Monday, October 31, 2011

Photo of the Week 39

Go Fighters!

Go Fighters!

Taken at my first ever, pro-league baseball game: the Nipon Ham Fighters vs. the Lions. 

Monday, October 24, 2011

Yogurt experiment results

This morning, I got up and unwrapped my nabe pot. It still felt warm which I thought was a good sign.

October 001

Then, I opened it to see what had turned out.

October 002

I have delicious homemade yogurt! And it wasn’t all that hard to make.

I didn’t take a picture of my breakfast, but breakfast was cereal, fresh yogurt and fresh strawberries that I bought when my favorite produce stand closed on Saturday. Yum!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Yogurt Experiment #3

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been inspired by my friends J & E to make yogurt.

J uses a specific brand of yogurt from the supermarket, mixes it into the milk and lets it sit on the counter overnight and gets slightly runny yogurt.

E who I heard from first, but uses a crockpot – which I don’t have, has a more difficult method. It also needed a thermometer that I didn’t have at the time.

First, I decided to try J’s method. Perhaps it was our milk or the fact that the weather had begun to turn colder, but it was too runny for my taste and just wouldn’t thicken up.

Next, I tried E’s method with my rice cooker. In the morning I woke up to a cold rice cooker with a slightly thicker than milk yogurt. I turned the heat back on, to warm it up, and let it sit for the day. When I got home it was a better texture, but not as thick as I wanted. So, I made “greek” yogurt and strained it. It had a really odd flavor that I didn’t like.

I realized though, that when it’s not actively heating, the rice cooker isn’t built to keep things warm for a while.

Based on all of that, today I’m trying it again in my Nabe pot.

Here’s the milk after I warmed it up and then cooled it enough to add starter.

October 001

Here’s the fork removing the “skin” that had developed on the top of the milk.

October 003

And now, my yogurt mixture has been bundled up for the night. We’ll see what happens in the morning!

Friday, October 21, 2011

Photo of the week 37

Laundry

I missed one. This is from a couple of weeks ago. I'm trying to catch up now. 

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Photo of the week (last week)

Photo of the Week 35

A job I think I'd enjoy

This is the town photographer, doing a job I'm slightly jealous of.