I made homemade, lactose-free yogurt!

Grocery shopping when you are allergic and food intolerant can be rather difficult. The frozen food section is full of enticing pre-made meal offerings, most of which contain ooey, gooey, delicious cheese. The produce section contains dangerous items like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale, none of which I can eat. The canned food aisle is full of beans. Nuts are everywhere and in everything!

supermarket refrigerators — Photo by Fancycrave.com on Pexels.com

I wander over to the dairy section to grab my lactose-free milk to make some homemade farmer’s cheese (yum!) and glance longingly at the yogurt section. I see a sign. “Lactose-Free Yogurt” it says! My heart leaps, then sinks slowly to my feet as I realize that it is made from soy milk, or almond milk, or cashew milk. Still nothing for me. I decided to search the internet for assistance. Surely there are recipes for lactose-free yogurt out there. What I found out is that there are lots of recipes for homemade yogurt, most of which require the use of…yogurt. Sigh. With a lot more searching, I finally found a recipe for lactose-free yogurt that used nut milk and a culture that could be purchased online. I decided to try an experiment with my lactose-free milk (thank you, Lactaid!) and this recipe and see what I ended up with. I ordered some Bulgarian yogurt cultures from Amazon and gave it a shot. Neither of these companies pay me to advertise for them…I just have good results from using them.

the brand of culture I used

the milk I used

I heated up the milk with my sou-vide machine (my new favorite kitchen tool) to 180 degrees F and held it there for 30 minutes.

I then cooled it to 110 degrees F in an ice bath in the sink.

I added the cultures and poured it into a jar. Since I wasn’t sure what part lactose (the milk sugar I cannot digest) plays in the development of yogurt-y goodness, I added a tablespoon of honey (from my sister’s bees) just in case sugar was a necessary component.

I put the jar back into the sou vide bath with the timer set for 24 hours at 110 degrees F. I knew I wouldn’t need that long but wanted to over estimate just in case. It only took 6 hours.

The instructions that came with the yogurt cultures said to check after 5 hours. I stuck a spoon into the jar at hour 6 and a glistening spoonful of whey appeared atop a creamy concoction that looked an awful lot like yogurt!

The jar came out of the water bath and into the refrigerator it went. A couple of hours later, I opened the jar and took a taste. Sweet, tangy, creamy and delicious yogurt!

Since I like Greek yogurt better than regular yogurt I had to strain the initial supply into a thicker form. Coffee filters work really well for this, but I had to strain it in small batches of two cups at a time.

I ended up with a little over two pints of creamy Greek yogurt from two quarts of milk.

Two pints plus a half cup of strained yogurt

I kept out six tablespoons of the original yogurt to make another batch.

Unstrained yogurt saved for the next batch.

I have never liked plain yogurt before but this stuff is delightful. I have mixed it with a cut up peach, sprinkled it with granola, eaten it plain, and mixed it with cherry jam so far. I think I can see tzatziki in my future!

According to what I’ve read, I can make more yogurt from this yogurt. I do feel a sense of obligation to those six little tablespoons of starter yogurt that I set aside. I don’t know how long the cultures will live in my refrigerator and how soon I have to make more yogurt. But so far, I am happy with the stuff I have and have found myself turning to yogurt with fruit as a tasty snack. I’ve already eaten most of the original batch and will make more this weekend. Experiment successful!

Chocolate Avocado Muffins!

I got a wonderful recipe from a friend, who makes Banana Oatmeal muffins frequently. They sound wonderful but I cannot eat bananas. Also, the recipe includes Greek yogurt and I am lactose intolerant and cannot eat any dairy. But the muffins sound good and, while I am not gluten-free (I already can’t eat everything else, please leave me my gluten!), I do like to eat oats because they are good for my cholesterol. So, I set out to adapt this recipe for my own allergies. The original recipe that I got from my friend is:

2 cups rolled oats, 2 ripe bananas, 1 cup Greek yogurt, 2 eggs, 2 Tbsp honey, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 cup chocolate chips. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place all ingredients except chocolate chips, in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips. Scoop into a muffin tin. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool.

Since I have replaced bananas with avocado in a smoothie before, and I have baked a chocolate cake with avocado before, I decided to replace the two bananas with one large avocado. Since the avocado has fat in it, I don’t need to add the fat from the yogurt but do need to replace the liquid. I decided to use applesauce. Since the batter turned out a really disgusting green color, I decided to add 1/4 cup cocoa to make the muffins chocolatey and cover up the green color. This adds some bitterness so I added an extra Tbsp. of honey. You could add more if you want sweeter muffins. Also, the texture was not great, so next time I will grind the oats into flour before adding the rest of the ingredients. This is my final recipe:

2 cups rolled oats, 1/4 cup cocoa, 1 large avocado, 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 2 eggs, 3 T honey, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 cup chocolate chips. Place all ingredients except chocolate chips in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Grease muffin tin. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, remove from pan and enjoy.

Breakfast

I am not a huge fan of breakfast. I know that it is supposed to be the “most important meal of the day” but I think that is a myth perpetrated by a bacon company back in the 1930s or something. I just don’t feel hungry until about three or four hours after I get up. (Don’t get between me and my coffee, however!) But, I like most breakfast food and most of it is on my list of safe foods! Today I am having oatmeal. It’s 8am and Snickers got me up at 5 so now I’m hungry and looking forward a great day of laundry and Lego sorting! I really enjoy steel cut oats but I have found a couple of brands of instant oats that work really well for busy days. I like to add some fruit to my oats and really love apples. Freeze-dried apples (Mother Earth Products makes the best in my opinion) are a great addition and mean I don’t need to add any sugar. Mother Earth Products have great customer service (they don’t pay me or anything but I was kind of rude to a customer service person once so I like to give them a shout out when I can!) and they don’t add anything to their products. About 2 Tablespoons of freeze dried apples and an equal amount of additional boiling water added to the oatmeal makes it a good consistency. And I feel better because I am getting some fruit with my breakfast carbs!