Korakora

Another great birthday celebration! Our friends and neighbours came, but those who sold their votes didn’t show up! LOL! It seems that the community still holds a strong sense of shame when one has done wrong! Our friends who did not sell their votes came to celebrate Trevor’s birthday, pray for blessings and have fun.

Penny and I successfully prepared a new menu of meat pies. :) Of course, there’s the customary birthday noodles (pancit) and our old hen Tisay got sacrificed and was served with another hen as Halang-Halang (native chicken stew in coconut milk and ginger). And finally, Rocky Road ice cream for dessert.

Pork Pie – this is what Penny likes to call Pig Pie! I sliced the pork into small thin slices and marinated overnight in salt, a bit of vinegar and pepper. Cooked and added in mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, boiled eggs. Penny prepared the pastry and baked the pie in the clay oven.

Cottage Pie – this is beef topped with mashed potatoes. I sliced the beef into small thin pieces then marinated it overnight in some vinegar, soy sauce, a bit of sugar. The beef pie includes green peas, carrots, onions, leeks, red kidney beans. Trevor prepared the topping of mashed potatoes with butter and milk, then Penny baked it in the clay oven.

Yesterday, my birthday present for Trevor arrived! Perfect timing! I ordered these nearly 2 weeks ago.

Midnight, Trevor opened the package and here’s what he got! :)

These are : Dark Chocolate Hobnobs, Lapsang Souchong Loose Leaf Tea, Stuffed Vine Leaves, Rose and Lemon Turkish Delight, Twining’s Lady Grey Tea, Organic Seville Orange Marmalad and Luxury Cranberry and Onion Chutney. :)

I got another small package for Trevor which will probably arrive next week: plenty of beautiful heritage seeds to plant!!! :)

I made a new batch of yoghurt using UHT milk and store-bought plain yoghurt as starter. However, I decided to try using green chilli stems as starter for a cup of milk. I read about such a practise in some websites and people reported good results with non-dairy milk. They used cashew and almond milk.

I put in 18 stems in a cup of milk to test.

I put the bottles of milk outside under the sun. I heated the milk first before using.

I put the bottles of milk outside under the sun. I heated the milk first before putting in the starter.

So with cow’s milk, I was sceptical, so I tried it with just one cup of milk. I heated the milk up a bit, poured it into a glass and put in 18 chilli stems. After 8 hours, nothing seemed to happen, while the milk with store-bought yoghurt has already set. But after another hour, the milk with the chilli stems suddenly started to set. I read up on yoghurt culture and it says, “Analysis of the L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus genome indicates that the bacteria may have originated on the surface of a plant.” (Wikipedia on Yoghurt).

After 12 hours, the milk has set. Normal yoghurt in the larger bottle, and chilli stem yoghurt in the small bottle.

Maybe that’s what is was with the chilli stems. Compared with the normal milk yoghurt, the chilli stems yoghurt has the slight smell of chilli (of course!) but no spicy taste at all. The taste, after 16 hours, is that tartness often associated with normal yoghurt. However, the normal yoghurt had already separated the whey while the chilli yoghurt did not seem to have a visible whey separating to the top.

After 16 hours, the two types of yoghurt have set beautifully!

The colour of normal yoghurt is also very slightly yellow while the chilli yoghurt is more white with a tinge of green from the chilli. The chilli yoghurt has not set as firmly as the normal yoghurt.

The normal yoghurt after 16 hours.

The chilli yoghurt after 16 hours.

I will keep the chilli yoghurt as starter for another cup (or more) of milk next time and see how the culture works out.

Korakora

Birthday Celebration!

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Making Yoghurt with Chilli Stems as Starter

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