Update

Just a quick update as I'm part of a progressive dinner tonight and the dessert is at our house so I'd best disguise the lived in look and mop the kitchen floor so as to not keep the ladies too long while they try to unstick their shoes from the floor. Of course if I don't they might not ask again next year if they can come to my house. LOL Seems the old fashion decorations invoke a relaxing environment that makes people hesitant to leave.

I'll tell you how it goes but today I wanted to update you on the progress of the extracts. The lemon extract looks good enough to drink. But I'm sure one whiff and I'd change my mind. Alcohol has always given me a headache but in a recipe, yum. I can't wait for a little time to make lemon pound cake. I'm going to do it with home-made butter, home-made sour cream, and home-made lemon extract. About as from scratch as you can get. The mint extract I'm rather iffy about. The brown color doesn't seem appealing. Why is that when the brown color in the vanilla extract makes me think of richness of flavor? I shouldn't be surprised at the color though because most plants put off a brown color. Think dyeing wool with plants. Most of them give you brown. It's berries that give you pinks and purples and a few plants will give you yellows but it is the dull faded brown that I remember most from my wool dyeing days. I do love the rich milk chocolate brown of Burdock root. Yes, yes I'm off topic. See how my mind races all the time. When I cracked the lid to take small whiff it did smell a bit minty so I'm on the right track and when the mint plant grows enough leaves again I'm going to take these out and put new ones in. As for the whole goat milk yogurt. We found it to be a bit more tangy than the milk that had been put through the milk separator. I did have a moment of inspiration or a brain fart as I crudely call them because I'm not sure whether my moments of speculation will be end up being inspiration or stink. As I took out some blueberries from the freezer to thaw before putting them into the yogurt, I wondered if it would be better if I made a pie filling by heating up the berries, adding sugar, and a little cornstarch like you do to make it thick before putting it in a pie shell. Then the sugar wouldn't liquefy the yogurt and the berry juice wouldn't add too much moisture either.

It would have worked great but I forgot to make the filling sickeningly sweet as you not only need to sweeten the berries a bit but the yogurt as well. Oops! I'm on the right track though and so I'll work out a berry to sugar formula eventually, taking in to consideration that berries vary in tartness.

Another project I want to try with the yogurt is to make a lemon or lime curd. If it is soon it could end up being a lemon/lime curd since I don't have enough of either citrus separately to make a 1/3 of a cup. I'll add the curd to the yogurt since lemon yogurt is one of my favorites. Adding sugar and lemon would just make the yogurt runny. Then when I'm through fiddling with yogurt flavors, I'll move on to yogurt ice cream. Goat milk is just too much fun with all its myriad of possibilities. I'm toying with writing a book when I'm done. Some day when I'm not a full time Grandma/substitute Mom.


So if you'll excuse me, I've a house to clean. I must not forget the kitchen chairs as our youngest likes to spread her meals evenly across the table, floor, and chairs. Breakfast it is usually maple syrup, lunch - often cottage cheese, and supper the possiblities are endless. Last night it was corn I warned my husband of. Something I never really missed from having our children. Oh but the other joys of having them make up a hundred fold for the never ending cleaning projects.