Worldess Wednesday

A Weekend At Home

is a beautiful thing!

We had a visitor for the weekend, my two and a half year old niece. She certainly gave little Q a run for his money and vice versa

It was such a treat to have little hands in the garden as we started working on the driveway full of compost that came on Friday. We worked on carving out little spaces for summer barbecues and toddler safe summer fun. In the process we made big messes, small discoveries, leaf soup and mud pies. We watered plants, watered each other, broke out the bike trailer and the wheelbarrow and shovel.

Spring Garden

Spring is soooooo here and it feels good! Here's a look at everything popping up in our garden right now. I took these pictures first thing in the morning, just after the sun came up and the dew was still on everything, by the end of the day everything was already different. It changes so quickly just as new life often does.

FO Friday

FO= Finished Object and this week mine is a little knit hat I made for Q.


This yarn is a merino wool and cotton blend and it's breezy, super soft, and cuddly. I think it'll be perfect for spring and that's pretty much as long as it will fit him for - the next couple months. Good thing I have a nephew coming this summer who will be ready for this hat by the fall.

Breakfast Of Champion Yogurt-Eaters

Yogurt is one of the only things, rather the only thing I can count on little Q eating which is why I'm so pleased to have made some ourselves instead of buying it all the time.

So here's some breakfast of fresh yogurt for you.

blueberries picked by Gma Jo last summer

maple syrup made by the students at my alma mater Rock Point School

Yum. That's a smile of approval

Yogurt!

Another product of visiting our local dairy Maple View Farms this past weekend was fresh fresh milk. There's nothing like buying milk when you can see the cows the milk came from playing in the field next to where you are.

I didn't manage to capture any cows in this photo but here's a picture of the farm.

I've seen a variety of homemade yogurt posts around the web and decided I would give them a try with this milk. I am amazed at how easy yogurt making is! I used a variety of sites as guides but went with this basic premise - heat the milk up (180degrees), cool it down (110 degrees), mix in some plain yogurt to start the culture and then keep the whole thing at 110 degrees for ~6 hours, put in the fridge and enjoy! The way you achieve these results can vary, you can use a cooler, a crockpot, a yogurt maker and I'm sure there are lots of other ways. Here is how I did it

I heated a half gallon of whole milk up on the stove until my cooking thermometer read 180 degrees

Then I pulled the pan off the stove and let it sit and cool until it was 110 degrees. Once it was cooled I stirred in 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt - a starter for the yogurt culture.

I poured the mix into a variety of jars I had and submerged them in the crock pot full of warm water which was on the 'keep warm' setting. I was concerned that this wouldn't keep everything at the right temperature but it was perfect.

The crockpot did a wonderful job! Me on the other hand, I could have done a much better job. I timed it so that I had to set my alarm and get up at 3am to put everything in the fridge. Oh well, it worked! I made yogurt!

Stay tuned for a breakfast post tomorrow

Homemade Butter

I have seen lots of bloggers showing how they make butter by shaking heavy cream in a jar or even some that put it inside a ball and play kick until it's ready. It sounds like a fun thing to do with a lot of people but not something you'd do very frequently and honestly I still think of butter being a long process that people do in a churn. But last week I came across an even easier method than jar shaking - make butter in the kitchen-aid! I knew I had to try it!

All you need is heavy cream, the fresher the better (and not ultra-pasteurized). This past weekend we went to local dairy Maple View Farms and got wonderfully fresh heavy cream (and milk and ice cream, mmmmmmm).

Heavy cream into the kitchen-aid, kitchen-aid on medium/high speed and first we make whipped cream.

It was very tempting to just add a little maple syrup at this point and put this lovely whipped cream on everything in site, or just a spoon and gobble it up. But we kept on with the medium high... and it got weird. It separated into butter and buttermilk.


I let it go on for a minute or two to expel as much buttermilk as possible and then scraped it all into a bowl that was in the sink.


Running cold water over it, kneading the butter so the rest of the buttermilk could come out and I poured it all off into another container to be used elsewhere.

I decided to get creative and add some herbs to my butter, sage, oregano, garlic powder, some kosher salt and thyme.


I'm sure I'll never get that combo the same again but it was a major win. Major win, and so so easy. I highly recommend giving it a try