Make Yogurt In Your Crock Pot!

I am a person that does not like to have a lot of appliances. I like to just have a few that are versatile and use them for a lot of things. I thought about making homemade yogurt for awhile and looked at various yogurt making appliances but was hesitant to spend the money and then give up the counter space for something else. Then I found out how to make yogurt in my crock pot, and life was beautiful! :)

It is SO easy that I cannot imagine going back to store bought ever again. I control the quality and fat content, there are no chemical additives, and it is a great money savings. Check it out:

Put 8 cups of milk into your crock pot (cover) on low for 2.5 hours.

After that time, turn the crock pot off. (don't take the top off) and leave it alone for 3 hours.

After the 3 hours, add in a half cup of plain yogurt (yes, you're going to have to buy some plain yogurt to start with, and once you make your own, save a little of it to "feed" the next batch) (use a whisk to mix it in--be kinda quick about it), put the top back on, and wrap the whole crock pot up in a thick bath towel.

Come back in 8 hours or more and your yogurt is done. Easy!

If I get around to starting the yogurt before 8am and I'm going to be home most of the day, I can finish the batch before I go to bed at night. Alternately, this works well to start at around 4pm, and you wake up to yogurt in the morning, which is perfect for adding to your morning smoothie!

It is not all that important that the yogurt be put away directly after the 8 hours of incubation. it could stay in there for longer. Obviously don't leave it out on the counter for days, but it is fine if you just get around to putting it away after 10 or 12 hours or whatever. It'll be alright.

I use glass canning jars to store my yogurt in the refrigerator. Very easy!

You can use anything from skim to whole milk. At my Kroger they mark down organic milk pretty often, so when I see that I try to buy extra and make yogurt then. Even if I pay full price for the organic, though, it is cheaper than buying organic yogurt.

And did you know that pets benefit from yogurt too? You can add a little to your dog or cat's food and let them have some good probiotics as well!

I love Alice.com and so will you!

Alice.com is a fabulous place for you to bypass a whole lot of your grocery shopping, without paying more! In fact, Alice's prices are comparable to Walmart prices, they add in coupons, and they ship all of your stuff to you for FREE! And it's fast. Like, within a day or two, depending on where you live.

Alice.com has toilet paper, feminine products, cleaning products, snacks and cereal, toiletries, pet food, office supplies, stamps, and just a ton of other stuff that you are buying every time you walk through your regular store. (not weird off-brands, either. The real brands you already buy!) The difference: less stuff to shlepp through the checkout, into your car, and into the house with the kids in tow!

For our healthy lifestyle they have the Kashi Organics cereals that we like, lots of non-toxic all-natural cleaning supplies, some healthy snacks, etc. Some of these items we can't even find in our local store, so this is a great help to us!

I have been using Alice since fall of 2009 and I love love LOVE it. I recommend it to everybody! Right now you can get $10 off your first purchase of at least $50 when you clickety-click above to sign up. How cool is that?

What about non-stick pans and coated aluminum?

Erica,

You mentioned Aluminum and aluminum pans in your email this morning.
Do you have an opinion on Circulon (R) brand hard anodized aluminum
non-stick pans? They happen to be on sale currently at Sears, and we were
considering purchasing a set.

Our kitchen has a flat ceramic cooktop surface, and our cast iron
skillets are not completely flat on the bottoms and are not recommended
to be used on this type of surface.

Thanks in advance!

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

From the research I've done, non-stick coatings look to have some health risks that are distressing. Here are some resources I've found:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/09/20/beware-teflon-products-can-harm-your-baby.aspx
http://shop.mercola.com/Seminars-Dangers_of_Teflon_Special_Report-P775.aspx

Dr. Mercola writes in another article:
Use glass, cast iron, carbon steel, titanium, and enamel cookware. Both aluminum and Teflon are well known for their toxic dangers, and stainless steel can expose you to carcinogenic nickel.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/22/toxic-metals-the-reason-you-still-feel-sick.aspx

I hadn't read about the risks of stainless steel before. Rats! Now I have to think about one more thing.... ;)

I hope this helps!

~Erica

I did think of Visions cookware for this. It is glass-ceramic, so I would think it would be a safe choice. I got a bunch of it back in the olden days when I first got married, but passed it along to a friend in favor of the Revere stainless steel set that I also got, which was what I was used to from growing up. Now I guess I'll be on the lookout for some sales on Visions.

Sugar-Free Spaghetti Sauce

In one of the emails in the class I teach we talk about making pasta and pizza night healthy! Here is a helpful email I got from one of my class members:

I just got my email and when I saw this I thought I should share with you about 2 kinds of spaghetti sauces that I have found that do not use sugar. One is the Classico brand and the other is Bertolli Organic. I use mostly Bertolli because it is organic and I can get it at Sam's club. It is cheaper than purchasing it from the grocery store.

Thanks for the wonderful class! I have truly enjoyed it thus far.

Denise

Class Member Feedback, and Whipped Banana Oatmeal

I got this from one of my wonderful class members and thought you all would benefit from the information!
~Erica

Hey Erica!

I loved your breakfast ideas. My girls love the heart to heart and the honey sunshine as well. I enjoy eating them as well. If you sign up at Kashi they give you coupons to print off for 2 dollars off. I know at our wal-mart the boxes are like 2.98 so you can get a box of Kashi cereal for 98 cents :) Also when you print them off if you hit the back button you will be able to print it again. (there is a limit though.) Then they refresh every so often.

Also my 3 yr old loves oatmeal, and I love making it for her it's very filling and full of great things for her. I thought I would share a recipe I use as well as a lady who has a website with a ton of variations. Anyways, I just thought I would share. http://www.katheats.com/kaths-tribute-to-oatmeal/

Whipped Banana Oatmeal

• 1/3 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup 1% or skim milk
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/2 a banana (I’m usually making this for 2 so we split the banana)
• Pinch of salt
• Stirred in:
  • Wheatberries (or spelt or rye or kamut berries)
  • 1 tbsp ground flax
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

For two servings, we start by combining rolled oats, water, and skim milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Slice a banana into VERY thin pieces, leaving just a few bigger chunks. As the oatmeal heats, stir vigorously at times to “whip” the banana into the oats. The oats will take 5-7 minutes on medium heat to fully absorb the liquid. They’re done when they reach your desired consistency! Then we stir in vanilla and ground flax (and often wheatberries) and portion into bowls. Add any toppings you like, such as almond or peanut butter, walnuts or almonds, coconut, crumbled granola plank or bar, or trail mix

Handy Little Tip About Bread Crumbs

Last week I made a batch of bread, and today the last few slices of the last loaf were looking kind of sad and I didn't think anyone was going to eat them up. So, I threw them into the food processor and made it all into bread crumbs. After that I popped all the crumbs into a container and put it in the freezer. Now when I make anything that calls for bread crumbs I have nice, healthy Honey Whole Wheat crumbs!

If you have heels of bread or crusts that your kids don't eat :) left over, you can always do this. If your food processor isn't handy, you can throw all the bread scraps into a ziploc bag in the freezer and just turn them into crumbs when you need them. It can be a little harder to get them uniform in size (sometimes bigger frozen chunks of bread remain) but if you don't care too much about perfection when it comes to bread crumbs, then it'll be ok. :)

Making Juice (and applesauce!) at Home

When you have three trees full of ripe apples in the back yard...

And a whole bunch of ripe grapes, too...

It's time to get to work picking! Thankfully, our trees are pretty small, so there are tons of apples that our kids can pick without any trouble at all.

It only takes a few pleasant minutes of picking in order to get bags full of apples!

First you toss those apples into the sink and wash 'em. Ours are never sprayed with any pesticides, so we're pretty much cleaning off bird doo and spider webs. :)


You don't technically *have to* take the grapes off their stems, but I do. Otherwise, the grape juice turns out really bitter.

This is my steam juicer. It's really cool. The bottom pan holds water. The second pan is like a bundt cake pan, with a cone in the center that goes upward. This allows the steam from the heated water to travel upwards to the third level, which is a colander where the fruit sits.
You just load up the colander with fruit, put on the top, and heat up the bottom, and leave it for awhile. (apples take 90 minutes or so, grapes only 60 minutes) After that you unclamp the little tube that comes out from the side of the second pan, and out comes juice!
Here you can see some pitchers and a jar of finished juice. Although we make the apple and grape juice separately, we combine them in the pitchers to make apple-grape juice. We find that the taste isn't that great unless a sweetener is added. I use some plain liquid stevia (about 3-4 droppers full per 2-qt. pitcher) and that makes it taste really great without adding any calories OR any sugar. Just wonderful, organic, homemade juice!

At this point you can choose to can jars of juice if you want to, or you can freeze it, or just store it in the fridge and drink it right away. I don't really have the wherewithall to get into the canning right now so we've just made juice a couple of times a week and had it to drink at breakfast. We've also enjoyed giving some to friends. :)

Now, what's left in the colander at the top of the steam juicer is a bunch of cooked-down, miserable-looking apples. Good news: You don't have to waste it! Just turn it into applesauce!
We use our food mill to make quick work of this. You just pour the mushy apples into the top funnel of this gizmo, turn the crank (easily kid-powered) and out one side comes nice, fresh applesauce, and out the other side comes all of the skin, seeds, and stems. We used plastic containers to freeze our applesauce, and took the other stuff to the compost pile. Easy!

One steam juicer colander-full of apples makes about 2-3 quarts of juice plus a 9x13 pan of applesauce. not bad, eh?

The applesauce also benefits from some liquid stevia being mixed in, so again you can enjoy a sweet treat without sugar! You can make popsicles with the apple sauce, use applesauce in place of some oil in certain kinds of baking, or make applesauce bread, which is one of the things I did. Mmmmmmm mmmmmmm good!

We're out of juice again, so I'll be starting this process again later today. Wish me luck! :)

Getting Rid of Ants

We have had an ant problem at our house for as long as we've lived here. (8 years) Every spring they suddenly turn up on the counters, and we fight them until winter. Last year we got so desperate that we actually used ant killer spray around the outside of the house because the problem just seemed to be getting worse.

I wanted to tell you, though, that what we have actually had the most success with is a cheap and easy homemade ant killer.

You just mix equal parts of sugar and Borax, and then sprinkle wherever the ants go. (in a dry location) For a day or two you will see a large increase in the amount of ants coming to eat this stuff up, but very soon thereafter it'll slow way down to nil.

I like this method so much better than a lot of other options. It's easy to make. I don't worry about it around the kids. (although I wouldn't use it around babies or little ones that aren't old enough to know to leave it alone) For now, it makes for great entertainment for my 5-8 year olds who like to watch all the ants come to eat. :)