Yogurt Making at Troy Shares / Skills

The last time I attended a Skill Share was 2007. It happened in the Albany Free School neighborhood and was followed by a vegan lunch at The Free School. My mom has ever since been trying to recreate that vegan veggie dish, and it was at Leah Penniman's Urban Gardening workshop that I first was inspired to have my own backyard hens. (My mom and I also attended Betsy Mercogliano's Bread Baking Demystified. Other workshops included Rocket Stoves, Solar Electricity, Rain Barrels, Build a Bike Trailer, Influencing City Politics, Wild Edibles, Dialogue on Oppression, Raw Foods, Wilderness Skills, and Natural Paints and Stains). There were a bunch of workshops I wanted to attend, but couldn't because they were happening simultaneously to the ones I did attend. I couldn't wait to go to Albany Skill Share 2008 or beyond. If another one happened, they did a really good job of hiding it from me.



Not too terribly long ago, Emily Rossier started a time banking system in Troy. This is similar to Ithaca Hours in Ithaca, NY. It really deserves its own post, but in short, it's an alternative system of currency in which participants earn "hours" for their services, and spend "hours" for the same. Services exchanged may include rides, physical labor, instruction, guidance, repair, cooking, and many other things. I love it because it increases the amount of people who will learn or utilize handmade methods instead of spending money on shoddily made consumables that exploit workers in other nations and due to planned obsolescence will soon be contaminating the earth in landfills.

Troy Shares recently began hosting Skill Shares on a monthly / bimonthly basis. I was sad to miss the first one, but I actually got to teach a workshop for the one that happened this past Sunday.

As it had been a while since I'd done so, I made a test batch a few nights prior. It was even easier than I'd remembered. I'm not sure it was a terribly interesting demonstration, as most of yogurt making is waiting. You wait for the milk to heat up, you wait for the milk to cool down, and then you wait for the yogurt-milk mixture to become entirely yogurt. 

Whoever brought a glass jar got to go home with their own container of yogurt-to-be. A few people had made yogurt before, and shared what they did different. The biggest difference was in the incubation period. The recipe I use calls for leaving the yogurt in a turned-off oven, or in a draft free part of your kitchen covered by a towel. Other people had used a low crock pot or a styrofoam cooler filled with bottles of warm water (if my memory serves me). 

Everyone went home with a half sheet of paper with my You Too Can Make Yogurt! on it. 

I've been eating a lot of yogurt lately, in the style of overnight oats. I mix in jam and oats and chia seeds  and let it sit in the fridge during the night. On my drive or during my first hour of work, this breakfast has given me a boost that makes me wish I was home so I could squeeze as much productivity out of it as possible. Making yogurt is much cheaper than buying it (as with everything), and considering this new breakfast habit, I should really get back on that yogurt-making train. Perhaps I'll also take a swing at making jam when the raspberries in my community garden ripen. 

Yogurt making lead to discussions about milk, and home delivery. I recounted my struggles in getting a local company to answer or return my calls, going to such lengths as chasing down a delivery truck. A woman who lives only a few miles from me offered to look into helping me realize this long abandoned dream. 

Now, I wonder if they accept food stamps. 

Spotted in Philly

Kombucha

A few years ago I was intrigued by a fermented tea in a corner store in Manhattan. It was probably $3 a bottle, but I'm a sucker for novelty, so I laid my money down. Over the past year, I more and more will splurge on a bottle when I'm looking for a boost, so much so that I decided it was time to save some money by making my own.

If you're squeamish, you might not want to read further.

Kombucha is a bubbly fermented tea. It is made using a solid mass of yeast and bacteria, known as a SCOBY, sometimes referred to as a mushroom. (The idea of mushroom tea is enough to put many people off from it. It's definitely an acquired taste, but so is beer, and beer has no shortage of fans.) It is this SCOBY that gets one started making Kombucha. The other ingredients are pretty much just tea, water, and sugar. Apparently SCOBYs multiply, but I couldn't readily locate someone who had 'babies' they were looking to get rid of in my area, so I looked to the internet for ways to make my own. I bought two bottles of GT raw organic Kombucha and tried two different methods. The first involves just pouring half of a bottle into a jar and letting it sit. I let it sit for two weeks before the SCOBY looked like the healthy examples I had seen online.

From there I steeped two bags of green tea in two liters of boiling water and added 1 1/2 cups of sugar. When the mix had cooled to room temperature (so as to not kill the live cultures), I added the Kombucha that I had grown my SCOBY in and the SCOBY itself. Then I covered it with a towel and placed it in a shady warm spot to do its thing.

The second method of growing your own mother involves a full bottle and a cup of sweet tea. It could be because there is more liquid present, but at the two week mark, the SCOBY is clear and bubbly. It smells right, but it doesn't look ready to remove yet.

I'll update this post when I progress in this experiment. I was excited and wanted to throw up what I have.

The Lightbulb Conspiracy

I just got finished watching this video on planned obsolescence and consumerism (and waste). I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you're at all interested in what I'm doing here with With Hands (or the reasons WHY I'm doing it), you just might appreciate it too.

Lawns are evil.

A Book Review: The Ultimate pH Solution

The Ultimate pH Solution: Balance Your Body Chemistry to Prevent Disease and Lose Weight by Michelle Schoffro Cook

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was one part hokey, one part marketing, and eight parts quality content. And I would have never picked it up if a trusted friend hadn't recommended it highly. After all, she had gotten me drinking lemon water, I should at least understand why.

I like this book because it explains how diet effects health in a body-chemistry way. Eating right to improve your health instead of popping pills is absolutely in line with With Hands!

also: SCIENCE



View all my reviews

A simple solution to a long standing problem.

This is a repost from my personal blog, but felt it relevant to share here.

My cat Igby is a bit of a bulimic. I don't think it's for any concern for her figure, and I don't think she purges intentionally. It's just that she hasn't figured out how to pace herself when eating.

When I think of it and have the time, I limit her consumption by just putting out a small amount of kibble at once. This is super annoying. I don't have a dog because they're too dependent. I needed to find a better way.

I started searchingbthe internet for automatic or cat-powered food dispensers. I was intrigued by this hamster-ball looking thing, but I didn't like the idea of a non-stationary feeding device.

On instructables I found an awesome food dispenser mod, and decided I should go out and buy the little feeding dish base and make it.

Before I got that far, however, I was struck with a far simpler idea. I often see Igby reaching her little paw underneathe some cabinet to retreive kibble she'd knocked there. If I put a bunch of food in something she couldn't get her face in, it would slow her down and solve my problem. BAM.

Jars are handy in so many ways.