I have a whey problem

Sounds nasty!

Not really.  As I continue experimenting with yogurt-making, my biggest issue has been runny yogurt.  I want thick yogurt, like Fage, a creamy delicious Greek strained-yogurt.  Key word: STRAINED.  The company's website has a short, fun cartoon explaining the process, found here.

Well duh, I haven't been straining my yogurt, so if I wanted similar results, I would need to strain the yogurt to reduce the whey.  I'll let Wikipedia explain whey.  I don't often resort to unconfirmed sources for explanation, but type "whey" into Google & you'll be inundated with body building websites.  So Wikipedia it is.

I grabbed a recent batch of homemade yogurt (made with 2% milk), poured it into a strainer lined with a clean white handkerchief & suspended over a bowl in the fridge for a few hours.  Ta-da!  Thick, creamy, just-how-I-like-it yogurt.  But then my health conscious mind went into overdrive...."I just got rid of whey!  Isn't whey supposed to be some super-healthy product?  Is my yogurt un-healthy now??"  Back to Google I went, trying to find an answer.  Yes and no.  I did strain out a lot of calcium, along with additional vitamins.  But I also concentrated the yogurt into a more protein-packed food.  See here.

Answers weren't very clear & I still am not sure just what I'm getting rid of.  Oprah  kind of gave me an ok to strain out whey.  But like Wikipedia, I take it with a grain of salt.

I found two variations that might assist in reducing the whey & allowing me to not strain nearly as much whey out of the yogurt - adding dry milk in addition to the liquid milk before heating it & scalding the milk for a longer period of time to really force the proteins to bind.

We'll see what happens.

Mother Nature is PMS-ing & we're losing our minds because of it

Sorry mom & dad, I know you taught us "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"...

Oh yeah, and not to swear.

But we were dealing with some nasty, cold days.  And it was March.  And we've both had enough of nasty, cold days.  So we used our awesome chalkboard pint glasses to express our angst.

Cheers!

(Update: We're now getting some lovely spring weather of sun.  My body is a sponge for UV Rays & Vitamin D.  *Knock on wood*  This weather better stick around)