The frugal gourmet

[Fancy]

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing this, Bit!

I have a tough time eating yogurt. Something about the taste, bleh. However, I've tinkered around until I found a smoothie recipe I like.... It helps me get the right stuff in for breakfast. I'm not so good at measuring. I just go by what tastes good to me, so here it is:

- about a cup of ice
- 1 tablespoon of fat free vanilla pudding mix
- few tablespoons of fat free plain yogurt
- fresh fruit (whatever is on hand) my favorites: mango, peach, strawberry, banana, oranges, tangerines
- orange juice (or I really like a mango-peach-orange juice, too)

Throw it all in the blender, mix, get chilled glass, a straw, and enjoy!

Originally Posted by Bit

....or a pillbug. well, except it's not black.

I got nuthin' good today except that for dessert, we're gonna have berries and yogurt. I like it sweetened so I mixed honey with the yogurt, and I always sweeten the berries as well.

Oh wait, Ursy, you asked about yogurt, didn't you? Yes, I have made my own. I read a lot of how-to blogs for making it in a crockpot and finally decided to experiment. I scalded 8 cups (half a gallon) of milk on the stove (used a meat thermometer to make sure it hit 180 degrees), then let it cool to 110 (again used the thermometer). I had heated a clean crock from my crockpot by filling it with steaming hot water, and I also preheated my oven to "warm" then turned it off.

Once the milk cooled to 110, I dumped the water out of the crock and poured the milk in. Then I mixed a little of the warm milk into a cup of Greek yogurt (any yogurt with active cultures will work), and stirred the yogurt into the crock of milk, put the lid on, and sat it in the (turned off!!) oven for eight hours.

Voila, yogurt! It was pretty soft, but I fixed that by draining part of it and heck, we just ate the rest.

The trick to yogurt is to keep it at the correct temperature and avoid jostling it for those eight hours that it needs to culture and set.

Hope you feel better, darlin!

[Bit]

Daryn, do you mean shortbread or shortcake? *puzzled* Shortbread would be wonderful, I think, but a really different flavor and texture than shortcake.

[Ursy]

Thank you for the yoghurt recipe Cath - I've heard you can make it in the crock pot so I might give it a whirl one of these days.

Freckle-K, have you tried greek yoghurt? The really thick and creamy stuff. It's divine, and I think it's milder in yoghurty taste.

Daryn, if you meant shortbread, this recipe might interest you - it's super easy and really good. The base is very shortbready. I think you might be able to substitute the lemon in the recipe for strawberries, it will just be less tangy, is all. http://crepesofwrath.net/2009/02/13/lemon-bars/

[Fancy]

Originally Posted by urs

Thank you for the yoghurt recipe Cath - I've heard you can make it in the crock pot so I might give it a whirl one of these days.

Freckle-K, have you tried greek yoghurt? The really thick and creamy stuff. It's divine, and I think it's milder in yoghurty taste.

Daryn, if you meant shortbread, this recipe might interest you - it's super easy and really good. The base is very shortbready. I think you might be able to substitute the lemon in the recipe for strawberries, it will just be less tangy, is all. http://crepesofwrath.net/2009/02/13/lemon-bars/

Yeah, I just tried some yesterday, and it didn't go over so well. I guess I'll stick to hiding it in my smoothies. Somehow, blending it all together makes it better.

Not until recently did I find the usefulness of buying plain yogurt in bulk. It's less expensive for sure than individual cups. Plus, there are so many recipes that it works with. That was something new to me...

[Daryn]

Originally Posted by Bit

Daryn, do you mean shortbread or shortcake? *puzzled* Shortbread would be wonderful, I think, but a really different flavor and texture than shortcake.

I meant shortcake. I was typing while more tired than I thought I was. Thanks for catching this.

And can this be made in a toaster oven?

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Daryn

And can this be made in a toaster oven?

If your cake pan fits in your toaster oven, and if your toaster oven will hold a steady temperature, yes.

I don't have a good shortcake recipe because I discovered the joy of southern style strawberry shortcake--on biscuits! Hm. I went to King Arthur Flour to get you a "real" shortcake recipe---they're all biscuits too! lol! This is cracking me up... everywhere I look, the recipes are biscuits!

here's one from allrecipes.com. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/scrumptious-strawberry-shortcake/detail.aspx

That's a biscuit-type recipe too, but it should bake okay in a toaster oven.

Now if you mean "shortcake" like I grew up with, those round light actual cakes, they're really sponge cake baked like flat cupcakes.

Once I had strawberry shortcake on a biscuit, I never looked back, lol.... here's my latest recipe (probably not toaster-ovenable because of the high heat).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lemon Cardamom Biscuits

1/4 cup lemon juice
3 drops lemon extract (that bottle's gonna last me a lonnnnggg time, lol)
1 cup milk

Measure into large cup and let sour.

3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tablespoon baking powder

Mix all dry ingredients thoroughly.

2 1/2 Tablespoons butter (I do mean real butter--the difference is phenomenal)

Cut in until particles are evenly fine and no lumps remain.

Stir in sour milk until all flour is incorporated. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 F until the peaks are just barely browned. (Turn the baking sheet once if necessary to ensure they cook evenly.)

Remove from sheet, split, butter, and top with sliced, sugared berries and homemade whipped cream.

Makes 12.

[Ursy]

Some of you might be interested in this post from Chowhound... some good ideas there!

>>Eating like a Chowhound on $3 a day<<

[Bit]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-FJ150-Pinzon-5-9-Inch-Pasta/dp/B001CGMKA4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1275196521&sr=8-4"]Amazon.com: Pinzon 5-9-Inch Pasta Maker: Home & Garden[/ame]


(I paid $32 for this; the price has gone down to $25 this weekend.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They told me so, y'all. I read the reviews in amazon.com and it was clear that the handle falls out. Someone said it was cheaply made. I said to myself, "I'll be aware and careful with the handle, and hey, it looks pretty solid to me." I didn't have the hundred bucks to get an Atlas... so I sprang for the Pinzon.

You get what you pay for. I'd have been happier with a tortilla press for $15. But hey, I wanted to make tortillas AND pasta.

The first thing I discovered is that the clamp doesn't work at ALL. Here's the thing about cheaply made: it isn't limited to flimsy, like I was thinking. It can also cover improperly sized holes, so that the clamp won't screw to the countertop. It can cover a handle that fell out no less than twenty times while I was being careful and landed on the floor every single time--well, except that one time it landed on the dog.

Cheaply made also covers things like noodle and spaghetti cutters that DON'T cut, and that are wider at one end so that the noodles are not an even thickness. It took me longer to pull the noodles apart than it did to run them through the machine in the first place.

Cheaply made also covers things like the holes on the dial not being lined up with the numbers, so that you never know exactly what thickness you're using; and things like cleaning instructions that refer to non-existent plastic parts.

There is no actual manual, just an instruction sheet with vague photos and an admonition to never wash the machine, and the aforementioned reference to non-existent parts.

My test run of tortillas was almost a disaster, but I finally realized that I needed to run them through in a specific pattern, and stretch them by hand after they came out of the machine. They tasted fine and the texture was what I expected, even if the sizes and shapes were a little wonky.

The noodles, on the other hand, did not have the texture I expected until I ran them through several times on succeedingly thinner settings. Since Gryph likes thick noodles--one reason to make them at home--being forced to use the thinner settings was a problem, and also made some of the noodle sheets waaay too long for easy handling.

The cutter thicknesses are not adjustable--how it comes is how it is.

It definitely takes two people and four hands to catch the noodles as you feed the dough through. This may be mostly due to inexperience, but at least part of it is due to the sheets being so thin and therefore long.

All in all, it would have been less work to buy the tortilla press and just slice the flattened dough into noodles with kitchen scissors or a paring knife. I suspect it would be easy enough to put logs of dough into a press and get flat oblongs for easy slicing.

I won't ever buy a Pinzon product again.

I also won't ever buy storebought noodles again--as bad as this product is, it still saved my wrists considerable wear and tear... but what sold me?

The first batch of fresh homemade noodles, rolled, "cut" and then separated right into boiling broth. FOODGASM. Seriously--foodgasm.

[Ursy]

Bummer! Does Amazon have a returns policy? That sounds like a definite candidate for a return. Then I'd get the tortilla press and save some money.

Thanks love for the comprehensive review