It took me years to perfect this recipe in terms of efficiency.

I've tried many recipes over time with extra ingredients, all nice but for special tastes and occasions. But the basic yoghurt was always a must for my family. There is no other simple recipe than one with only one ingredient: milk. Ok, maybe 2 if you count the yoghurt bacteria.

I've got the yoghurt culture from my best friend from Romania many years ago. Since then, I make yoghurt regularly every 3 to 4 weeks. A good culture is an essential start. I've tried also with a culture from a natural yoghurt from the supermarket. Still good but not like the one my friend had from a farm in the countryside.

The main ingredient is milk. Raw cow whole milk. This one I buy from a local farm and it is still warm when I bring it home. 

The first step is to boil the milk. For healthy reasons, this is safest. I boil it until it foams and I let it cool until gets to 45ºC. Without a thermometer, use your finger to test: if you can keep your finger in the milk for 5 seconds without getting burned, the milk is ready. At this moment, the yoghurt culture goes in. This culture is nothing else than a pot of yoghurt saved from the previous batch that I keep in my fridge. How much? No more than 10% of the total quantity of milk. For example, for 5l of boiled milk, I have 400g-500g of yoghurt as culture.

I pour this yoghurt into my lukewarm milk and stir it gently with a whisk, ensuring just that the yoghurt is well distributed. Then, I pour this composition into pots. This is a trick that I perfected over time. Initially, I started with small ceramic jars, perfect for this purpose, but they didn't have a lid. I used to put a foil to cover and secure it with a rubber band. Too much wasted time, too much waste in terms of garbage. But I learned that yoghurt goes well in glass jars too. I switched to bigger glass jars that had a lid. These were simple jam jars bought from the supermarket. This simplified the process a lot.

After filling the jars with all the milk-yoghurt mixture they need to stay in a warm place. I once used my oven set at 50ºC with the baking stone inside and let them inside overnight. In 80% of the cases, this worked perfectly, but sometimes my yoghurt was more liquidy. Since I became the owner of a bread proofer my yoghurt always go in it overnight, set at 35ºC on the bottom grill. I had a 100% rate of success in this way. I usually do this in the evening as the cows are milked at 5-6pm but if you do it during the day, let the jars in the proofer/oven for a few hours (min. 2 hours) to get a consistent yoghurt.

What happens with this composition in this warm environment is fermentation. The yoghurt bacteria eat the sugars from the milk and produces alcohol. That alcohol makes the yoghurt sour and flavours it. The sour the yoghurt, the less sugar it has, the healthier it is. I am intolerant to lactose and unfortunately, I cannot drink as such the amazing farm milk we buy. But this yoghurt gives me no digestion issues. What better proof that the bacteria does its job very well?

The next day, I stop the bread proofer and let the jars cool a bit before putting it in the fridge. They can stay there for 3-4 weeks without any issue until they are eaten and then I go and buy again fresh milk from the farm and make another batch.

I cannot advertise more this simple and natural yoghurt. It is super healthy, super tasty and it is superior to any yoghurt you can buy from the supermarket. I really believe that anybody should do homemade yoghurt... You do not know what you lose until you try it...

Pickles in Romania are like national food. There is no traditional housewife without a pantry full of jars of pickles. The shapes, the colours, the arrangements into jars go to an artistic level and displaying these jars can also be part of the house decoration. What is amazing is that every family has its own recipe and use their preferred vegetables/fruits.

If you are not from the est part of Europe, I am pretty sure you have no idea what borsh is. I know it from Romania where it is very popular between for housewives. My mother used to buy borsh from a neighbor and she was using it to sour the soups. My grandmother was making it herself. When I was a child, lemons were a luxury fruit to destroy it to sour your soup, so everybody was counting on this miraculous yellowish liquid called borsh.

When I moved in another country I found it very difficult to match the taste of my soup with the one I knew from home. Although the quality of the vegetables ripen by the sun in Romania is incomparable to the ones you find here in the supermarket, I was missing the secret ingredient: borsh. There was nowhere to buy this fantastic liquid. 

My mother in law even brought me some starter (not sourdough based but yeast based) from Romania but unfortunately I was not very experienced to know how to keep it. I had then to through it away as it got a strange smell. 

Two years ago I got stubborn and wanted to do my own starter, not in the way is traditionally made in Romania but from sourdough. I had this wonderful bacteria fed for my bread baking and it should have been a way to make borsh from it. The challenge was to find a recipe over the web with sourdough and there were not many listed. Finally I found one, applied it and it worked partially. Why partially? Because although I got a very nice borsh, it was not sour enough. I continued with it and used it for months even without the expected strong sourness. 

But recently, I was stubborn again. It must have been a way to get your borsh from sourdough starter that actually gets really sour. I found more recipes around but many of them had no sense. This bacteria is the key to achieve this sourness. Recipes that calls to pour boiling liquid over the sourdough starter were just crap as the idea is to keep this bacteria alive to do its job, meaning to get your liquid sour. But I found one that looked more interesting, respecting this principle. I adapted it a bit and practice it. In 24 hours I've got the borsh of my dreams!

But before presenting you the recipe, let me tell you that there is more to know about this sour liquid. It is not used just to sour soups, it has much more properties and usages. From childhood, I also remember that people were using it to wake up from dizziness caused by alcohol or to avoid the next day symptoms after a big drinking night :)

This sour liquid is rich in vitamins B, C, D, H, minerals, enzymes, chrome and other amazing elements. It is used in diets before lunches as a purifying agent. A lot of people are drinking it as such because of its probiotic properties to fortify the imune system, to improve the digestive system and so on. 

But look, I am not a doctor to confirm all these and I am sure there are many articles regarding the healthy benefits of the borsh. I am here to tell you about its taste and how to make a good one yourself.

I usually use it for soups and from time to time, to taste it in the morning before breakfast.

Here is my adapted recipe:

During my last visit in Romania I have received 2 pots of quince jam. They were tasting exactly how I remembered this kind of jam from my childhood. But this jam is so sweet that it cannot be eaten as it is, so combined with some yogurt would make a perfect combination.

Simple, delicious, natural. This is my definition for a good yogurt. If to this we add a special ingredient, like a dried fruit, then you make a remarkable dessert.

I found myself buying yogurt for my daughter from the supermarket because she liked it better than mine (that is homemade !). I asked myself why? I asked my daughter as well and she replied: Because it is pink! So, not because is sweeter, not because is stored in a human shape bottle inspired from famous cartoons! Only because it was pink! Hmmm... it was the moment when I realized I could have done something about this. My secret ingredient of course was some food coloring. I made it sweet but not with sugar, I poured it in colored pots, add some dried fruits and test it on my daughter :). Well well... surprise... mommy's yogurt is also pink! The next they she asked for more. Huh... tough to compete with supermarkets :):):)

The Christmas spirit goes well with dried fruits. Dates are ones of my favorites. So let's make an exotic yogurt.

There has been a while since my last homemade yogurt. As I was quite tired, I wanted to make the simplest recipe of home made yogurt, near the natural one that I do every time. Adding some jam to an almost normal yogurt was my best option. But not any kind of jam ... a raspberry jam made by my mother with love with fruits harvested from her own garden.

I made them with jam, I made them with fruits, with nuts, with chocolate and the possibilities are endless. This time is with caramel. You can use instead any concentrated fruit juice. But this caramel flavor reminds me of the famous cake caramel, although we are talking here only about a yogurt.

Now, when I am writing this recipe I am actually eating the yogurt form one of these 3 "hero" pots. Mmmm.. mniam ... has a small yellow layer on top with a strong lemon aroma. Deeper, another full teaspoon  and I reach a soft, delicate and whiter layer of yogurt. Even deeper, there is a third layer that is a mix of yogurt with lemon zest.... mmmm... I am actually eating the lemon zest. And what a strong lemon aroma! There is no bitter or sour taste in there and the zest is very soft. I have the feeling that I am eating a cake not a yogurt. If you do not like to eat the zest you can strain the zest out of the milk when you make the yogurt. But sincerely... are you sure you want to do this? Do you have any idea what taste and aroma are you missing? From all the yogurts I've made, this is by far the most flavored and tasty one. And there is no artificial aroma inside, everything is natural. I know, you'll point to the cane sugar... but it can easily be replaced by honey.

I finished my yogurt pot while writing these lines and I still have a persistent lemon aroma in my mouth. I am very satisfied. I made the best fruity yogurt ever!

Another simple yogurt, delicious as a dessert or in the morning before starting your day.

A sweet yogurt that remains healthy as the sweetness comes from honey. It is extremely simple as the only ingredient that needs to be added is honey. And this is how you can transform a basic yogurt into a dessert.

I made this recipe before, but this time I have simplified by excluding the powder milk and by making it on the baking stone in the oven. (see my previous recipe here)

We love chocolate and especially my daughter. We love also natural yogurt. What better combination then? And what about adding to this a nutty flavor? Add some nuts in the yogurt and you'll give it a better taste.

When fruity yogurts were out on the market I remember myself saying, oh, what a great invention. Of course, I am talking about those little pots of white plastic that now you can find in any market. In time, these became so popular that I get used even with their classic taste. But it is not the taste of a yogurt, but a taste of something fake: flour, colorants, additives, artificial aromas and so on. Does it really have to be this way? Could not exist something more natural, something that taste natural, something creamy, sweet and fruity?
I was on the search of a good recipe of fruit yogurt with all these characteristics. I can proudly say that I have found it! And here I post it.

Since my daughter started to drink cow milk, we buy it only from a neighbor farm. We buy 15 liters of raw milk and my husband bring it to my kitchen when is still warm from the cow. I then boil it, let it cool and split it: 1/3 goes to the freeze, 1/3 goes in bottles in the fridge and 1/3 goes to yogurt. And I do this almost every 3 weeks. Making yogurt regularly at home became as normal to me as baking bread. This time I wanted to try a new recipe of yogurt and from the normal process of doing it, I didn't change too much except that I have separated 1 liter of milk and add some extra ingredients.
This is an interesting recipe, it transform the classic yogurt into a nice light dessert.

I was waiting for some time to see the basil grown and to make this delight in the most natural style.
Now it was its time.

I like to make variations of classical recipes so here is one.