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How to make yogurt: The Perfect Man’s method

10 Friday Oct 2008

Posted by valwebb in food, tutorial, vegetarian

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

DIY, food, recipes, yogurt

Cheap, easy, full of calcium and protein — and it’s delicious, too. The Perfect Man makes yogurt about twice a week, using his own foolproof method. In response to several hungry-sounding email requests, I’ll pass along his recipe and some basic directions. Creamy white, mildly tart, with the texture of heavy custard…. mmmmmm. You’ll never buy commercial yogurt again.

1. Assemble the supplies pictured above:

  • A half-gallon glass jar.  Just this once, resist the urge to save the planet by using a recycled pickle jar. For yogurt making, you need a heavy, heat-resistant jar that will hold up to hot liquids. The one we use is sold in the kitchen department at Target for food storage.
  • A wooden spoon.
  • A kitchen thermometer.  Ours is digital, with a six-inch probe.
  • A large saucepan. A nice heavy one is best.
  • 1 cup nonfat powdered milk. It adds nutrition and gives your yogurt a wonderful, smooth, custardy body.
  • 6 ounces of plain yogurt.  This is your starter culture, the troupe of happy little beneficial microbes who do the real work of transforming milk into yogurt. After your first batch, you can simply set aside a little of your own for this purpose. But at the start of your first yogurt adventure, you will need to use yogurt from somewhere else. Buy the best-quality plain yogurt (no sugar, no flavors or fruit) you can find. Make sure the label says it contains live cultures.  We have used Dannon with good success, but other brands work, too.  Take it out of the refrigerator before you start, so it can warm to room temperature.
  • Slightly less than 1/2 gallon of milk.  It’s “slightly less” because you’ll need to leave 6 ounces out, to make room for the added yogurt and yet still be able to fit the mixture into your jar.  So, what you really need is 58 ounces of milk. You can use skim, 2 percent or whole.

2.  Okay! Here we go. In the saucepan, combine the milk and the nonfat powdered milk. Suspend your thermostat probe in the milk mixture and heat slowly (stirring now and then) to 170 degrees. The Perfect Man uses a wire whisk to keep the probe in the center of the pan:

3.  When your thermometer says you’ve reached 170, pour the hot milk mixture into the heavy glass jar. (Transferring the liquid while hot will help sterilize your container.) Move the temperature probe into the jar and set it all aside for awhile, to let it gradually cool down to 100 degrees. This can take two or three hours, so go on out in the garden and pull some weeds. See you later.

4.  At 100 degrees, it’s time to stir in the 6 ounces of yogurt.  Then, put the jar in a warm place (105 to 110 degrees is ideal) so that your live cultures can get busy. The Perfect Man puts our yogurt in the oven on the “proof” setting. I have known people who used an electric heating pad for this step.  Others use the top of their water heater. Think about where you put your bread dough to rise — you need that same constant warmth for yogurt. You’ll need to leave it there for eight hours.

5.  Enjoy!  Eat it with granola. Eat it with fruit. Put peanuts on top of it. Make cucumber yogurt sauce and pour it over grilled veggies. It’s good.

How to paint (quickly) a rapidly vanishing butterfly

10 Thursday Jan 2008

Posted by valwebb in art, Be Inspired, botanical art, butterflies, drawing, ecology, environment, gardening, illustration, inspiration, nature, painting, sketch, tutorial, Uncategorized

≈ 15 Comments

howtodrawcheckerspot1.jpg

Meet the Bay Checkerspot butterfly, an ethereal creature with wings as richly intricate as tiny little two-inch Persian carpets. Biologists are struggling to save this species, which has fallen victim to nitrogen emissions from automobiles and the nearly complete build-out of its natural habitat in coastal California. I painted this one for my show, Postcards from the Edge of Extinction, which will open May 5 at the Mobile Arts Council gallery. Here’s how to paint a Bay Checkerspot: first, roughly sketch the main shapes in pencil. Then…

howtodrawacheckerspot2.jpg

…block in the undercolors. I used gouache, an opaque watercolor paint beloved to illustrators because it is nonreflective and reproduces well. White or ivory wings, dark blackish body, and some leaves to provide a place for him to rest.  Next…

drawacheckerspot3.jpg

…begin developing the details. Paint the outlines of his segmented wing patterns. Add some furriness to his thorax and his plump abdomen. Introduce some shadows along the lower edges of the leaves. Finally…

drawacheckerspot4.jpg

…work from left to right, using a small sable brush, and add the patterns on the wings. Take time to notice that each fresh row of “checkers” has its own repeated motif. Some look like gothic arches, some like round dots. Comparing the symmetry of the opposing wings will help keep you on track. Each side is a reflection of the opposite wing. I added a halo of soft orange and brown to help blend the whole image together with the old postcard beneath the paint.

(If you liked this step-by-step post, check out my instructions for making your own image transfers.) Enjoy!

P.S. The new year brought the first killing freeze to our Gulf Coast garden. We bid farewell to the broccoli crop and brought in the last of the savoy cabbage for soupmaking. But the collards, which only grow sweeter as the temperature drops, are still big and robust… and the snow peas, as thick and tangled as campaign promises, cover their trellis. Tucked in under a layer of compost, rows of garlic, leeks and onions dream of springtime.

Tutorial: Botanical drawing with pencil and watercolor

05 Monday Nov 2007

Posted by valwebb in art, drawing, gardening, illustration, sketch, tutorial

≈ 54 Comments

In our subtropical climate, most flowers grow better in the fall than during our oppressively hot summer months. An example? Petunias! I have several growing at the corners of the winter garden, blooming abundantly next to the broccoli and shallots. (Watch a step-by-step video of how to draw a petunia here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYcIPi501es.) Here’s a quick little lesson in capturing this distant relative of the tomato, potato and tobacco…

petuniahowto1.jpg

petuniahowto2.jpg

Start with a simple sketch in pencil…

petunia1.jpg

Using transparent watercolor, cover the leaves, stems and sepals with a layer of the palest color you see on these structures. (Often this will be the yellowish color of the midvein, the large central vein down the center of each leaf.)

petunia2.jpg

Now add a layer of deeper green, being careful not to cover up the pale veins or highlights. Put a first layer of color on the flower itself, leaving the lightest areas uncovered for now.

petunia3.jpg

Wait again for everything to dry, then paint the darker areas of the leaves and stems. Add a deeper layer of color to the flower. Spend some time really looking closely at the landscape of your flower surface. Paint a pale layer of color on the flower’s lightest areas.

petunia4.jpg

For a more graphic effect, you may want to add more pencil as a final touch. Crosshatching with lines (below) adds some drama, but simply shading darker areas with a soft lead pencil works well, too.

petunia5.jpg

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  • 4 different lesson collections
  • A cozy art course inspired by Beatrix Potter
  • A gift for you
  • Birds in Colored Pencil
  • Botanical Sketchbook Painting
  • Draw and Paint Six Culinary Herbs
  • Draw Dogs and Cats
  • Eight Flowers Eight Ways
  • Fairies II: Enchanted World
  • Gentle Garden: Draw in Carbon Pencil
  • Heirloom Garden in Colored Pencil
  • New online course!
  • NEW! Vintage Postcard Birds & Butterflies Mini-Course
  • Online Courses – Complete List
  • Paint a Little Black Hen
  • Supply List for Gentle Garden
  • Using Watercolor Pencil (squeak!)
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