Home-made yoghurt

It all started because we had too much milk; we have a milkman who delivers three times a week, and sometimes we don’t seem to drink as much milk… maybe we have gone out for the day, or away for a weekend, or maybe we just haven’t consumed as much, no white sauces, no pancakes, no custard which all take milk.

My recipe is 1 litre of milk brought to about 40º C and 60 ml of yoghurt stirred in; leave it for 24 hours in a warm place such as the airing cupboard (make sure it is standing on something solid unless you want all your clean bedding and towels covered in yoghurt!) You can go on using the yoghurt to make more yoghurt, until maybe it becomes to acid or has a slight flavour you don’t like, then just buy some more plain yoghurt and start again.

I was looking through a recipe book all about using yoghurt and cheese in different ways… Christmas scones sound nice using mincemeat (of which I have jars and jars… I get carried away making things which we are much slower to eat!) and sheep milk yoghurt… I guess it would work with cow’s milk… But the recipe I want to try is spinach soup. I tried making some and to be honest it wasn’t that nice. So here is a different recipe:

• 1 lb of spinach, washed, shaken and torn
• a little butter
• 1-2 onions depending on size, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 pint of chicken or vegetable stock
• cornflour mixed with a little milk or yoghurt so it’s runny
• ½ pint of thick yoghurt
• salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg

1. gently cook the onions in the butter
2. add the spinach, cover and cook for just a few minutes, until the spinach has cooked down and gone soft
3. add the stock, then put in a blender until it is smooth (I might sieve it, but you don’t have to)
4. pour into a saucepan and add the cornflour, stirring well so it doesn’t go lumpy
5. when it has thickened, add the yoghurt and continue to stir – it doesn’t need to boil or any more cooking, it just needs to be mixed in
6. season to taste and serve with crusty bread