Dog Walks | Zeb Bakes

Lynne has sent me this great pic of her wild garlic spaghetti dish!

Wild garlic pesto spaghetti, roasted vegetables and parma ham by Lynne

She makes the pesto with no cheese…

take a few handfuls of wild garlic, a handful of pan roasted almonds, juice and rind of 2 lemons and a glug of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt…pulverize to within an inch of its life in the processor (otherwise it seems to be just too fiery) and keep in jar in the fridge. Very hard to not just keep on eating it.

It looks delicious Lynne! Thanks for sharing the recipe and your photo.

I’m going back to the woods tomorrow to get some more… When I went today I noticed it was in full flower and the air was sweet and pungent with bluebells and garlic, what a great combination, an opportunity for an enterprising perfumist or a Heston Blumenthal icecream…..

It’s all flowering now so the season will be over soon! Gather ye garlic while ye may…if you’re not sure what it looks like, here is my best close-up shot to help.

We have now made three lots of yoghurt in the new gadget

Lynne kindly sent me some notes on what to do with it :)

I should do some sums and work out how much I have to make before the yoghurt maker pays for itself – actually I can’t be bothered, after all how do I cost the whey which I can use to bake bread? Can’t buy that anywhere locally..

No 1 with easi yo packet plus water to fill up jar ( a litre in all) – this one split into curds and whey. Why? Think it’s not supposed to be made in an electric yoghurt maker but in the easi yo kit. Made some fabulous whey and labneh from it all the same.
No 2 with a litre of UHT full cream milk plus 2 spoons Marvel skimmed milk powder plus 2 teaspoons of live Yeo Valley yoghurt – perfect set but a bit bland. The easiest method as it doesn’t involve heating milk.
No 3 with a litre of fullcream organic milk (heated and left to cool and forgotten about for 6 hours) plus 2 spoons Marvel plus 2 teaspoons of live Yeo Valley yoghurt – a little more whey but a good set

Brian preferred the UHT and I preferred the almost organic one – don’t know if one can buy organic skimmed milk powder somewhere but I will look around.

What I’ve learnt so far….yoghurt making is much easier than making bread…..

Do not use more than two teaspoons of starter yoghurt to a litre of milk, it’s very similar to leaven in that regard. Less is more.
Do not mix it up too much, it doesn’t need it.
Don’t joggle it about while it is setting, it likes to be left alone.

To turn it into yoghurt cheese – labneh – rumoured to be lower in calories than cream cheese – line a sieve with muslin, and let the yoghurt drain through for a day in a cool place. I made little balls of cheese rolled in a mixture of zaartar, salt and pepper – sweet paprika – oregano to go with last night’s supper of salad, fried almonds, and Ottolenghi’s legume and noodle soup from The Guardian.

Eaten for breakfast with honey and hazelnuts and a couple of slices of the legendary delicate milk loaf!

What do you do with your yoghurt?