Culturing

I finally got a good batch of kefir. Since I've had store bought kefir, I know what it's supposed to taste and look like, and the stuff I was making wasn't either. I figured out that I had too many grains for the amount of milk, and the result was major curds and whey, LOL Miss Muffet.

I added more milk and let it sit for 24 hrs and it came out just right. You can't really tell much about it in the picture. I mixed the leftover juice from the sugared strawberries I used in the cake icing to it and it's pretty good. I still feel a little uncertain about drinking fermented milk but I'm sure as I get used to making it it won't bother me.


Also I finally made some good bread from my sourdough starter. The first loaf of bread I made was dry and hard and not very sour. I fed the starter and left it at room temperature for a couple of days hoping it would get more sour. (I really like the sour taste) It is a white flour starter, which is how it came, and I made it completely from unbleached flour-no whole wheat- just to see how it would turn out. Look at how big it rose! Next time I will need to slash the tops so they don't rip open. And of course I will be using whole wheat flour. This bread was a success!

We ate this bread tonight, buttered well, with homemade spaghetti sauce and organic whole wheat noodles. (forever I could find either 'organic' pasta, or 'whole wheat' pasta, never 'organic and whole wheat') Our big salad is beside the bread; I was running low on veggies for the salad, so I sliced some olives, added pickled pepperoncini peppers (the sour ones), mozzarella cheese and bits of pepperoni. We drank iced red raspberry leaf tea. And then we ate cake :)


I like making bread with sourdough starter- it's a lot easier. The ingredients in this bread were 3-4 cups flour, 1.5 t salt, 2 T sugar and 2 T fat, plus the two cups of starter. Easy.

I don't have pictures of the yogurt. I haven't figured out what to eat it with yet...