Success Yogurt

Oh my gosh, it has suddenly been so cold in the late afternoon and nearly freezing at night. I forgot to prewarm my bed, so puppy and I were in for a c-c-c-cold surprise. 


Usually puppy and I sleep without any heat unless it's freezing and the plumbing is in danger.  The bankers want their money for my hospital bills, so we skip the heat, pile on the clothes and covers. 


I realized what happened, when my electric box at the campground blew for the 4th time, (I think they have issues here)  it reset my mattress warmer to off. I didn't think to turn it on again, since I had turned it on earlier. Because it is a low gentle heat, it does take time to warm up the bed, especially since my bed is right over the unheated basement storage area. 


Puppy and I both slept in our sweaters and coat, because we fell asleep in them before the bed got warm.  We tried to watch a borrowed movie called Adaptation. It is based on the book; The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession.


I wrote a mixed review about it, I enjoyed learning all about the orchids and of course Meryl Streep is as usual showcasing her enormous acting talent. 


As I sit here writing as the sun starts to fade, a cold chill is setting in, despite the hot pot of beans I ate earlier. I slow cooked a bag of  assorted dried beans, then added jalapeños, peppers, onions, soya mince and assorted herbs. Oh my gosh, it was wonderful but hot. 


When I buy dried beans, I take ziplock bags, and then put a 1/4 cup of each type of bean into several baggies. As I buy more variety, I add to them. I usually only spread out half the beans in the assorted baggies, keeping the other half for a solo bean dish. Eventually I end up with several baggies of assorted beans. These can be fun to cook with, as the flavors of several beans are vastly different than the individual beans. The final dish was pretty hot, what with the extra spices I threw in. I could go on and on about the health benefits of dried beans and red peppers. 


I chased it down with some homemade yogurt I made the night before with my gas oven pilot light. I sort of made it on the fly, none of the stores in walking distance around here sell plain yogurt. I can't eat the stuff with all the sugars and additives and imitation fruits, I need the wholesome plain yogurt. I gave up on the diabetes meds, they were just too expensive, so I am trying to reverse diabetes which means I need to evenly space healthy lowfat meals.  It's hard to make breakfast in the cold morning, when I am in a fog, but if I skip it, well, bad things happen. 


The yogurt would have been a lot less nerve racking to make, if I had a proper thermometer. I finally stuck my outdoor thermometer in a sandwich baggie, submersed it in the hot milk to make sure I had the temperature more or less close enough to start incubating the yogurt culture I had saved from some plain Danon yogurt. Then I lit the pilot light on my oven, shoved the crock of milk and yogurt starter in that and said my prayers about it, then went to bed. 


I woke up several times in the night, but would not let myself peek at it, as yogurt prefers to make itself in solitude, undisturbed. Much like a writer...


In the morning, I hemmed and hawed, about taking a final look at it but put it off until later when I realized it had sat for 12 hours. Surprisingly, I had yogurt!  Yippee!


I then made up my breakfast mix that will last four or five mornings. The recipe is a bit chaotic, one day I shall measure it out for you. My homemade yogurt wasn't as thick as store bought Danon, because I forgot to throw some powder milk in with it, but still it was wonderful. 


For the breakfast mix,  I take the quart of yogurt I made, then add lots of 100% uncooked oatmeal, probably about 3 cups, then a half pint of fresh blueberries, when I can get them,  a splash of real vanilla extract, a big sprinkle of cinnamon and a tiny squirt of honey.  I stir it up to mix thoroughly and insure the oatmeal is well combined with the yogurt mixture. Then that has to sit 12-24 hours in the fridge while the oatmeal softens up,  soaking up the yogurt. The next morning, I eat about a cup of it either cold or warmed in the microwave, depending on how I feel. 


If it's c-c-c-cold, I get up, grab my breakfast mush and get back in the warm bed to eat. 


It's a super healthy tasty breakfast that sticks to your ribs without adding weight. The cinnamon helps regulate blood sugar, the yogurt does wonders for fortifying the immune system,  the blueberries are bursting with antioxidants,  the honey helps build up immunity and maintain optimum blood sugar levels, the vanilla is another antioxidant that also heps prevent certain brain cell damage. So the entire concoction is a wonderful healthy meal.   


Sometimes, I have it as a snack, if I have the munchies. 


Well, it's c-c-cold again, so puppy and I are going to beddy-bye. 

Last fall, I went to visit my friend in Jackson, Ohio. I was so enormously proud of myself, to have parked my motorhome, on the first try, so nice and neat on the residential street. I even took a picture to show I was barely an inch from the curb.  


I walked up to the house, thinking my friend would surely think I was clever when she saw just how near perfect,  I was parked out front. But when the nice lady answered the door,  she was a stranger. I was parked at the wrong house!  


My friend lived a half mile up the street. She never got to see my nice neat close to the curb parking because she waved me around to park in her back yard. 

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