Knitting in progress

You would think that running fibre mill would result in more knitting right? Hmmm perhaps not... Not yet anyway! Loving working with fibre but in these early stages there is more knitting of tension squares than anything else! However I am managing to squeeze in a few rows here and there. In typical form, I don't just have one project on the go, I have three! I'm knitting socks for me with scraps from the mill, a baby vertebrae for my friend's new bub, a milo for a friend's young boy and have plans for a kina for another friend's new bub! I just can't help myself! 

I'm really enjoying knitting with yarn that not only did we make it but we know the people who grew the fibre. Aren't the colours just lovely?

Simple Coconut Yoghurt

Whilst our household loves cheese and yoghurt, sadly at least two of us are cows milk protein intolerant so cheese and yoghurt aren't such a great idea. I've made a few substitutes along the way, most recently with almond milk in my coffee. I had thought that I had "grown" out of my allergy however since not even having cows milk in my coffee this winter I have been more well than I can remember for a very long time, even with two small boys fermenting bugs! The hardest for our family is for our 4 year old. He loved cheese and yoghurt before we discovered his intolerance and just couldn't understand why he couldn't have it anymore. So it was with great joy that I realised that it is possible to make coconut yoghurt! At the time we couldn't buy it from the local supermarket so with much internet research we gave it a go. I was astounded by how complicated the instructions were! I have a few versions a go with many failed attempts. Throughout the failed attempts I just kept thinking, it can't be this hard!!! So I decided to give super simple a go. It worked! My boy absolutely loves it! He is so happy to be eating yoghurt that he doesn't even realise, or doesn't care that, he isn't eating the ones he used to eat.

A word of warning through. There is good reason for some parts of the complicated versions, including bringing the coconut milk up to a high temperature to kill the unwanted bacteria. However it is so simple that we only make a small amount at a time and it is nearly always eaten within 24hrs of it being cool enough in the fridge!

So my simple version is...

1-2 tins of coconut milk (I use the Ayam 270ml tins, just because we like it, we can get it easily and seems to be free of additives)

1-2 capsules of dairy free probiotics (I use Inner Health Plus Dairy Free)

2-3T maple syrup (this is not for our flavouring, this is for the probiotic bacteria food)

Put all ingredients in to the Easiyo container then follow directions of your Easiyo maker with regards to water level in the thermos. Leave for 7 hours and transfer to the fridge.

Thats it!

It produces a fairly runny yogurt but no one cares in this household! I have added agar agar to thicken but it requires too much heating and fuss for us. If I want a thicker yoghurt I'll often add a tin of coconut cream instead of milk, which seems to be fine for us. Time in the thermos and if we add 1 or 2 capsules of probiotics helps us adjust how sour we want the yoghurt. (longer time = more sour)

We also by accident made a really nice strawberry frozen yoghurt (we call it strawberry icecream here, was actually attempting a smoothie at the time!). 500g frozen strawberries and some (maybe a cup) of the yoghurt ground up together on speed 9 in the thermomix. Yum!