Yogurt, Ghee, and Lime Pickles (Dahi, Sada Ghee, Nimbu Achar)

Okay, yogurt is not too hard to make, but you have to have the right equipment. I do not have the right equipment. Namely, a 2 quart dish I can put in a luke-warm oven without spilling boiled milk all over everything in sight. The yogurt is in the oven now, where it has been for the past two and a half hours. In another two and a half hours, I'll check it to see if it's done. I am fully expecting to have botched it.

All told, the process of making yogurt and ghee took about twice as long as I was expecting. The ghee turned out okay, I think, although it's a small batch. My food processor can't handle more than a pint of liquid at a time, which means I can only make half a pound of butter at a time. Rather than do two batches of butter for one batch of ghee, I tried a half-batch of ghee. That, however, meant a fairly small amount of ghee for a fairly large amount of work. Oh well, it smells and tastes good. Slightly nutty, like butter candy without the sugar.

The pickled limes were amazingly simple. Right now, they are cooling before I seal them up. Then, in a month or so, I can taste them and see if they came out okay. The hardest part of the recipe was sterilizing the canning jars. Well, actually, the hardest part is setting it out in the sun every day for three weeks...since I live in Oregon, in the woods, where there is no sun. I'm still thinking about how to substitute for warm sunlight.

Well, I'm exhausted and this all took way to much time, so I'm leaving the pickled jalapeños for tomorrow, along with the mango jam and the chutneys and raita for Tuesday's meal. Since my partner and I are going wine tasting tomorrow, I'm not sure when I'll find the time for everything. Wish me luck.