I strayed from my diet slightly this weekend

We went to our neighbours for dinner on Saturday night so obviously my diet had to include a few exceptions. The point of this diet is not to be antisocial so I have to be flexible with my rules when these situations occur. I must admit that the menu was very "100 meter diet" friendly with fresh greens from their garden and a loaf of home made bread and a fresh mint tea afterwards. The off diet menu included green beans, potatoes and BBQ pork ribs with pumpkin pie for dessert. It was a very nice meal and a welcome change.

The rest of the weekend followed my typical agenda with time spent in the garden, some yard work and some time in the kitchen. I did manage to make 3 batches of yogurt but unfortunately the first attempt was a failure. I don't have a store bought yogurt maker so I had to make one. For my first attempt I put the yogurt pot on a heating pad set to medium and wrapped in towels. This turned out to be too hot and the culture didn't work. For my next attempt I set the heating pad on low and put it in a beer cooler for about 6 hours. That worked well. Four cups of milk seems to yield about three cups of yogurt. The process isn't time consuming especially when I need to pasteurize the milk anyway. I simply add the yogurt starter when the milk has cooled to around 108 F and then leave the incubator undisturbed for 5 or 6 hours. I ate the entire batch as a snack on Sunday so I had to make more last night.

I also made some feta cheese on Sunday. This time I added some yogurt to the recipe and the feta came out a little more tangy as a result. One of the things I love about making all of my food myself is discovering the connection that exists between different foods. For example I use egg yolks for noodles and the egg whites for angled cake. After making butter I use the left over buttermilk for pancakes. When I make cheese I get about 4-5 cups of whey. I use 2 1/2 cups of whey to start my pita bread dough and I freeze the rest of the whey for later. I love the fact that nothing is wasted plus the taste the whey brings to the pitas beats the flavor of any store bought pitas.

I'm not watching as much TV as I used to because I'm in the kitchen preparing meals. I wouldn't call it exercise but I am up and doing something. It is a lot more work but so far I'm not complaining.

I've certainly established my Sunday routine by making cheese and pitas for the week ahead. It doesn't burn a lot of calories but it does get me off the couch.