Making yoghurt the right way, or, don't do what I did

So, I bought a yoghurt-maker. It cost $45. The product was inedible and acidic, and I gave it to my neighbours after only three uses. Complete waste of time and money, and I felt like a dope afterwards.

Don't do what I did.

You can make yoghurt with stuff you already have in the house (for tools- although you might want some butter muslin if you want to drain the whey from your yoghurt, which makes it more lactose-intolerant-friendly), and you can re-use the same batch a couple of times, but make sure you get a new starter culture every couple of batches for optimal flavour.

Here are some good online instructions-

New England Cheesemaking Company- Yoghurt info page

Make yoghurt in your oven

There's a lot more to it than was covered in the info booklet that came from the yoghurt-making-machine. Which I had to download and print because the company was too cheap to include it.

That thing about hindsight is so true.

Something else you can do in the fall

How to prune a berry bush at the end of the season.

Battening down the hatches

It went down to -6 C last night... Winter arriveth. (Yes, I know I made that word up, but it does follow the rules for Old English ;)

This winter I'm going to make sure that all the windows have proper, heavy-duty curtains on them. I got a pair of blackout curtains from Canadian Tire (on sale, woot!) this past summer, and they made a world of difference keeping out the heat. I'm also noticing that they trap the cold air nicely against the glass. I get the feeling that if I put them in the basement (walkout basement with acres of glass thanks to a passive solar design) that it will make the temperature much more habitable down there this year. Things might heat up okay during the day, but at night it's downright cold. Also, it's time for the yearly trip to the hardware store for large plastic sheets packaged up as 'winterizing kits', and attaching them to my big windows. It's a bit of a job, but it works great.

This year I'm buying myself an electric heater that looks like a small wood stove. Since I'm never going to get a real one, I guess I can use my imagination and pretend... There's only so many wool socks you can put on and still fit inside your shearling slippers, and fingerless gloves are nice and all, but they're hard to type in and my fingers *still* get cold.

That basement room is going to be comfy, darn it. I'm tired of freezing my buns off.