Yo-Yo-Yogurt

I tried making my own yogurt last night, well last night was the "incubation" period. After about 9 hours of sleep, I woke up to find that nothing had changed. Its still a milk consistency. DAMMIT!

I did some googling and found a guys blog who seems to be obsessed with yogurt making, parfait! He recommends to do a 24 hr incubation, so I put it in my oven with the light on. I'm following a recipe where I can make it in my slow cooker, but thinking about incubation and temperatures, thats why it didn't thicken. It needs a steady temperature for the incubation time.

I also found some information about pasteurized and ultra-pasteurized milk. Basically, the ultra pasteurization seems to allow you to skip the part where you scald the milk, awesome, because I don't want to do that part myself anyway.

I think I will be buying a yogurt maker in the future, with my upcoming school schedule and just the overall ease, I think it will be worth it.

Serious NOM

This last weekend I was at Trader Joe's and they had tangerines J'ADORE! They are my favorite, and I never see them at Trader Joe's, in fact I haven't seen them around for a long time. Usually they just carry those damn "cutie's" or whatever. So I bought 2 bags.

I packed my lunch for Monday, and included 4 tangerines, since they are small and all. After the annoyance of trying to peel one, only to find about 15 seeds in the little fucker I gave up.

So I juiced the rest of bag 1 tonight and oh man, sofreakingdelish. I used to just buy the 1/2 gallon of Odwalla tangerine juice, but then they stopped making it. The only thing that sucks is my way of juicing, which is a ceramic owl shaped thing. I got it from Anthropologie. Since I never really juiced stuff besides the occasional lime or lemon for salad dressing, I never saw a reason for buying something else.

Now I think I am going to buy a for real juicer. Well, at least for real for me. The plus side is that my little cottage complex has an orange tree, so I think I am going to take super advantage of that.

Also, a quick search on Craigslist and you can find someone selling 50LBs of valencia oranges for $20. Seems like a steal of a deal, now I just need that juicer..

Busy Bee

So school wasn't too bad until the last few weeks where there is an exam and a quiz or big project due every week. Hectic. In light of that I have been eating more frozen food (gross) or prepared foods than I like to admit. I try to keep it minimally processed as possible, here are a few ratings and suggestions if you are busy like me:

Trader Joe's black truffle flat bread pizza - Delishicious! However, anything with truffles is perfection.

Trader Joe's bean and cheese "Taquitos" - Ok, here in San Diego these should be called rolled tacos. Get it right. Anyway, shitty. The corn tortillas they are wrapped in are gross. I have baked them and pan fried them and they are gross both ways. Save your money for truffle pizza.

Trader Joe's vegetarian egg rolls - Pretty damn good. However, the cook time should probably be longer because the middle always stays soft and ew. That could also be because I can't wait and must eat them immediately and I don't have a microwave. Oh well.

Trader Joe's 5 Cheese flatbread pizza - boring.

Trader Joe's Spicy Lentil flatbread wrap - Delishicious, and spicy! I love the spicy lentil and crispy cabbage all with a cool tahini sauce. So good.

Trader Joe's brand vegetarian "chicken" nuggets - Spend the extra .50c and get the Morningstar brand. Your welcome.

Yeah, I eat a lot at Trader Joe's, there frozen stuff seems pretty legit, but I should be making large meals and freezing them for the week, this would be a healthier alternative and I know that it would save me money. Maybe I will do that this weekend.

Delischious

Mango Nectarines!!

I have never had them before, but they are so good. I did some googling and it seems they have a very short season, so grab them when you see 'em. They go for most of July, and then maybe the first week of August. I think I am going to go buy more and make some jelly out of them.