Greek Yogurt

On our recent trip to West Virginia, we stopped at a grocery store in Morgantown to pick up supplies for the Bolyard Family Reunion (our \”reason\” for going down to begin with). I noticed a particular brand of yogurt that I\’d seen around, but never tried – Fage Greek yogurt. Always willing to try something new, I bought a couple of containers – at $2 a pop. That price level for yogurt had never crossed my mind. I had become accustomed to buying Dannon at 2/$1 for \”normal\” consumption, which is two tins a day.

This Fage ( Greek Φαγε – pronounced \”Fa-yeh\” ) yogurt is just marvelous! The texture and flavor are different from my usual brands, even though it, too, is made from cows\’ milk like the Dannon (and Stonyfield Farms) yogurt I\’d been eating. Big problem, though, was the cost. If you know me, you know that I can\’t (errr, won\’t) spend $2 for a tin of yogurt that often (though I\’d tolerated the $1.25 price at Market Basket). Well, Market Basket increased their price 20% to $1.50, still not horrible, Hannaford was pricing it at $2.09, and Shaw\’s was an incredible and ridiculous $2.39. That didn\’t even include delivery.

Since I\’d tried making yogurt before [1] I thought I\’d give making Greek Yogurt a spin.

I bought a quart of whole milk, and since Greek yogurt is best with a bit of fat in it, I went overboard and got a pint of half-and-half to boost the milkfat. I also bought a tin of Stonyfield Farms plain yogurt, because I have used their cultures before with good results.

Following my prior technique, I mixed the milk and half-and-half, heated it to a scald (about 205ºF), then cooled it to about 110ºF, where the yogurt cultures (various lactobacillus strains) are happiest, mixed in the Stonyfield yogurt, then put it in an insulated container, where it sat overnight turning into yogurt.

In the morning I went to the rag bag, pulled out a piece of muslin sheeting about two feet square, washed it with detergent and rinsed it really well, then put it in a colander. I poured the yogurt into the muslin and let it drain for about two hours. About three cups of whey drained off, making the remaining yogurt nice and thick.

I portioned it off by 3/4 cups into plastic containers I\’d used for yogurt before, and popped it into the fridge. Cassie the dog got the leftovers – she\’s not particular about what she eats, but she loves yogurt.

A taste testing later with honey (a typical way to serve Greek yogurt) shows it to be quite tasty. Next week I\’ll skip the half-and-half, and I\’ll advance to a half-gallon of whole milk.

If you, like so many others, think I\’m all wet and want a more mainstream take on Greek yogurt making, see this. I consulted with this site midway through the process to find out how long to let the yogurt drain.

(P.S. I ran out of my yogurt on Wednesday. On Thursday I expressed disappointment in being out of \”my\” yogurt. I hope I feel that way next week after the next batch 😉

August 10, 2008 by Food 0

Software

Most of my die-hard fans (both of you!) know that I\’m a \”software professional\”, for whatever that\’s worth (no, I won\’t fix your PC). As with most professions, tools are very important. Here is a good one – CPrompt. If you are running Windows Explorer and would like a command prompt in a particular directory, just right click, select \”C:\\ Prompt Here\” from the menu, and voila!

Almost indispensable, and very handy in my line of work. If you know how to work the DOS prompt and use Windows a lot, download and install CPrompt

August 6, 2008 by Computers 0

This is just a test

To see if I can embed pictures from my Picasa account… Mrs Imaginarythreedimensionalblackboard.com and I went to the Cheshire Fair in New Hampshire this weekend.

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August 5, 2008 by Uncategorized 0

Well, I guess I can blog full-time now!

Dear Winner,
Winning Notification
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Online Coordinator

August 5, 2008 by Bull**** Filter 0

Ooops!

Oooops, I did it again

I screwed up my blog

Lost some of the files

And erased the log

(sung, of course, to the tune of \”Ooops, I did it again\”, heheh).

Somewhere in the database are the comments and pictures and oh-so-witty observations I\’ve made in the past several months, but in trying to upgrade the version of WordPress I\’ve been using, I erred. I have no idea what I did, and I\’m quite happy that I\’ve managed to recover the stuff that\’s actually here. That alone is a Christmas Miracle.

So, forget about the past few months. I have. I don\’t at all know what I posted, except that I went to Historic Deerfield, Mystic Seaport a couple of times, the New England Air Museum, and NEAR-fest, which has to do with Amateur Radio. One of the trips to Mystic was for the Wooden Boat Show, which was just awesome. Nothing like a wooden boat.

But going forward, I\’ll hopefully have new stuff to blog about, and I\’ll be much more careful about backing stuff up. Oh, that\’s a crucial, crucial step.

Thanks

July 29, 2008 by Uncategorized 0

I’m so proud

If you\’ve read any of my posts at all, you are probably aware that I am an Amateur Radio operator. One of the activities within the hobby that I pursue, on occasion, is contesting, where I try to contact as many other operators in the contest as I can, and we compete with one another on how many folks we contact.

A contest last spring was the New England QSO Party (a QSO is a confirmed two-way radio conversation between operators).

I got a certificate (\”wallpaper\” in the hobby, because some of us are prone to cover our walls with such cherished proof of our radio prowess) today indicating that I had managed to break into the top five operators in the low-power (100 watts or less) category. In my county. I checked the results list. There were six operators from my county who participated. So I was also next-to-last.

To set the scale, I managed to contact 40 different people, in 20 different locales ( the locales count as multipliers – the number of people times the number of locales gives your score), so I had a score of 800. The first place finisher is a 13-year-old fellow (he\’s not a kid – he\’s a peer because he is an Amateur Radio operator like me) a few towns over. He took it a bit more seriously than I did, and accumulated 321 QSOs over 53 locales, for a score of 17,013!

But I got wallpaper!

(As an aside, further research indicates that in 2005, when I was KB1HDO, I got wallpaper for 6th place finish in Middlesex County… Yes, my prowess as an Amateur Radio operator continues to improve…)

April 7, 2008 by Uncategorized 0

Our world is back to “normal”

Well, you\’ll have to make up your own minds whether it\’s really \”normal\” or not, but we had the \”tree guys\” in to take care of the two trees that fell in the windstorm a few weeks back, fell the one remaining dead tree that didn\’t fall, and trim up the oak between Philip\’s lot and ours. That oak had a branch rubbing up against the house (I swear it wasn\’t last year!) and was going to start doing some damage soon.

Peg took photos of the guys at work (Flagg Tree Services, if you live in North Central Massachusetts and need some tree work done). She\’s convinced we need a tree chipper (of course, she\’s quite convinced that she needs a Sawzall, too), and I think she got a ride in the bucket truck! Of course, I had to stay at work to pay for all of this frivolity, but I\’d probably have fallen into the chipper myself, and I don\’t have enough insurance to leave behind a rich widow (entirely by design. She has no real good reason to do me in…)

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Now, the \”normal\” part – my antennas are back up! Yay! Now I can get back \”on the air\”.

March 30, 2008 by Uncategorized 0

It got kind of windy here last night…

I guess the local folks were calling the winds \”gusty\” to perhaps 41MPH or so, but I think it was windier than that. In any event, a couple of trees came down at the old hacienda here,


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but luckily with little damage. Unfortunately I can\’t say \”no damage\”. Some siding was dented (aluminum…) and some edging was ripped loose and bangs around a bit in the wind.

The worst casualties, though were two of my HF antennas (the \”big ones\” that I use to communicate to places like Asiatic Russia, Australia, and other far-away places. The 40-meter \”horizontal loop\” antenna, essentially a 140-foot loop of copper wire strung around the house at about 35 feet was supported on one corner by one of the fallen trees. A good bit of luck is that the Dacron line holding the antenna was weaker than the antenna wire, so the antenna itself is intact – just not up at 35 feet where it\’s supposed to be. The 80-meter \”dipole\” antenna, which used to run along the edge of the lot, where the trees were, fell victim to the tree as well. Neither the copper wire nor the Dacron supporting rope parted, though, but the Dacron was pulled pretty tight, and I had to cut it – there was no way to untie it!

Another stroke of luck is that the second tree was long enough, and still sturdy enough, that it managed to support its Lose Weight Exercise and not tear down the telephone and cable TV lines. We could probably have gotten by without the cable TV for a couple of days, but the telephone line brings DSL, the lifeblood of our email – not to mention the Internet link for my Packet Radio BBS. I managed to cut through that tree trunk (only about 4\” thick at that point) with my pole saw, preventing further damage if the tree were to break more.

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I do need to get a \”tree guy\” out here to cut up the rest of the mess, and take down the remaining dead tree. It\’s going to fall down soon, and I won\’t, very likely, be this lucky next time!

March 9, 2008 by Uncategorized 1