Breakfast Attempts

Good news: the bagels came out okay!  I was worried yesterday about them, since there was no time for the dough to rise.  Then today, they failed the proof test repeatedly (you're supposed to put them in a bowl of water, and see if they float... and in my other 3 batches that I've made, they float immediately... as for these guys, they sunk like a freaking stone!).  Finally I gave up on passing the test and just threw them into the pot of boiling water (without baking soda, mind you... another thing that made them different from my other recipe!)

I was near panicked, but I can gladly say they came out fine.  I still think the other recipe is better, because they were a bit puffier, but these have been devoured and we only have a few left!  Whew!  Still, I am sticking with my old recipe next time.  While it was nice to have an easier recipe with a million shortcuts, you get what you pay for.

Then tonight I was doing some brainstorming.  Saturday is our ALS 5K and walk, and we always invite the team to our house in the morning for pictures and to hand out our tee shirts.  I was thinking that it would be nice for us to have breakfast ready for the people who have volunteered their time for our favorite cause.  Kenzie pointed out that the runners won't want a big casserole or anything heavy, so I might still make something like that for the walkers, but the runners need good protein to keep them running without weighing them down... and thus we had the perfect opportunity for me to try out the idea that has been percolating in my head since I saw the recipe a couple weeks ago: Greek yogurt.  Yes, I am trying to make my own Greek yogurt. 

I know it sounds crazy, but you don't need any fancy ingredients or cooking supplies.  You need milk, and 2 teaspoons of yogurt (as the starter, so you can have the live cultures).  You boil the milk (to kill the dairy enzymes so they don't mess up aything), cool it down, incubate it for 12 hours, strain out the whey, and voila!  Yogurt!  It's incubating right now in the oven; that is the only tricky part, because you keep the oven off but you can't let the temperature go out of the 110-120 degree range, or it won't incubate.  Apparently if you preheat the oven for a couple minutes, shove the bowl in there wrapped with towels, and leave the light on, it will be okay.  Fingers crossed.  I will know tomorrow if it worked, and after school I can taste it.  I am pretty excited. 

Now, I am not one who loves Greek yogurt, but comments on this recipe said the yogurt was milder and less sour.  Also, the same blog (my beloved Annie's Eats) later posted recipes for 3 different fruit mix-ins, so if the yogurt works out, I will be trying those out later this week.  I also have an idea to try out my own granola.... but I should take this one step at a time! Fingers crossed that I actually have yogurt tomorrow morning!

Recipe:
Greek yogurt