Recipe: How to make your own yogurt

I recently learned how to make delicious natural yogurt at home thanks to some great friends of mine who taught me how. It's extremely easy and will save you lots of money. You don't need any fancy equipment either. This recipe doesn't even require a thermometer and has so far given me great results every time.



Ingredients:
2 litres of milk (cow's milk, any fat concentration)
2-3 tbsp natural yogurt as starter (your yogurt must contain live and active cultures, just check labels on the yogurt at the grocery store if making yogurt for the first time or if you have run out of starter culture)

Supplies:
Pot for heating the milk
Large spoon for stirring the milk
2L plastic container
Small spoon for spreading the starter culture

Method:
Pour the milk into a pot and heat on the stove top on medium heat, stirring often and keeping a close eye so the milk doesn't scald.
Once the milk has boiled and looks foamy on top like cappuccino, turn off the heat.

Protip 1: If you have a larger pot and a smaller pot, you could instead create a water jacket effect with some water in the larger pot and place the smaller pot in the water. This is a gentler way to heat the milk with less chance of scalding.
Protip 2: Add milk powder to the milk while it's heating up if you like thicker yogurt.
Protip 3: Longer boil times will also increase the thickness of the yogurt.



Remove the milk from the heat and allow it to cool. To speed up the cooling process, you can fill a sink 1/4 of the way with cold water, carefully pour the milk into a large bowl, and place the bowl in the cold water. Stir occasionally to prevent a skin from forming on the surface as the milk cools.



You'll know the milk is ready when you dip your finger in and it's warmer than room temperature, but not hot. Next, spread 2-3 tablespoons of the yogurt inside a 2L plastic container.



Pour the milk into the plastic container, put the lid on and wrap it in a towel to keep it warm (in winter or in cold climates, use a warm blanket instead of a towel to keep more heat in). Place the wrapped container into a dark cupboard and leave for approximately 7 hours. After about 7 hours (leave it an hour or two longer if using low fat or skim milk), the culture will have multiplied and when you lift the lid, voila! Beautiful homemade yogurt for a fraction of the cost!



Place the container in the fridge and enjoy! Just remember to save a small amount of the yogurt as starter (don't eat it all) so you can make a new batch. The yogurt will last for a week in the fridge. You can also add fresh fruit and/or honey to make it sweet. If I had known how cheap and easy it was, I would have started making my own yogurt years ago.

Recipe: Mexican Gelatina Mosaico

After falling in love with this stuff at El Super in Inglewood, California, we had to learn to make it ourselves at home here in Australia. It's actually really easy, cheap, and really fun to eat. Only thing is, it's torturous trying to wait for them to set. But as they say, good things come to those who wait and this stuff is GOOD! For the gelatin, choose your favourite flavours/colours. We used Strawberry, Lemon & Lime. Deliciosa!

INGREDIENTS
3 boxes flavoured gelatin (eg. Jello or Aeroplane Jelly, any flavours)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 can of condensed milk or cream
2 packages of unflavoured gelatin

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Prepare the flavoured gelatins according to directions on the package, but reduce the required water by half.
2. Pour the gelatin into separate rectangular dishes and chill until set.
3. Cut the gelatin into small cubes and put the cubes into serving cups or bowls. Put a mix of flavours into each.
4. Blend the sweetened condensed milk and the condensed milk in a pitcher or bowl.
5. Prepare the unflavoured gelatin according to directions on the package, but again reduce the required water by half.
6. Add the unflavoured gelatin to the milk mixture.
7. Pour the gelatin/milk mixture over the gelatin cubes.
8. Place them in the fridge and chill until set (minimum 4 hours).
9. Enjoy!

Recipe: Banana Bread

This classic recipe is the perfect way to use up those over-ripe bananas. For fluffy banana bread goodness:

1 cup sugar
1 tsp bicarb soda (baking soda)
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease loaf pan or cake pan with butter, margarine, or canola spray. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Pour in mashed banana, oil, beaten eggs, milk, vanilla, and chopped nuts (optional). Mix well with wooden spoon. Bake for 40-45 mins. Bread is cooked when a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy!

Recipe: ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

This Monday is ANZAC Day here in Australia so what better way to pay tribute to the ANZACs than to make and consume some ANZAC Biscuits. For those of you not from Australia or New Zealand, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The biscuits are cookies, believed to be sent to (or some say even made by) soldiers in WWI. They are believed to have been developed (without eggs due to their lack of availability during wartime) to withstand transport and to keep well for a long period of time. Here's a recipe I recommend:

Chewy ANZAC Biscuits



Preparation time: about 25 minutes (excludes baking time)
Makes about 25 biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 100g butter
• 40ml (1 tablespoon) golden syrup
• 92g (1 cup) rolled oats
• 80g (1 cup) desiccated coconut
• 150g (1 cup) plain flour
• 112g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 56g (1/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon (6g) bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 40ml (2 tablespoons) boiling water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Celsius fan-forced). If you will be baking one tray of biscuits at a time, place an oven rack in the centre of the oven. If you wish to bake two trays of biscuits at a time, place one oven rack in the upper half of the oven and one in the lower half of the oven.
2. Line one or two large baking trays with baking paper.
3. Place butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally.
4. Place oats, coconut, flour, caster sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl.
5. Stir together until well combined.
6. When butter has melted, combine bicarb soda and boiling water in a small bowl or cup, and then stir into the butter and golden syrup mixture.
7. Add butter mixture to dry ingredients.
8. Stir ingredients together until well combined.
9. Roll level, firmly packed tablespoons of the mixture into balls or if using a round tablespoon to measure, just leave as spoon shaped mounds.
10. Place dough balls/mounds about 5cm apart on the prepared tray/s.
11. Using your fingers or a fork, slightly flatten the dough balls/mounds to form 1cm thick, 5cm diameter discs.
12. Bake for about 15-16 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown but still soft (a longer cooking time will produce crisper, drier biscuits). If you aren't using a fan-forced oven, and are baking two trays of biscuits at a time, swap the positions of the trays halfway through the baking time. This will allow the biscuits to cook more evenly. You may also need to extend the baking time by a few minutes.
13. Cool biscuits on trays for about three minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
14. Store cooled biscuits in an airtight container. The biscuits will soften over time. 

Breakfast Tacos & Flour Tortillas Recipe

bean & cheese breakfast taco in homemade flour tortilla

I grew up in San Antonio, Texas - king of breakfast tacos (I hear Austin's are pretty good too). In San Antonio, you roll out of bed and hit up one of the many Taco Cabana, Las Palapas, or Bill Miller drive thrus...or you pick your favorite local taqueria for a hot soft flour tortilla (or two!) in aluminum foil filled with your favorite fillings like bean & cheese (my personal favorite!), bacon & egg, potato & egg, chorizo & egg (chorizo is sausage), or one of the more creative choices from the menu. Without a doubt you will scarf down your taco and start your day very satisfied and having spent only around a dollar or two per taco. You can hardly get any decent Mexican food in Australia so you certainly can't buy any decent breakfast tacos in Adelaide (yet). So even though none of my friends' abuelitas (grandmas) ever taught me how to make homemade flour tortillas back home, my love for breakfast tacos has led me to give it a go here in the land down under. I replaced the traditional lard with butter or margarine or canola oil. The results even on the first try made me want to make all my tortillas fresh and without preservatives and crap for almost nothing instead of paying almost $1 per tortilla for the packs from the supermarket. All you need is a rolling pin, a fry pan, a few ingredients and a bit of muscle. I'll leave it up to you what you put inside and what time of day you eat them but believe me you will want to eat them. and the plate will be lonely again...



Flour Tortillas Recipe

Makes approx 6 tortillas. Double the quantities for approx 12 tortillas.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour or self-raising flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter or margarine or canola oil
approx 1 & 1/2 cups boiling water

Preparation method:
1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.
2. Mix in butter or oil until the mixture resembles the texture of polenta or fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add a little boiling water at a time, stirring each time.
4. Begin mixing with your hands to make a soft dough. You may not need all the water.
5. Knead the dough for a few minutes on floured surface until it becomes smooth and elastic.
6. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with cling wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes.
7. Divide the dough into small balls similar to the size of golf balls and roll out one ball at a time using a rolling pin into the size and thickness you prefer. (I try to get mine as thin as humanly possible)
8. Cook one at a time in a dry heavy frying pan until the top starts to bubble. Then turn to cook on the opposite side.
9. Place cooked tortillas on a large plate with a clean tea towel over the top to keep them warm.
10. Fill with your favorite fillings and enjoy!