Herb Salt

I've been listening to a new-to-me podcast lately, The Splendid Table.  I love it and am getting lots of great ideas.  I immediately jumped on an idea for herb flavored salt.  I'm throwing a little party in a few days and want to offer different artisanal food products for sale, like a mini farmers market, and this salt sounds like a perfect product!

1/2 cup Kosher Salt
3-4 cloves of garlic
1-2 cups of chopped herbs

Dice the garlic then begin to chop the salt into the garlic.  Next chop the herbs into your salt mix until a sandy consistency is achieved.  You can create all sorts of herb combinations.  I used fresh herbs from my mom's, my local farmer's, and my own garden.

Rosemary
Tarragon
Oregano
Sage
Lavender (just a little)

Photo to come...

Granola

Light, crunchy and tasty, this granola is divine!

I found this granola recipe and used it as my jump off point.  I had made fresh yogurt for the first time and wanted something special to eat with it.  It was easy and made my house smell great!  I choose what I had, so feel free to change this recipe to suit your needs and resources.  Combine the oats, nuts and cherries.  Stir together the oil, syrups and vanilla and then mix that into the oats.  Spread out on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and mix up then bake for another 15 minutes.

2 cups of oats
3/4 cup coconut flakes
1/4 cup hazelnuts
1/4 cup candied pecans
1/2 cup dried cherries

1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Here's how it looked before it was baked.

It was delicious served warm over fresh yogurt.

DIY Home Made Yogurt

Fresh yogurt in a glass jar, soon to be repeated!

Yogurt is really easy to make, I tried it yesterday for the first time and it turned out great.  Tangy and thick, almost like a sour custard.  Making yogurt is similiar to making goat cheese, which I have been playing with lately.  The final product comes from your precision of technique and not the ingredients in that there are very few ingredients.  In stead it is temperature and time control that bring so much distinction between different dairy products.  To make yogurt you need some milk and little bit of all ready prepared yogurt which is called your starter.  That's it!  But you'll need a lot of kitchen equipment, mostly basic stuff.  Very important is a cooking thermometer to measure the temperature of the milk.  You need covered glass containers for your yogurt like mason jars.  You need a container to incubate your yogurt, I used a big pot but read recommendations for using a cooler.  And you need a pot to heat the milk.  Similar to making cheese, it is important to sanitize everything that comes in contact with the milk.  I do this by pouring boiling water from an electric kettle I have on hand all over everything I use prior to letting it touch the milk beginning with the pot I will heat the milk in.

1/2 gallon milk
1/4 cup organic plain yogurt
4 12 ounce jars with lids
2 pots that fit into each other
thermometer
big spoon

sterilizing the yogurt jars

heating the milk to 180'

Begin by heating the milk slowly over a low flame until it reaches 180'-185'.  While heating the milk stir it gently to prevent scalding or coagulating of the milk.  As it got close to the desired temperature I slowed down the process to promote evaporation as I wanted a thick yogurt if possible.  While the milk is heating you can prepare the jars by filling them with boiling water to both sanitize and heat the jars.   When the milk reaches 180' remove it from the heat and allow the temperature to drop to 115'.   Remove one cup and blend it with your starter (get your yogurt out of the fridge early so it has time to warm up to room temperature) and then stir this back into the milk.  Pour the milk into the jars and cover tightly.  Submerge your jars in water at 110'-115'.  Hold the yogurt at this temperature for four hours adding more hot water from time to time to keep the temperature at 110'.  When the yogurt has reached a consistency you like remove from the heat and place in the refrigerator and allow to chill before serving.

Submerging the yogurt in warm water to maintain 110'

The cream top milk pastured milk gave me cream top yogurt!

Under the cream cap the yogurt was firm, white and tangy. 

The first serving looks great! 

Topped with granola warm from the oven was AAAAmazing!