Getting "Cultured" - Make your own yoghurt

I make my own yoghurt - it's surprisingly easy and quite yummy. I usually make up 2L at a time and it takes no more than 20mins to make up the mix but does take about 6hrs before the yoghurt is ready to eat. The best thing I like about making my own yoghurt is that I know what goes into it - which is not much.

I use powdered milk for convenience but you can just use fresh milk. I usually do 2L of water and 3 cups of milk powder (the ratio is normally 750ml water to 1 cup of milk powder).

Here's how I make my yoghurt:

Utensils

• A mini esky - one that will hold the container/s that you will set your yoghurt in without too much room around the edges
• Tea towels - to pack around your yoghurt containers.
• 2 empty Goulburn Valley Fruit containers
• Milton's anti-bacterial solution 
• Saucepan
• Stirring spoon
• Measuring jug
• Measuring spoons
• Thremometer (optional)

Ingredients

• 2L Milk
• 5tbs Sugar (you can add more or less to taste)
• 2tbs Vanilla Essence
• 4tbs Yoghurt starter* 

* Yoghurt Starer is just some of your previous batch of yoghurt - you can freeze it if it's going to be a couple of weeks between batches, you'll just need to thaw it out before you use it.
If this is the first time you've made yoghurt then find a pot-set yoghurt, or one with live cultures, that you like the taste of. My two favourite ones to use are Barambah Real Mango Yoghurt or Jalna Premium Vanilla Yoghurt.

Method 

1. Make up the antibacterial solution according to the instructions and sterilise your containers & lids. I fill the containers to the brim and then put the lids on.
2. Meanwhile pour the milk into the saucepan.
3. Add the sugar and vanilla essence.
4. Heat the milk over medium heat until the milk is almost at boiling point and the sugar has dissolved.
   You can tell this when the milk starts to froth around the edges of the saucepan and when you stick your finger in you can only hold your finger in for a second or two. It's not a big deal if the milk boils you'll get a skin form as it cools but it won't affect the yoghurt.
   If you use a thermometer heat until it is 80C
5. Leave the milk to cool until blood temperature.
   To tell if it is the right temperature you need to be able to hold your finger in the milk for 10-20seconds. This is 40C on a thermometer.
6. Empty out your sterilised containers (make sure you get most of the water out but you don't need to rinse it)
7. Pour the milk into the sterilised containers. I find it easier to transfer the milk to my measuring jug and then pouring into the containers but you can pour directly into the containers if you have better pouring ability than I do.
8. Into each container stir in 2 tbs of the yoghurt starter.
9. Put the lid on the containers and pack them into your esky.
10. Pack the tea towels around the containers to help with insulation.
11. Wait. Leave it for 6hrs or longer if you want a thicker yoghurt.
12. Voila - you should now have some yummy yoghurt.

This yoghurt is not a super thick yoghurt but shouldn't be runny. I find it makes up a good medium consistency yoghurt slightly thicker than Yoplait or Ski yoghurts.

I have had a few "fail whale" attempts at making yoghurt but generally haven't had too many issues with this method of yoghurt making.

Happy Yoghurt Making =)

Let them eat Cake!

It was my little boy's birthday recently and while our celebrations were low key the one thing we definitely couldn't miss out on was cake - not just any old cake, we made a plane cake.

The cake we made was based on a tutorial from Dykstra Dash with a couple of minor modifications: Dykstra Dash: How to make an Airplane Cake

This is the cake before we decorated it.

I cut my wings slightly thinner and also made up a propeller. We used chocolate cream cheese frosting to sandwich things together and then just some whipped cream with some blue food colouring to cover the plane and whipped cream with black food colouring for the propeller. I used some tubes of icing for the finer detail (although this didn't really work too well) and m&ms for lights.

This was definitely a super easy cake to make - the hardest part was making the cake! I ended up having to make 3 sponges because my FIL ate one of the tail wings whilst I was out of the house =/

Happy Birthday my little man =) I look forward to many more!

Easter Tomb Raider

For those that are religious Easter is about the death and resurrection of Christ. My mother-in-law used to make these Easter eggs with a twist for my husband and his brothers at Easter.

The tutorial on how to make it is below. If you make it on Good Friday you can do the whole lot and then on Easter Sunday roll the tomb rock aside, take out "Jesus" and stand him next to the tomb (if it lasts that long!). Otherwise you could make it on Easter Sunday and just have Jesus standing next to the tomb.

What you need:

• 1 x chocolate easter egg approx 10cm (4") long - the tomb
• 1 x mint pattie* -  the rock that seals the tomb
• 1 x marshmallow - the rock that Jesus' body laid on
• 1 x jelly baby - Jesus
• 2 tbsp of hazelnut spread* - this is your "glue"
• 1 butter knife
• 1 plate*

What you need

Putting it all together:

1. Take your Easter egg and mark, but don't cut, about an inch in from the fat end of the egg.

Mark the end of the egg

2. Heat your butter knife over a flame or in hot water and work it around the Easter egg until the end of the Easter egg is cut off.
Note: If you're tempted to lick the melted chocolate off the knife WAIT until it's cooled down or you'll burn your tongue.

Cut the end off the egg

3. Take a splodge of the nutella and spread it thickly on the side of the Easter egg and place it on the plate.

Add your glue

4. Now place the marshmallow into the tomb and the jelly baby on top of the marshmallow. I didn't have a jelly baby to hand so just used a jelly bear, but you get the idea ;)

Place your marshmallow

Place your "Jesus"

5. Take another splodge of your spread and place it at the entrance of the "tomb".

More glue

6. Place your mint pattie on its side covering the opening. Voila! Your Easter egg tomb.

Seal the tomb

7. On Easter Sunday, roll the tombstone aside, and take out Jesus and place him next to the tomb.

He is risen

My MIL used to make these on Easter Sunday without the marshmallow or jelly baby. She would just have the tomb ajar and then would pipe "He is risen" on the side in icing.

* There are a couple of substitutes that you can make:

• The mint pattie and plate can both be replaced by any circular chocolate or biscuit 
• The hazelnut spread can be substituted with icing or any other thick spread.

Mix it up!

Lately I've had cookie cravings but, thankfully for my waistline, I'm just that lazy that I haven't been able to motivate myself to pull out all the ingredients from the pantry and bake. While procrastinating on Pinterest the other day, I found a pin which my waistline is going to rue: Betty Crocker-esque mixes from Fake-it Frugal.

I love this concept as it's the getting everything out to measure and having all the stuff in the kitchen that puts me off baking. This way all the dry goods are measured out and all I have to do is to add the wet ingredients and bake.

This afternoon during nap time I made up a few pre-mixes:

• 2 batches for Anzac Biscuits
• 2 Chocolate Cake
• 1 muffin
• 1 chocolate brownie

Baking Pre-Mixes

Each bag has written on it the additional ingredients required and instructions. I also added the ingredients that I had put in with a view that I could re-use the ziplock bags.

These would also be great for weekends away as you don't have to bring the whole kitchen with you. If you put the dry ingredients into larger ziplock bags, you can simply add the wet ingredients to the bags for mixing and then just bring whatever you need to measure the wet ingredients and something to bak it in! Voila!

Hang on, here's a notion: Upcycled Notions Organiser

My sewing area is a mess. It doesn't help it's in the smallest room in the house which is used to store all of our "stuff". Being a small room there's not much space to store things and storage is the one thing I need for all my notions - snaps, velcro, zips, elastic and other random bits.

Whilst perusing the interweb I found this great tutorial from the Make It Love It blog for making a hanging notion organiser http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/08/hanging-jewelry-holder-space-saver.html. Being a tight arse this was right up my alley as forking out $40 for one of these at the shops is not an option.

Being a tight arse I also began thinking about what I had around me that I could reuse for this project. I found an old plastic storage bag the type that blankets/doonas/quilts are sold in. I had planned to cut this up and use it as the tutorial suggested and then decided that I could save myself some time and effort...and so I created my own hanging notions organiser.

Here's how I made it:

1. This bag had originally had a zipper at the top so that was cut off.
2. Next I took a pencil and drew a grid for the pockets. These ones are roughly 3.5inches square, but I think next time I will do as the Make It, Love It tutorial and have some small and some big. This size is the smallest that I would do, and then I'd go bigger.
3. The next step is to add the tabs. Take a couple of strips of either the plastic or material and fold them in half and attach them to the top of the bag. These will be used to hang them.
4. Now, using an overlock stitch or zig zag stitch, sew along the gridlines. These will make your pockets.
5. Once your gridlines are sewn it's time to make the pocket openings. Carefully separate the top from the back and gently cut a slit at the top of each pocket. I found it easiest making a tiny snip and then using my seam ripper to enlarge the hole.
6. That's it. Your notions organiser is ready to hang and fill.

I plan to add to this by attaching more bags to the bottom and I have an alternative method for storing long lengths of elastic and velcro...but that's for another post.

Rags to Riches - Making a Rag Quilt Part 2

With my rag quilt design completed I got to cutting out the squares. I always dread cutting. I think it's because by cutting into a piece of fabric you lose its potential. When it is a whole piece of fabric it can be whatever you want it to be but once you cut it that potential is gone - even though you have something perfectly functional that you've made out of it. I get the same feeling when cutting into a piece of clothing when upcycling (even if its no longer useable).

Three things that make the job of cutting so much easier and almost fun are a rotary cutter, quilting ruler and cutting mat. For those who do a bit of quilting this is probably a no brainer but for the uninitiated these things make life so much easier!

With all my squares cut out the next step is to put the pieces together. At first I numbered all the squares of one side of my design and then reversed the numbering on on the other side and started putting the pieces together... Big Fail. It all got rather confusing only 10 squares in. I figured the easiest way to make sure the right pieces when together was to lay them out on the floor.
Helpful Hint #1: Make sure that you lay out one side in reverse before you top it with the other ;)

Now time to start sewing. Grab two set of squares. Facing out the layers that you want the rag seam to be against (so facing together the sides where you want the seams to be neat) and sew. Keep doing this until you get to the end of the row. Rinse and repeat for all the other rows.
Helpful Hint #2: It helps to lay out the rows on the floor as you complete them so that you can ensure that 1. the seams are all on the same side and 2. that you have the squares in the right place - this is more important if you have a pattern, but if you are doing random squares it's not that big a deal.

Once all your squares have been sewn into rows, it's time to sew your rows together. Make sure that you open up the seams so that they are even and that your seams are lined up (if you're anal like me, but you won't really notice once it's done). Go slow and watch your needles. I broke 4 needles when putting this together =( but it was worth it =)

Once all the rows have been sewn together you're almost there. The next step is what I call "sit and snip". It does take a while, make sure you have sharp scissors (or rag quilt snips - I didn't have these so scissors it was) and start snipping the seams. Careful not to cut through the stitching....a couple of hours later all your seams are snipped.

The last step is to wash and dry (on hot if you have a dryer). This gets the seams nice and ruffled but produces LOTS of fluff, which I'm still finding coming out of my washing machine a few days later. Based on the advice from others I definitely recommend shaking your quilt out after washing, half way through the drying (making sure to clean your dryer filter at this point) and at the end of the drying cycle.

Below is my finished quilt. I think it turned out a treat and is quite toasty warm too!

Rags to Riches - Making a Rag Quilt Part One

Rag quilts seem to be all the rage in the sewing world at the moment. The first time I heard the term "rag quilt" I had visions of a raggedy, hodge-podge looking quilt that was made using scraps of fabric you had lying about...and that is in fact how they got their name.

The rag quilts that I've seen are a far cry from that although there are a few made of left over fabric scraps. They all look great and seem to be fairly easy to make so I thought I would turn my hand to making one.

I'd like to say that I had a theme in mind before I started but it was a trip to Spotlight and 50% off clearance fabrics and flannelette that really shaped my quilt. There was some cheap nautical themed cotton and blue flannel with swallows (my name in chinese means swallow) and the seeds of a red, white and blue themed quilt was planted.

I'm a planner by nature, so I was never really going to launch headlong into cutting up fabric and sewing it together. First I had to figure out the dimensions that I wanted for the quilt and work whether I had enough material to make it out of. I ended up finding a pdf with instructions on how to calculate your fabric requirements http://www.fabricsnquilts.com/uploads/Rag_Quilt_Calculator.pdf and adapted that into an spreadsheet.

Then I had to figure out how best to put these fabrics together - even at the best of times I'm not really great with matching things up and as a result, if not kept really simple my projects tend to come out looking like a 4 year old has made them (no offence to any 4 year olds out there). Cue my spreadsheet which I used as a very basic design board by formatting cells to represent different designs.

In the end I ended up going with my son's initials on one side and a ship on the other. Cue my spreadsheet again which I used to calculate how much of each fabric I needed to make my design.

I managed to source the additional fabric from my existing stash so in the end have spent $18 on this quilt - $8 for 8m of fabric from Spotlight (thanks to a $10 voucher for registering my VIP card online) and $10 for the op shop doona.

Stay tuned for the next instalment - Putting the quilt together (eek!)