Yogurt, Rhubarb sauce and jam

What do all three of these have in common? Only that I made them this weekend.

Renee gave me a good yogurt recipe over a year ago, but it is a bit thin for my liking. Theoretically, European yogurt is thinner than U.S. yougurt, but I'm not so sure. When I was in the Netherlands, the place I stayed in Leiden had wonderful yogurt for breakfast every morning; it was nice and thick—anybody know the truth to that rumor? Anyway, I digress. A while ago a friend of ours (that's you, Jim), mentioned that he had seen a recipe for yogurt that was thicker and used powdered milk. Once upon a time, I had such a recipe, but it got lost in all of our moves. So, I tried it last weekend. Still too thin, and too sour (in all fairness, I didn't follow his recipe exactly). So, Saturday I doubled the powdered milk and halved the starter. To add to the fun, I labeled the three jars 4, 5, and 6. The numbers are the time I let them incubate; I wondered if the time incubating would affect the flavor.

Yesterday I tried them. The texture was nice and thick; the flavor of all three of them was great. I added a bit of strawberry jam—perfect snack! Want the recipe? Too bad, you're going to get it anyway :)
1 quart milk (I use 2%)
2/3 cup powdered milk
2 Tablespoons starter (I use Dannon™, but that was about 6 months ago, now I just use a bit of the old yogurt)

Scald the milk, add the powdered dry milk, stir. Lower the temperature of the mixture in a cold water bath until it is about 120-125 degrees. Add 1/4 cup of the mixture to the 2 T of starter, mix thoroughly and add back to the main mixture. Decant into 3 pint jars; put the lids on.

Place the jars in a small cooler, pour 125 degree water over them until they are about 1/2-2/3 covered. Close the lid and let them incubate for 4-6 hours. Remove the jars, cool and eat. The yogurt cultures stay active for about 3 weeks, so you can keep using a bit of them as starter for the next batch.

What about the rhubarb? I had never made rhubarb jam before; my mom's mom used to, but that was when I was a kid. We have rhubarb in our garden, so I figured I would give it a try. First I made rhubarb sauce (just water and diced rhubarb; simmer until it disintegrates, add sugar to taste), about 3 quarts worth. I put 2 quarts in jars and will eat it as sauce. The third quart I made jam out of, very easy. Add sugar to taste—I like mine tarter than most, so I only added about 1.5 cups for the 3 quarts. Add the no-sugar dry pectin and stir. Decant into half-pint jars. It makes about 7 jars. I gave some to Debbie (she doesn't normally like rhubarb), and she decided it was good enough to eat. Now I just have to make more to last the winter...