The Kitchen Religion: Homemade Yogurt

The Kitchen Religion

The Kitchen Religion is dedicated to my beloved spiritual master A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who taught his disciples by his personal example how to cook and offer delicious vegetarian food to Lord Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Dear Friends, Welcome to The Kitchen Religion. I love to cook, and am a follower of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, whose disciples taught me how to cook "Krishna prasadam" back in the early 70's. Krishna prasadam (or "God's mercy") is vegetarian food that's offered to Krishna (Krishna, or Lord Shri Krishna, is a name of God the Father which means "the all-attractive person who attracts the hearts of all living beings").

Ever wonder why the Hare Krishnas are called "The Kitchen Religion?" Because for us, cooking is a meditation. Everything we eat, we first cook with love for Lord Sri Krishna, then offer it to Him, then eat (or "honor") His remnants. The Hare Krishna Movement has become known as "The Kitchen Religion" because so much of what we are as a group has to do with cooking for Lord Krishna and then honoring and sharing His holy remnants, or prasadam, with others. We call eating prasadam "honoring" prasadam, because we understand that after we have offered the food to God and He has kindly accepted our loving offering, the food has become spiritualized. So it's like accepting a treasured gift from the Lord when we eat His remnants. Spiritual food is uplifting to the heart and purifying to the soul. Krishna prasadam is meant to be honored.

Srila Prabhupada taught us that because all things come from God, they are meant to be used in His service. He explained that we should lovingly cook vegetarian dishes for Krishna and offer them to Him with devotion. Krishna then accepts and blesses our offerings so that when we partake of His remnants, we become purified of all kinds of unwanted, sinful desires within our hearts. I was happy to learn this, as I had always wanted to know of practical ways to serve God, and I had never thought about cooking for God. But this idea made so much sense to me that I took it up immediately and have been enjoying the pleasure of cooking for God for the last 40 years! After all, God is a person. Granted, He is the Supreme Person, but a person nonetheless. And God eats. He doesn't need to eat, but He eats what His devotees lovingly cook for Him, just to give them pleasure.

By the way, did you know that God likes cows? His supreme abode, Goloka Vrndavana, is named after cows. Gau, or go, means cow, and loka means place or abode or planet. So Goloka means the abode of the cows. Because God puts so much importance on cows, we should understand that cows are very, very important for human society. We humans are given the responsibility to protect cows, and in turn, we are blessed with milk, the miracle food.

Although a lot of my recipes are influenced by my American upbringing, they are all pure vegetarian. Not all are vegan, but they're all vegetarian. We humans are given a diet just like all the other creatures on earth, and our diet is supposed to include milk and milk products. Cow's milk and milk products are beneficial and very important for human consumption. But they must be prepared properly and offered with love to Lord Krishna to provide the greatest benefit to human society.

Of course, using milk and other products from the cow necessitates treating the cow humanely. How ungrateful some people are, that they consume milk, yogurt, cream, sour cream, ice cream, butter and cheese from the cow and then turn around and slap the cow in her face by killing her and eating her slaughtered carcass! How can those people be so cruel, heartless and ungrateful?

Srila Prabhupada explained that we humans have more than one mother. Not only is our birth mother our mother, but the earth is one of our mothers as well as the cow, because the earth gives us food and the cow gives us her milk. Therefore, it behooves us to treat both Mother Earth and the cow with respect and love, just as we would our birth mother.

Speaking of mothers, my love of cooking awakened in my early childhood as I watched my mother cook and bake. From her guidance as well as the tutoring of my Hare Krishna friends, combined with years of cooking and baking for my family, trying out new recipes and repeating old ones, making up some of my own recipes and adjusting many that I have found on the internet and in cookbooks, I feel inspired to share with you some of my cooking experiences and favorite recipes.

In the recipes below, "c" means "cup," "T" means "Tablespoon," and "t" means "teaspoon."

Thanks for being here! Hare Krishna!

Phalini devi dasi

PS Srila Prabhupada demonstrated a high standard for his disciples by always using fresh ingredients. Because I almost always seem to be in a hurry, I have adopted the use of canned goods on occasion. I apologize for this aberration, and hope to switch to using all fresh (uncanned, unfrozen) ingredients in the near future.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Homemade Yogurt

Figure out a system whereby you can keep the fermenting milk warm (not hot!) for 6-8 hours. Make sure everything is clean: pot, yogurt-fermenting container(s), utensils. Stainless steel is great. I use a stainless steel tiffin set on a crock-pot base. A tiffin is a stack of matching metal containers that fit into one another, and the top container has a tight-fitting lid. My tiffin is made up of four matching 6 c containers. During the winter, I usually make yogurt in just one of the containers--the top one with the fitted lid. Below, I tell you how to make yogurt with a set-up like mine.

Pour 8 c milk (I like to use whole raw milk with or without the cream skimmed off) into a large stainless steel pot. Turn the heat on high, and bring the milk to a boil. Note the time that the milk reaches the boiling point, so you can make sure you boil the milk for 15-20 minutes. Turn down the flame a little so that the milk is still boiling pretty hard, but not hard enough to boil over the top of the pot and make a mess. Occasionally, scrape the bottom of the pan with a flat-edge metal spatula, and scrape the sides of the pot with a heat-resistant spoonula. After 15-20 minutes of boiling, turn off the heat and cool the milk. If you're in a hurry, cool it off in a tub of cold water. If you're not in a hurry, just let it sit covered with a clean cloth and allow it to cool off at its own pace. When the milk is still hot but just cool enough that you can keep your (clean!) finger in it for 25 seconds without getting burned, it's ready to ferment.

For a yogurt starter, use either homemade yogurt or store-bought whole milk plain yogurt. You can use the low-fat version, but it will probably come out stringy the first time. After the first time, you will have a good starter for your next batch and the yogurt won't come out stringy.

Put 1 1/2 t plain, live yogurt into the bottom of the tiffin container that's going to rest on top of the other two containers (i.e., the base that has the hot water in it, and the one above that which is empty--see next paragraph). Stir the 1 1/2 t yogurt a little.

Put the crock-pot base on the lowest setting and plug it in. Then fill the bottom container of the tiffin with about 1/2 inch of hot water, and cover it with the next container, to provide an empty air space to insulate the yogurt. The empty container provides air-space so that the hot water in the bottom container doesn't cause the fermenting milk in the top container to get too hot (see previous paragraph).

Next, pour a small amount of the prepared milk into the yogurt-starter and stir them together a bit. Then add the rest of the milk. Since my containers have a capacity of 6 cups, because I boil my 8 cups of milk down, it usually fits just right in my container. You'll have to adjust your starter amount in relation to the amount of milk you want to make into yogurt. For instance, if you are fermenting 4 c milk, you would use 1 t starter. Or for 2 c milk, use 1/2 t starter, etc. (Note: you don't have to boil your milk to condense it. If you like, you can just turn it off as soon as it comes to a boil. Cool it and ferment it as is).

Crock-pot base is set on lowest setting and middle container provides insulating air-space

Gently stir the milk just a little and then place the lid on the container. Carefully lift it onto the empty container above the one with hot water in it, and then drape a wool blanket over the whole set-up. Leave it alone and avoid moving it for six to eight hours. Six hours is usually sufficient. If you accidentally forget to cool your yogurt at six hours, no problem. But after eight hours, it becomes too sour.

Drape a wool blanket over the whole set-up

After six hours, unplug the crock-pot base, lift the yogurt off the tower, and put it into the fridge. Some people leave the lid off their yogurt for a while, just to let some of the whey evaporate while it's sitting in the fridge. I find that because I cook the milk down, it's quite dry enough to just go ahead and cover it right away.

Beautiful homemade yogurt

There you have it, voila! Homemade yogurt!

The Kitchen Religion