Exotic foodstuffs

Last night, I went over to my friend T's place after work to have dinner with her and her husband. She made me a whole bunch of tasty and mostly-healthy Indian food, and pressed leftovers on me to take home so pierceheart could try them. :) She also insisted I take a guava when I told her I'd never had one. I'm eating it now. My first guava. It's amazingly delicious. I want to buy more. The hard little seeds, which are edible and somewhat peppery in flavour though not spicy, make it slow eating. This is just fine by me. It deserves to be savoured. :) T also gave me a little bit of her homemade yogurt to use as a starter in making MY own yogurt. Yay! I'm very excited about this, and when I hit the grocery store today, I will certainly be getting some milk to make yogurt. :) If I can find guavas, I will also be getting some of them. Nom nom nom.

I needed more culture in my life.

Sitting on my counter, covered in plastic wrap and wrapped in a towel, is a bowl. Inside this bowl, an awesome thing is happening: YOGURT is coming into existence! Squee! I bought some skim milk (hey, I might as well make yogurt I can eat, right?) at the store today. I heated it to 180*F (scalding it), then let it sit and cool to 115*F. I removed the skin from the top, and poured half a cup of it into a bowl. Then, I whisked in the magic ingredient: about 1/3 cup of T's homemade yogurt with live active cultures. I know the cultures are live and active because I took her yogurt out of the fridge and left it at room temperature for about an hour in its tightly closed plastic container. When I went back to it, the lid was domed, and gas escaped. I added in the rest of the scalded milk, mixed it up, and covered it as described. It will be yogurt in a matter of hours! I'm so excited about this. Yes, I am a food geek. Totally. I don't think I'll be able to resist lifting up the towel occasionally to peek and see how it's coming along. :)