third time's a charm

I've mentioned a few times before that I've been sort of unsuccessful in my attempts to make yogurt without a yogurt maker. I say sort of, because my botched "yogurt" has been quite handy for baking and smoothies, and I would actually make botched yogurt again on purpose for these reasons.

Anyway, I'm excited to report that I finally got the real deal yogurt perfected! Without going into all the details of the process, I incubated the yogurt (at that point it was just milk) for 9 hours last night, put it in the fridge all day at work and came home to amazing yogurt goodness this evening. 

YUM!! and i'm really glad that i stuck with it and finally got it right!

I don't imagine many of you have any interest in actually doing this (lol), but just in case, this is what you do:

Bring 4 cups of milk to a boil in a saucepan and pour into an appropriate container (Pyrex, etc - put mine in a medium sized corningware) and cool until you can stand to hold your finger in the milk, just above lukewarm (to be more specific it should get down to about 112 degrees F if you have a thermometer(. While the milk cools, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Turn the oven on, set to about 200 degrees, for a few minutes, just so it gets warm. Once the milk is sufficiently cooled (this can take quite a while depending on how hot your milk got), add approx 1-2 tablespoon of  store-bought (or from a previous batch) yogurt with live cultures and mix well. Turn off the oven, and turn on the oven light. Cover the yogurt container and place in the oven alongside the hot water with the oven door closed, incubate overnight (i left mine for about 9 hours). Ttransfer it to the fridge in the morning, and let is spend the day chilling...then enjoy!

In other news, my latest obsession is hair. Specifically, I'm following Nix's lead and making the transition from relaxed/straight hair to natural/curly hair. Unfortunately, I'm in the awkward transition phase and it's...well, awkward! My hair is all different textures and it just looks ick. In the curly/natural blog world, the big chop (BC) is the cut that some women make to speed up/avoid the transition process. I don't think I'm brave enough for a full BC, so tomorrow I'm going to see Perry for a half BC lol...I'm basically going to cut the back down to the new growth, and leave the top as is...I'm not ready for anything too drastic, so I think this is a good compromise. I'm still nervous though!!

Oh well...I've had my hair pretty short before, so I should be ok. I'll write a follow-up to let you guys know how it goes!

By the way, I haven't forgotten your request for hair tips Zavi...Nix should put something together for a post soon. In the meantime check out curlynikki.com for some good tips and info. 

Any readers have advice for transition or for managing curly/natural once you've grown in out? Products/processes that work especially well?

Today's *big chune* is Wild Horses from the one and only Teena Marie...I'm not really sure why, but I really like this song. Of course, square biz is her most famous, but as usual i prefer something more obscure. Also, I saw video of her at the essence music festival last year...she reminds me of my mom LOL. 

:-D