Home sweet home

I have been away from my blog for a couple of weeks. I think I have a good reason though. We have been busy moving to a new apartment and a new city. We moved out from our dear Wymount Terrace. It was kind of bitter sweet. We had our first apartment there as a newly married couple and it was Perla's first apartment. We lived there for about 2 1/2 years.
Honestly, I hate moving. I was glad that this time my husband was home to help packing and unpacking. We started packing slowly on Monday and we moved out on Saturday.
It took us about three days to put everything to its own place. My husband can't stand having boxes around, but I needed to have some time to figure out where everything should go. So, he unpacked and I put everything where I wanted it to be. We have been in church for two Sundays now, and we have really enjoyed being here. I went to a Relief Society activity, and the president told me that my husband had spoken to her and told her to invite me to every activity possible and to involve me in as many things possible. Well, this was nice of him. Honestly, I feel a little lonely in our new apartment. I don't know anyone, and I miss a lot of my friends from Wymount. I hope some of them will read this post because I want to say them I MISS YOU GUYS. You know who you are!! Anyway, I will start writing more often now that we are settled. Below are some pictures of our new apartment. It's simply furnished and has a lot of room compared to Wymount. Oh I forgot, you will see how big our living room is, well baby Perla loves to come around and around the house. She's got a lot of room to practice her walking skills. :-)

 Perla's room and Perla with crazy hair.

Perla's closet and her 20 or 30 dresses.

Living room after I have put everything in order. AND...

Living room after Perla wakes up!!!!

Have a great week friends!

Warmly,

Juliana

Homemade yogurt

I had promised you that I would make a post on how we make homemade yogurt without any special equipment. We love plain Greek yogurt but it is expensive for us, so we had to bring the Albanian tradition to make our own yogurt.
What you will need:
1 gallon of whole milk
1 6oz plain Greek Yogurt container as a starter (try to find one that is not non-fat)
1 big plastic container for your homemade yogurt
1 pan to boil the milk
1 thick blanket

1. Boil the milk. Be careful with the milk, differently from water, when it starts to boil it will raise and spill on the stove. If it does get on the stove, clean it immediately. Believe me it is hard to clean it when the milk is dried. If you have a gas stove, turn it off when the milk starts to raise. If you have electric stove, remove the pan from the stove, electric stoves don't cool down immediately.
2. Leave the milk to cool down until you can resist the heat with your finger
3. Take your yogurt starter and mix in some milk, so that the yogurt temperature becomes similar to the milk's temperature.
4. Pour the milk in the big plastic container. Plastic tend to keep the heat better. Mix the yogurt with the rest of the milk in the plastic container. Mix it well.
5. After you have mixed the yogurt with the milk, place the plastic container somewhere you can leave it rest for about 8 hours. Cover the container well. Sometimes I say, let's swaddle the baby, or the egg. Because it is like an egg, it is milk and it will turn into yogurt.
6. After 8 hours your plain yogurt will be ready. Place it in the fridge for a couple of hours for it to become more firm.

ATTENTION: Homemade yogurt is not like the Greek Yogurt you buy from the store. It has a little bit more water and it is more sour. If you want it more like Greek Yogurt, take a cheese cloth to take some of the excessive water and put in some sugar or fruit to help with the sour taste. Use some of your homemade yogurt as a starter for your next yogurt. The older the starter the better the yogurt.


I think homemade yogurt is the best. With one gallon of milk, you can make about 1 gallon of yogurt. Here are some pictures of our yogurt from last week. It's crazy but we make a gallon of yogurt every week or every other week. We love it that much!!!

Breakfast-on-the-go (2)

I have a confession to make (this is the first of many that I will probably make in the future). I hate to make breakfast, or at least most days of the week. My family is not a huge fan of oatmeal, which I think is really healthy, and we don't eat any kind of cold cereal. Also, we limit pancakes/waffles to only once a week. So, as you can imagine, our breakfast choices are limited. We end up eating a lot of eggs during the week, cooked differently of course, but it concerns me that sometimes it can be a lot of eggs. Anyway, I have found two new recipes that are easy, and/or can be made in advance, and/or can be put in the freezer for those mornings you don't have time to cook.

Smoothies
My favorite smoothie recipes are those that have some kind of protein in them so it can keep me full longer. So, here are my two favorite smoothie recipes.

Green smoothie
Just blend together the following ingredients:

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 to 3 heaping handfuls of spinach
• 2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 to 1-1/2 cups almond (or soy or regular) milk

Banana Oatmeal Smoothie

Just blend the following ingredients

• 2 whole bananas
• 2 cups ice
• 1/3 cup yogurt-prefereably greek yogurt flavored with honey
• 1/2 cup cooked oatmeal (I have used raw every time I have made this recipe, ups!)
• 1/3 cup almonds

Breakfast Burrito
The next recipe is a breakfast burrito. You can find online a lot of different kind of recipes for breakfast burritos. I used this one! I didn't use sausage and they were amazingly good. Again, you can make them ahead of time and freeze them.

What is your favorite breakfast recipe? I desperately need new breakfast recipes, I get bored very easily with the same recipes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Warmly,

Juliana