clevermanka: default (gohome)
clevermanka ([personal profile] clevermanka) wrote2009-05-04 01:20 pm

Probiotic

The Threelac kit arrived Friday and I started the program. I keep forgetting to take stuff, though, so I'm not getting it all in at regular intervals. The instructions don't say anything about a regulated schedule, but I feel like it would certainly help. There's just so much to take! Two packets of the powder and four capsules of stuff in the morning, two packets of powder in the evening and two capsules of stuff at bedtime. Then seven drops of a liquid in eight ounces of water three times a day, and a capsule of stuff at every meal. o_O

Breakfast this morning was strawberries, some oat-based dry cereal, and my first attempt at home-made yogurt. With my mealtime capsule. Which I forgot until I was halfway done. By 11:30 I was tired and hungry--much more so than I was last week when I was doing sort a Fast Five method. Right now I can barely stay awake. Oh, and I had some intestinal issues about an hour after eating breakfast. So far lunch is sitting fine, although I am a bit bloated. I'll Fast Five again tomorrow (still with the milk and coffee in the morning) to see how I feel afterward. It's certainly easy to fast when eating makes me feel so gross.

I ate a bit of sugar on Saturday (a couple Rice Krispy Treats), but I felt fine in the late afternoon/early evening. I was lively enough that I cleaned my sewing room cleaned order to start on a dress. I hope to cut that out this evening, if I can regain some of Saturday's energy. Sunday I ate two very small meals (blackberries and yogurt for breakfast, a few bites of meatballs from the English department awards ceremony for dinner) and one very large one for lunch (a turkey leg and three sides at Vermont St. BBQ shared with [livejournal.com profile] mckitterick). No grains yesterday at all.

This was the first weekend that I've awakened before 8:00 a.m. both days, without any external factors. I just woke up, all on my own, refreshed and rested. That was nice.

So now about that yogurt. I made my own yogurt for the first time this weekend. I'm trying to minimize even more the amount of packaging I use/produce. Since I eat at least one quart of yogurt a week, that's at least fifty plastic yogurt containers a year. That's kind of a lot, in my opinion. I wanted to try making my own yogurt with the milk I buy (in re-usable glass bottles!) from the Twig Dairy in Tecumseh. I've bought their milk for about a year now, and regular supermarket milk tastes pretty sad and bleh to me now. I figured if the milk's that good, it would make amazing yogurt.

I followed the recipe from crock-pot yogurt that I found on this website, here. It worked fine, but the initial result was pretty runny. Much too runny to use in my yo-cheese maker. I cobbled together a mechanism with a Viva paper towel (brand name is crucial since a normal paper towel would not have held up), large Kansas Union thermal mug (brand not so crucial, but size mattered), and a rubber band. Using the rubber band, I clamped the paper towel around the top of the mug, making as deep a well as I could. I poured the liquid yogurt into the paper-towel-well and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. It drained down to about half the original volume.

And it was the food of GODS. It has the texture of best sour cream ever, but without the zing. I can't describe it. It's just...amazing. Amazingly amazing. I'm going to make drain cloths to line the yo-cheese maker (using unbleached muslin, maybe) to try making the draining process less tedious.

This yogurt won't be appropriate for my almond butter/yo-cheese dip. It's too delicate, and I don't think it will incorporate with the almond butter. But for things like salad dressings, vegetable dips, casseroles, even as a substitute for sour cream on nachos and soups, oh yes, definitely. I used the un-drained stuff on the fruit for my breakfasts yesterday and today. It tastes so much better than store-bought. I just wish the texture was thicker. Maybe I'll try cooking down the milk before adding it to the crock-pot next time.

Does anyone have ideas on what I can do with some perfectly lovely yogurt whey? I can't drink it. I doesn't taste bad, but the thick texture is just too much.

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