A little bit obsessed with…things I could easily buy, but didn’t

These past few weeks I have fallen down another rabbit-hole - making things from scratch. Namely yoghurt, butter and bread. I have previously made my own assortment of cheeses with a lot of success, and I do look forward to spring when the house is warmer so that I can return to that very pleasant pastime.

I didn’t need to make the cheese, the crackers or the bread… and yet here we are. Entirely unnecessary, completely worth it.

We all know that I did NOT grow the strawberries.

Most of us in the household eat yoghurt daily for breakfast and the brands I like are quite expensive, and on occasion, difficult to find. I saw an Instagram reel of someone making their own yoghurt out of UHT milk, and I thought that if she can do it, so can I.

I have all kinds of kitchen gadgets, many of which languish behind the closed pantry doors. One such of these is the sous vide machine which I used to regulate the curd temperature when I was making cheddar cheese and mozzarella. I unearthed it and used it to maintain the temperature of a water bath that I put my yoghurt in, and the result was very pleasing. I wanted a less tangy  yoghurt and research showed me that a constant temperature of 41C for about 8 hours was the best way to achieve this.

And…it worked. We have had homemade yoghurt for breakfast for the past couple of mornings and it was delicious.

Spurred on by that success, I then followed the lead of another Instagram person and decided to make butter. Why haven’t I tried this earlier? I have a powerful mixer, and it took all of 7 minutes to do. If you have butter,  you need bread right? So, I made bread using a fool-proof recipe. The photos make it look far more photogenic than it was. All of the ingredients were put into my you-beaut mixer and left to do its thing.

Don’t let appearances deceive you. After this photo was taken everything was tipped into my mixer and left to its own devices.

The finished product still warm from the oven. Totally delicious.

There is something rather wonderful about being just a little bit self-sufficient in the kitchen. I am not sure that I would like it so much if I HAD to do it, but it is fun to dabble from time to time.

Lest you think my attentions have been entirely culinary, there are a couple of other obsessions bubbling away this month:

My coffee cupboard. It went from drab to fab for nothing more than the cost of a couple of sheets of printer paper and some ink.

My ‘TWJ headquarters’ aka the front bedroom. It is slowly taking shape and is a delight to spend time in.

The emerging TWJ Headquarters. Note the carefully hung tablecloths and napkins in the background.