Home-Multiplied Yogurt

I love yogurt.

But I am going to wreck my budget if I will get a store-bought yogurt for each time I get a craving for yogurt dessert, tzatziki dip or muesli.

So I am sharing the splendid solution for this. Yogurt need not be expensive. Here is how it goes:

Get a small tub of plain yogurt from the store. Make sure it says it has live micro-organisms.

Prepare as much milk as you want. Use full-cream milk. I use powdered milk and dilute it in warm water - not boiling okay. It should be warm in such a way that it will still be comfortable to dip your finger in it.

Take a tablespoon of the yogurt and mix it in the prepared milk. Cover and place in a warm place away from sunlight for 8 to 10 hours.

After that, you'll be surprised to see that your milk has coagulated and cultured into a liter of plain yogurt, yahoo!

Go chill in the ref. It keeps for one week. I personally love adding honey and dried mangoes to it. It is also a clever way to clean up that fruit jam jar. When a jar of jam is almost empty (except for thos bits sticking in the corners), I just pour some yogurt into the jar, shake and then, you have flavored yogurt!

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#46: A Lazy Dessert - Chocolate Ganache

Savory Sweet Life snapped this picture for me. :-)

Oh I had been very busy marketing our audio and voice-over services in JuanFoundSound I realized I haven't visited my friends here for  more than a month now. Being up to my neck in marketing and baby-sitiing tasks, I still had the gall to look for dessert. Unfortunately, I haven't got some fancy stuff in my pantry for some decent dessert. I looked in my fridge and I found these left-overs: chocolate chips, all-purpose cream and margarine.


Hah! Chocolate Ganache! okay, fine it's just chocolate sauce. Ganache happens when you add a bit of liquor to it. :-) 


TAKE 2: Hah! Chocolate sauce! Now this rich and lovely sweet sauce can store in your fridge for a week and you can drizzle it on practically any dessert. cake, bread or fruit. It's really brainless you may think why I even bothered to publish it here!

#42:The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The Good:
Any special breakfast that I spend with my husband is bound to be good. I received a Flapjacks coupon for a chocolate pancake because I stuffed myself with 2 breakfasts' worth of pancakes the 3 days before. Since I love special serene breakfasts, I invited my husband to share it with me with bottomless coffee, coffee, coffee... aaah!


So flapjacks had this Halloween promo wherein they served chocolate pancakes. I thought it will be blah, after all it's free. But you see the syrupy chocolate on top of my pancakes? That was really good! It's rich and creamy and it has none of those cheap, oily-tasting chocolate syrup that you get from sundaes from fast-foods. This one that they got is the real, dark, melted chocolate ganache type. And the pancakes were fine as well, not too sweet and it blended with the creaminess of the whipped butter (after all, butter goes well with ANYTHING!). 


Their bottomless coffee was a bit bland though. Good thing my husband was there to make me forget that the coffee was not remarkable. The conversation was good enough, indeed.


Now for what happened 3 days earlier...

#40: Loving Cheesecakes

Whenever I feel down or if ever I am hit by a sudden desire to indulge, the first three things that comes to my mind is a good massage, coffee and a big, luscious slice of cheesecake. My friends can tell that when I am craving for dessert, "cheesecake" is the first thing to come out my mouth. Just writing these things make me close my eyes and draw a deep sigh straight from my food-loving heart.

Being able to say these things mean I only want cheesecake for my family when there is a special occasion, given my budget allows me to. We were able to sample with the family two cheesecakes this last quarter. One is from Banapple and one is from Cheesecake Etc. Let me relate to you our experience from both. This will probably help you decide what you might like to have in the future.

Before I start, I will describe to you the kind of cheesecake that I like. I know different individuals have different tastes. With this you will know where I am coming from. I like my cheesecake a bit heavy, not too sweet, in fact, I like it with a bit of tang. Now that I have said that, let us begin with

Banapple's Strawberry Crumble Cheesecake

P860.00

Taste: 5/10

My birthday this year landed on the day that our car is prohibited on the road during rush hour. We can only use our car by 7pm so it was a rush rom our house to my parents' where we would have my birthday dinner. To save time, I asked my brother if he could pick up my cake for me. He was happy to bring home the cheesecake but a bit fatigued (in a happy way) because the box containing the cake was so heavy! The whole cake weighed more than a kilo. Not bad for something that is worth P860, right? In my mind, it bode well because it meant that that I'll be eating some heavy-loaded cheesecake.

Dessert time! We took our cake knife and excitedly sliced our finale for the night. You bet it was heavy! It was so dense that it was like slicing cheese! There was a "crumble" part in the name so I was expecting some toffee or perhaps solidified wedges of sugar but apparently, it was just crust crumbs sprinkled on top of the strawberry sauce which was sort of a slight letdown for me. Each of us had only an inch-thick slice but it was more dessert than we can handle on an already full stomach. You see this slice on the left? Three of us shared this. The cheesecake had a very thick texture that is perfect for a calorie loaded snack but a bit too heavy for dessert after dinner. 

I have high regard for Banapple, especially after they took my heart with just one bite of their Banoffee Pie. However, I felt that this item lacked the tang I'm looking for in a cheesecake. Even if it is very heavy, I did not experience the sweet-salty-tangy balance that I usually like in a cheesecake. It was sweeter than I expected and lacking a roundness in the flavor. Or perhaps it was also a case of the texture overwhelming the taste. It's good thing that the crust was very tasty that it cut the jaw-straining texture of the cake. Our family's response is: It is good and it was well worth the amount you'll pay for it. But we won't order it again anytime soon and be part of our classic choices. We'll probably try something else when we look at Banapple's menu again.

Cheesecake Etc.'s Mango Passion Cheesecake

P895.00

Taste: 7/10

It was Mother's Day and it is the perfect excuse to treat for our mom (and ourselves!) with another cheesecake. My brother got a coupon from Cheesecake Etc. and bought my mom a whole Mango Passion Cheesecake. It looked pretty nice with the greeting written on it and all the ribbon and curls. As opposed to the cheesecake that we had during the previous occasion, this is a light mango-flavored cheesecake with a nice mango jelly topping. I was expecting it to be sweet but it turned to be pretty balanced. The creaminess married well with the fruity mango flavor in the cake while the topping gave your palate a tangy exclamation point. It was actually a nice dessert experience, not too overpowering but and just right to cap off a dinner. 

One thing though, it seems to be more of a mango mousse dessert than a cheesecake because it was very light (contrary to Banapple's utterly heavy cake, this was too light in fact) and was actually melting at room temperature. My brother said that it sold for P150 per slice. For me, this may be asking too much if you are going to get something that tasted more like mousse cake instead of cheesecake. It seems that you are getting more cream than cream cheese. If they called it mango mousse cake, then this is probably the best mango mousse cake that I have tasted so far. If not for my brother's coupon, one will usually pay P 895.00 for a whole cake. Not bad, not bad at all; I had two slices that night. 


How about you, what was your best cheesecake slice do far?

#38:Friendly Oatmeal Biscuits

If you feel that the Mango Sesame Cookies  was a bit too much for beginners, then this one should be good fit for cookie rookies like you. I present to you the Oatmeal Biscuit! Not only can you boast of cooking something that is packed with fiber, this baby also boasts of a buttery melt-in-your-mouth texture with little crunches here and there. It is perfect with your milk tea and a good book like, say, the Hobbit or Remember Who You Are by Ed Lapiz. You only need the bare minimum of cookies, of course, with the addition of the oats: butter, sugar, flour, vanilla. So yeah, this is certified for beginners. :-D

Oats. It's such a friendly pantry item. You can make porridge from it, granola, muesli and desserts like cookies. Whenever you are attacked with a hunger pang, oats always lend a helping hand, filling (and cleaning) your tummy and patting you on the back, affirming you that you made the better choice by snacking on them. In this era where people are suddenly clamoring for wellness, oats have been elevated to a new level of popularity and for a good reason.

#24: Knowing the Balicutia

I love coffee. I adoooooore coffee. Coffee is my companion when I blog, when I watch Jaime Oliver, when I eat  cookies, when I'm hanging out with my friends. It's a good thing my husband doesn't get jealous of it, hahaha! Any kind of coffee will do, whether it's instant or brewed. But if I can have my way, I prefer espresso drinks. But this is not about coffee, this is about what I happened to add to my coffee a month ago. 

#23: Mango Sesame Cookie Recipe

I am fond of baking cookies for my friends and family. That is because I know that the people around me don't bake and it is like an uber-special treat if they received these hand-crafted, dainty little goodies inside that crackling plastic box. People usually think that baking cookies is the level one of baking. I think level one is cupcakes. You just make the batter and pour them into the molds, pop them in the oven then Tadah! Cupcakes.


I feel like cookies are more level 2. I even find making quiches easier. While I know that the mixing and measuring of ingredients and the baking technique is simpler with cookies, it seems to be more tedious in the handling process. I feel like maintaining accuracy of measurements and application of baking instructions as with bread and cakes is easier than the repeated process of making little balls, patting them into, well, patties, sprinkling stuff, rolling them into stuff, putting fillings in between and so on takes so much time, effort and delicate handling to make sure they turn out looking pretty. You can't be a rough wrestler with cookies. You have to be as delicate as the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland to pull nice, exquisite cookies off. Maybe that's the reason why it is an effort for me. I'm not exactly your Barbie Princess type. 

#19: My Banoffee Pie

My daughter's bear even covets to have a bite.

So, I got enamored with the flavor, elegance and simplicity of Banapple's Banoffee Pie. I wanted to eat some more so I said I'd rather stuff myself with it at home. I then relived all  the flavors I enjoyed, checked the internet for some of my co-foodie's versions and came up with my own. Yeah! One whole pie just for me and my household!
You will just have to have a hand mixer though to whip the cream that we have in our recipe. I'd like to make the caramel sauce our featured ingredient but it is not exactly an ingredient. Caramel sauce calls for its own recipe so we'll make it the banana. 
We are used to eating banana just as it is when we need a quick snack or when there is nothing else to eat. Well, it is becoming increasingly popular anyway as a breakfast or meal substitute because it has all the works: vitamin C, potassium, energy from natural sugars, digestible carbohydrates, zero fat and cholesterol, dietary fiber. However, we fail to see that we can squeeze it into a sandwich with some peanut butter, or toss it with some orange segments and simple syrup,  or turn it into a luscious dessert just like this one! Oh this is going to be exciting! 

#18: A Banoffee Pie and 10 Books

A very good friend took me out a month ago because my system was aching for non-Anne cooked food.. or to be more specific, pastry. Or anything with cream and caramel! Help!


So the sky took pity on me and caused a friend to take me to Banapple in Il Terrazo in Tomas Morato. It is such a cozy place with light, flowing curtains, soft lighting, homy decor and warm , happy colors. 

Thanks to banapple for their picture!

Their tables are very nice, too! It is made of marbles stuck in clay or cement then let dry, as seen on this picture on the left. It feels ticklish in my palms. It makes the plates wobbly though but I really did not mind it much. :-D