Kitchen’s last blog post..CookingTF.com Giveaway: 1-yr Mailer Subscription
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Megan 04.16.09 at 2:02 pm
Kelly,
Anyway, on to the kitchen flop. On one real foodie blog I saw a recipe for black bean brownies (sounds interesting, right?) Well, on another blog I saw a comment about someone making brownies with a blueberry- spinach puree. Now please take into consideration that I was extremely desperate for a brownie, and that I was out of black beans. I ended up creating my own recipe of sorts for a lentil-spinach puree brownie. Needless to say, they couldn’t even be choked down and ended up in the garbage. 
I should note that most of my experimenting in the chicken turns out quite well, and that I love creating my own recipes. I just need to keep in mind that there is only so much one can do to a brownie. 
lol
I just wanted to say thanks for all of the good articles on your blog. They have been such a help as I have been trying to find information about feeding my family well. I’m new to all of this (6 months or less) but I am so thankful to have started finding all of this stuff out around the time my little girl started eating solids. I am absolutely loving this new way of eating because up until I got pregnant I was a perpetual low fat dieter (we’re talking something like 3 meals of Special K cereal a day dieter- yuck) The amazing part is that now I weigh less than I did then because those type of diets are impossible to stay on!
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Motherhen68 04.16.09 at 4:11 pm
One time I waited too long to add the yogurt starter and the yogurt was no curdled at all after 8 hours in the crockpot. I put the crock in the oven w/the just the light on and left it overnight. It turned out fine.
My biggest flop was last week with the homemade ricotta cheese. I think I know what went wrong and next time I’ll do it differently.
Motherhen68’s last blog post..
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Judy 04.16.09 at 5:22 pm
When I try to make 100% whole wheat sourdough bread, I often have the loaves flop into bricks. I used to give them to the squirrels, but now I’ve learned that they are very easy to slice thin to make croistini. I brush the slices with olive oil and sprinkle salt on them, bake at 350 until crisp and serve with dips, hummus, and cheese. Sometimes I toss the slices in a big metal bowl with olive oil and salt. I stick the whole bowl in the oven and stir a few times as they bake. This works especially well if I’ve shaped the “not quite right dough” into a small log. I know when my dough is off because it cracks so badly during the final rise so I salvage it at that point.
Judy’s last blog post..Fluffy Whole Wheat Biscuits – Scones
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Local Nourishment 04.16.09 at 8:13 pm
I made biscuits that came out of the oven flat as pancakes. One kid knew they were supposed to be biscuits and said they were “terrible.” But the rest of the family didn’t know what I started out making, and LOVED the flatbreads!!
http://localnourishment.com/2009/03/10/on-trying-a-new-recipe-for-the-first-time/
Local Nourishment’s last blog post..A simple, seasonal salad
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travin 04.16.09 at 8:41 pm
One of the easiest ways I’ve found to make yogurt and yogurt cream cheese, is to use a gallon of 2% milk and a non-pasteurized greek yogurt as a starter. Mix the starter with some milk to thin so you can marry it with the whole gallon. First bring the milk to 110F, then combine the starter and place in a non-metallic container, preferably glass, and wrap it with a standard heating pad and then a heavy bath towel. Leave for 10-12 hours and voila, tasty yogurt. If you want cheese, put some in butter muslin and hang over a bowl to drain, approx 7-8 hours. Tastes great on toast.
As for the using the heating pad, I’d previously calibrated it by first bringing a gallon of water to 110F on the stove, putting it in the same container, wrapped with a towel and checking on it every hour to see what setting maintained the correct temp range. It only took a few hours and was well worth the effort. A probe thermometer helps but it’s not necessary.
Enjoy!
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Jen 04.16.09 at 9:24 pm
Tonight I tried making deviled eggs, but the yolks weren’t cooked through. I realized this after peeling all the eggs. I tossed the yolks into a bowl and into the oven to try to finish them (didn’t want to microwave). It didn’t work. I proceeded to mix them up thinking it would be ok in the end. It wasn’t. Deviled eggs are supposed to be creamy, and it just isn’t good with tiny bits of undercooked yolk throughout… YUCK! They went into the garbage.
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Gena 04.16.09 at 11:25 pm
The first time I made Sally Fallon’s soaked pancake batter, it was so lumpy! The pancakes tasted great but it was as if I had thrown in a bunch of popcorn kernals, little hard balls of wheat flour. Now I just make my pancake batter the night before and add a tablespoon of yogurt, and let it sit all night. But for awhile there, every time I made pancakes, my 4 year old would ask if they were the “bumpy ones”.
Gena’s last blog post..My Very Own BabyLegs
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Kelly 04.19.09 at 3:40 pm
It sure is nice to know that I’m not the only one with plenty of flops in the kitchen. As long as I’ve been cooking, you’d think I’d have fewer of them, but since going back to traditional cooking methods, I’m learning how to do some things all over again!
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Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship 04.20.09 at 1:14 pm
Kelly,
Is it possible that you heated your yogurt over 110 degrees in the slow cooker? I don’t know if there’s a standard temp for “warm”, but maybe it’s too high, especially for raw milk. ?? I would hate to think that you’re killing your enzymes! Maybe you could check with a candy thermometer one time to make sure. I’m glad it worked out into something usable anyway!
Katie
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship’s last blog post..Monday Mission: Eat More Eggs
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Diane 04.20.09 at 2:10 pm
While this doesn’t fall into the “flop” category, I’d like to share my experience with successful yogurt making. I’ve been making yogurt for many years! I make two gallons at a time for my family. After adding some saved yogurt starter, or a store bought commercial variety to my warmed to 180, then cooled to 110 degrees milk, I pour the cultured milk into containers ranging in size from half-pint to 6 cups. I then put the jars into my cooler (yes, your picnic cooler!), add warm tap water, close the cooler and let it set. After about 6 to 8 hours the yogurt is nicely set. I have even started the yogurt in the evening and let it culture all night and the yogurt turns out quite well. It is actually very pleasant to get up in the morning to find something finished! I try to keep the water level to just under the rim of the jars — just in case some leak. For smaller jars, I rest them on top of something like a plastic box, so the water level can be higher on the larger jars. And, if you want to add flavoring (like vanilla or lemon extract) and/or sweeteners, you can stir that into the cultured milk before putting the jars into the cooler! If you stretch a wide rubberband around the jars, you can write on it with an ink pen to label the contents.
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angela 04.22.09 at 12:12 pm
I think if you can save a flop then you are doing great as most of my flops end up inedible
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Sustainable Eats 04.22.09 at 8:15 pm
That is funny – the last first time I made whey by leaving the raw milk out for 2 days I strained out the “cheese” expecting it to taste just like American cream cheese and gagged. I threw it away. Then last week when I made it I added some garlic and herbs de provence and my husband tasted it (who wouldn’t have come near it if I had told him what it was) and LOVED it. I just put it on pizza with mozzarella, roasted garlic and olive oil and it was outstanding. Sometimes you just need to change your perspective and approach it without any baggage. I love the post above where the family loved her flatbreads!
Sustainable Eats’s last blog post..Planting Potatoes
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