Jack-Be-Little Pumpkins Stuffed with Spiced Tomato-Lentil Sauce

The vendors at the farmers' market where I loaded up on adorable Jack-be-Little pumpkins were amazed when I told them my plans: decorate from Halloween to Thanksgiving, then eat the nectarine-sized pumpkins. "You can eat these?" they asked. Can and should. They have an earthy, savory goodness appreciated by those who love mushrooms and artichokes. If that's not you or you don't have any tiny pumpkins, use an acorn squash or half a pie pumpkin. See notes below for making the switch.

Such a bargain, too! You'll get six weeks of decoration followed by a fine-dining appetizer or side dish for about $1.50 per person.

Click to read more ...

Onion-Mushroom Dip

Do you have foods you just can't keep in the house or you'll just gobble them up? For me, that's potato chips and the classic dip made with sour cream and dried French onion soup. I now only buy chips and make dip during one holiday season: the basketball playoffs ... and I make this delicious, healthy, and largely local version dip.

This onion-mushroom chip dip is a bit lighter in taste that the sour-cream version, which helps prevent that greasy feeling of regret. It's also relatively low calorie, low fat, and has no artificial flavorings, preservatives, or mysterious ingredients.

Click to read more ...

Making Yogurt

All you need to make homemade yogurt is yogurt starter, milk, and a way to heat the milk and keep it warm. I use a yogurt nest made from items I already had. Read below for how to create your own yogurt-making environment, then see the Cook for Good yogurt recipe, which includes a video of making the yogurt and tucking it into the yogurt nest.

Yogurt starter

Yogurt starter is just fresh yogurt in which the yogurt culture is still alive. Most yogurt sold in stores contains live yogurt – those that do should say so on the container. Look for a statement like this: “Contains active yogurt cultures including L. acidophilus.”

If you can find it, buy plain, unflavored yogurt. If you can’t, look for “fruit on the bottom” or unmixed flavored yogurt. You are after the yogurt culture, not the jam. I usually use Dannon’s All Natural plain yogurt.

When you buy a container of yogurt to start your own batch, freeze any you don’t need immediately in a clean ice-cube tray. The next day, pop the yogurt cubes into a freezer bag or container and keep it in the freezer. The culture will stay alive for months. Just take out a yogurt cube when you are ready to make a fresh batch of yogurt.

If you make yogurt every day or two, you can just use a spoon full of yogurt from one batch to start another. That’s how people in Turkey and India have done it for centuries. But if you make it just once a week or so, bad cultures will start to take over the good cultures. Most people start each batch with commercial yogurt. But you can save money by freezing cube or two of a batch you've just made just after it’s cooled. That will at least delay the takeover by the sour cultures so you don’t have to buy yogurt to refresh your culture more than a few times a year.

Making a yogurt nest

A yogurt nest will keep the milk and yogurt starter warm and cozy enough to make good yogurt. Yogurt culture grows best between 86 and 113 degrees. Using lower heat takes longer but produces silkier yogurt. Yogurt made at higher temperatures also releases more of its whey, making it more watery. Bumping, stirring, or moving the yogurt can disrupt the formation of the protein network that makes yogurt yogurt.

I use a box or a cake carrier, a heating pad, and an old bath towel to make a yogurt nest. Put one end of the towel on your counter. Put the heating pad on the towel and your yogurt container on the pad. Cover them all with the box and then flip the towel up over the box to trap the heat. I use the SoftHeat dry heating pad set on low.

Before you make your first batch of yogurt, test the nest by filling your containers with warm water (about 110 degrees). After an hour, check the temperature of the water. Adjust the temperature on the heating pad until you find one that will keep the water inside the safe range between 90 and 110 degrees. Make a note for yourself of which setting works best.







Yogurt Recipe

Yogurt is amazingly easy to make at home, once you know how, and tastes at least as good as the store-bought kind. The trick is to use the ways perfected over centuries in Turkey and India. Many modern recipes call for all sorts of unneeded extra steps and ingredients. But in fact, cleanliness, time, and gentleness are the keys to thick yogurt. Live yogurt starter and milk are the only ingredients. You don’t need to add powdered milk or gelatin as some recipes call for. Bringing the milk to a boil and cooling it slowly changes the structure of the milk so it will thicken up enough on its own.

Before you use this recipe the first time, you may want to watch this video on making homemade yogurt or read about making a yogurt nest and choosing yogurt starter.

Recipe: Homemade yogurt

Active time: 30 minutes, mostly of occasional stirring. Total time: 8 to 11 hours. Servings: 8 half-cup servings. Recipe is easy to divide or double.

Ingredients

4 cups milk (skim, low fat, or whole)
2 T fresh live yogurt OR 1 ice-cube-sized chunk frozen live yogurt

Method

1. Set out the live yogurt in a small clean bowl or cup so it will come to room temperature while the milk is heated and then cooled. Set out one or more very clean containers or jars.
2. Heat milk over medium heat just until it starts to boil, stirring more frequently as the milk gets hotter. Set up the yogurt nest between stirs. As soon as the milk starts to boil, take it off the heat and pour it into your containers to cool. Let the milk cool to 105 to 110 degrees, for about 30 minutes.
3. Stir the yogurt starter until it is creamy, then stir it into the warm milk. Cover the container and nestle it in the yogurt nest. Turn on the heating pad. Leave yourself a note so you will remember to refrigerate the yogurt after seven to ten hours.
4. When the time comes, gently place the container in the refrigerator. Let it cool thoroughly before stirring.

Flavoring yogurt

Vanilla yogurt

Start with four cups of plain yogurt. Stir in 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Eat as is or mix in fruit.

Garlic-pepper yogurt

Start with 1/2 cup of plain yogurt. Stir in 1 large minced clove of garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of hot sauce. Let the flavors blend for five minutes before serving. Keeps for a week if you started with fresh yogurt. Excellent as a garnish for burritos, bean dishes, or steamed vegetables such as broccoli.

Tips and notes

• Boil milk to make yogurt, then use the same pot to make pudding.
• At first, cover the pot and stir the milk occasionally so it doesn't burn. As it gets hotter, uncover and stir frequently. At the end, stir constantly except when you are checking to see if the milk is boiling. Scrubbing burnt milk off the bottom of a pot wastes any time you might have saved by ignoring milk that was about to boil.
• If your yogurt is thin and watery, try letting the culture develop at a lower temperature for a longer time.
• If your yogurt turns out sour, try using glass jars and lids and boiling them in water to make sure they are super-clean.