crockpot yogurt

did you know you can make yogurt at home in a crockpot? i tried it for the first time this week, and was truly amazed - it's super easy, tastes great, and saves money. what's not to love?

my friend Momi sent me this recipe a while ago, and I finally had reason to try it out for the eat local challenge.  i had bought a half gallon of local milk the other day on a whim because it was on sale, but i don't really drink milk, and i've been missing having yogurt in my (100% locally grown) smoothies in the morning, so figured this was the perfect time to try out the yogurt recipe. to be honest, i was highly skeptical that it would actually work. I've always been intimidated by yogurt-making, similar to my fear of proofing yeast when baking bread - it's so much pressure to get the temperature right so those little buggers will grow. anyway, despite my skepticism and nervousness, the process was incredibly simple - you just need to start it at a time when you expect to be home periodically to switch the crockpot off and mix in the yogurt. I made a 1/2 recipe because my crockpot is little and that worked just fine.

the ingredients.

--12 cups (3/4 gallon) of whole milk--pasteurized and homogenized is fine, but do NOT use ultra-pasteurized.

--1 6oz store-bought natural, live/active culture plain yogurt

the directions.

plug in your crockpot and turn to low. add milk. cover and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours.

unplug your crockpot. leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours.

scoop out 2 cups of the milk and put it in a bowl. whisk in live/active culture yogurt. then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. stir to combine.

put the lid back on your crockpot. keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation.

go to bed, or let it sit for 8 hours.

in the morning, the yogurt will have thickened---it's not as thick as store-bought yogurt, but has the consistency of low-fat plain yogurt. (i actually found it to be quite thick - see note below)

chill in a plastic container(s) in the refrigerator. your fresh yogurt will last 7-10 days. save 1/2 cup as a starter to make a new batch.

*for thicker yogurt, line colander with cheesecloth/paper towels and set in big bowl. pour yogurt and cover. place in fridge.

now, fellow thick yogurt-lovers, don't be dissuaded (i was, and i think that's part of why it took me so long to try the recipe). i am not the kind of person who loves just eating yogurt, because i don't think it's rich enough - the one type of yogurt i fell in love with is a brand called Liberte from vermont that's something like 8% milkfat (yum!). now that i can't get that i settle for greek-style yogurt. and yet i LOVE this homemade yogurt - it's creamy and fairly thick and very flavorfull. in fact, i ate an entire 35oz container in the first 24 hours (is that gross?) and none of it has made it into the smoothies yet.
enjoy!

week eight: garden harvest

i'm going to use the excuse of unexpected travel and sickness over the past two weeks to account for slacking on my blog projects. this post is less a project than a collection of bite-sized morsels that emerged from our garden recently.
first, there's the tomatoes. while the tomatoes we originally planted have not fared too well - the only tomatoes that grew to full size were enjoyed by the birds while we were away in oakland last week - we have numerous "volunteer" tomatoes that have sprung up around the garden in places they weren't planted.

i hate you, birds.

i assume this, too, is the work of the birds. these little yellow cherry tomatoes somehow are much healthier than their original counterparts, and have managed to produce several handfuls of wee tomatoes that i've actually been able to harvest before our beaked friends get at them.

also in abundance right now are our perpetually-baby kale and collard greens. i'm not sure why the leaves stay small, maybe i planted them too close together in the container, but they are quite tender and hardly need to be cooked.

they go great raw into smoothies. this one includes frozen berries and some poi - yum! as well as garden greens.
i'm a big fan of sauteed garden greens and eggs in the morning. this is a variation on that. i've always been curious about the "egg-in-a-basket" concept, and this was my first attempt at making it myself.

surrounding the egg in a basket are chopped fresh garden greens - collards and kale - as well as lightly sauteed green pea shoots - the harvest from my project of several weeks ago. i've also planted some of the peas along the fenceline to see if they'll mature enough to give actual pea pods. i'll keep you posted.
other things i'm looking forward to harvesting in the coming months: taro and sweet potatoes!

week seven: carrot top crisps

oops, i've fallen out of the routine here in the past couple weeks so it's time to play catch up. first on the menu is a new way of preparing carrots - using the greens.
i've always wondered if the tops were left on carrots just as a sort of back-to-the-landish aesthetic, but i overheard the interns at ma'o say in the packing shed one day while we were packing up csa boxes, that some people eat them. i tried it once, and found them a bit bitter, so i served them sauteed with garlic and jalapeno (because that will make anything taste good). 

on a recent trip to the farmers market i met up with the lovely ladies of ma'o - interns cheryse, maisha, and anuhea - and because of the excessive rains of late they mostly had a whole lotta carrots to sell at the stand. i wanted to support, so i ended up coming home with six big bunches of carrots, greens and all, so this was inspiration to have another go at the whole carrot top thing.

cheryse - brilliant salesperson that she is - recommended making a carrot top pesto out of them, and i ran this idea past ed kenney, owner and chef of town restaurant, who i saw on my way out of the ma'o stand. ed wholeheartedly supported the carrot top pesto - saying he serves ma'o carrots with a pesto sauce made of their greens, to the mantra "what grows together goes together."
i have yet to try carrot top pesto, but my friend maile (who also bought six bunches of carrots from ma'o that day) made it to rave reviews from the family.

what i chose to do with my carrot top greens was take the concept of kale chips - one of my favorite not-so-guilty pleasures, and apply it to carrot tops. kale chips are the best (and probably best for you) alternative to potato chips i've ever had - and i love potato chips. crispy is hands-down my favorite texture for food, so anything that manages to be crispy i'm willing to consume. check out my friends' hannah and phoebe's i heart kale blog for my recipe for kale chips.

my first attempt at carrot top chips was a mixture of kale and carrot tops. again, i was concerned about the bitter flavor being overbearing and figured if it was a mixture it might be better. but something about the roasting process takes out the bitterness, so the carrot tops came out as crispy, crunchy, delicate melt-in-your-mouth greens without a hint of bitterness.

this is in b/w because i'm embarrassed about the state of my pan

the kale and carrot tops "crisped" up at different rates, since they are different shapes and sizes, so the next time i made carrot top crisps i let them ride solo. plus when the carrot greens are laid out on the pan and allowed to crispify they turn into a lovely delicate lace - something i imagine could be put to good decorative use at a restaurant - ed are you listening? :)

i used this batch of carrot top crisps to top a 3 layer roasted vegetable platter i was bringing to a potluck. it included beets, carrots, red turnips (who knew those existed?) as well as the greens from those root veggies - with the crispy carrot greens on top. unfortunately, by the time i arrived at the potluck the crisps had lost some of their crispiness, so i recommend eating them right out of the oven, especially if you live somewhere with high humidity like hawai'i.

one year, 52 projects

i am inspired by marty's new year project - posting one minute of video every week for 52 weeks - so i think i'm gonna start a project of my own, or rather 52 projects of my own, in the spirit of cultivating domesticity. plus it's a great way to get back on the blogging bandwagon after falling off during my stint of working on an organic farm on the other side of the island.

ever since we got home from our whirlwind tour of the continent over the holidays, i've been obsessing over little diy home improvement-type projects, trying to utilize stuff we have around the cottage for new purposes. to start the year off right, since we are already in the second week of january, i'll be posting two this week.

week one: herb-infused olive oils

we had a big bottle of olive oil from costco kicking around in our tiny kitchen, and infusing olive oil was a project i sort of intended to do before the holidays to give as gifts, but you know - better now than never.
our backyard garden was quite bountiful after all the winter rains, so we harvested some rosemary, basil (which was going to seed and needed to be trimmed back anyway), and chili peppers. well, no that's a lie - the chili peppers came from maile's farm because those red-butt birds ate all our chili peppers while we were away.

anyway, we also had a *few* empty sake bottles laying around because it would be a pity to recycle bottles that pretty. which we boiled to sanitize, and then stuffed full of rosemary, garlic, basil, and chili peppers.

and now they are sitting for a bit to get nice and yummy. i don't know much about how long they need to infuse for, but i figure we can start taste-testing in a week or so. 

i think these infusions may make a cameo in our misto - one of my favorite new kitchen utensils. it's great for lightly greasing the grill, breads, pans, etc. and i can't wait to make grilled pizza with our herb-infused oil. i also scored a big bag of plastic pouring spouts from ross recently, so i'm in the process of re-purposing every alcohol bottle into something new and pourable.

ho'i'o: foraging for fiddleheads

 

on the continent they're called fiddleheads. here in hawai'i they're known as ho'i'o. unless you're from maui - then they are pohole. or if you're japanese, in which case: warabi. these are my current vegetable obsession. closely followed by watercress - but more on that later.

i have had the incredible good fortune of spending a lot of time lately in waiahole, where my friend maile lives with a waterfall, taro patches, gardens, and a very sweet dog. maile invited us out a few weeks ago for a "true food sovereignty experience" - foraging in near her stream for young fern shoots. i love foraging. it's so satisfying. i think i could spend all day rummaging around in ferns taller than myself, hunting for those tightly curled little fronds, bursting with life. the first time we picked we were advised not to be careful with the rest of the fern leaves - the mature ones. the more you knock those down the more the plant send out new shoots, and i have been reaping the bounty on that advice as new shoots come up weekly.

you can eat them right there while you're picking; raw they have a kind of what my aunty wanda calls "gneah-gneah" quality to them. meaning, i think, that they leave a bit of a texture on the roof of your mouth. i would describe ho'i'o as the cross between asparagus and okra. but much prettier. it's got that firm, watery, tasty quality of asparagus with a bit of the slimy this-must-be-good-for-me quality of okra.

 the most popular way to eat ho'i'o is in a salad, where you blanch the ferns and combine them with opae (shrimps), tomato and onion.  i tried a number of different dishes using ho'i'o, like stir fried with leftover ahi poke and chili peppers. or sauteed with carmelized onions. i also made my own version of ho'i'o salad, adapting grandma ho's recipe for watercress salad. this went over pretty well at a couple of potlucks, so i'll share that recipe with you here.

ho'i'o salmon salad

1 block tofu, drained and cubed
2 tomatoes, diced
3 green onions, finely chopped
1 package bean sprouts (1/2 lb?), blanched
1 can salmon
1 can bamboo shoots, sliced thin
1 can baby corn
as much ho'i'o as you like, blanched

sauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbs sesame oil
3/4 cup soy sauce
juice of 1/2 lemon

just layer the ingredients in an order that's visually appealing - with the ho'i'o on top to showcase it, and then pour the sauce on top. obviously all of those ingredients are optional - i added the bamboo shoots and baby corn, that does not feature in grandma's watercress salad - which she was sure to let me know.
there aren't any photos of this salad because, well, when i'm cooking for a potluck i'm usually running late. so here's a photo of  one of what they look like in a pan. i'd love to hear about any other dishes you've tried with fern shoots - leave a comment!

thanks to maile for the photos and for the experience!

if emeril lagasse were korean, this is how he would make sangria.

definitely one of my favorite things about living in oakland was our frequent trips to "the beach." i know that i now live in hawai'i where there are *real* beaches, and i do appreciate those too, but there is a special place in my heart for that grassy spot on lake merritt where we would pop a bottle of bubbles on a sunny afternoon and watch the people in the town pass by.

on one such beautiful recent sunday afternoon we were joined by our good friend sierra, and decided to stray from our usual champagne fare to make our own sangria. i'm a big fan of sangria, and not a big fan of spending a lot of money (boy am i sad to be living in the land of ridiculously expensive produce). so i took this recipe from emeril lagasse's "essence of emeril" food network and adapted it to fit whatever was available cheaply at the korean market up the street. here's the original recipe:

Ingredients

    * 1 (750-ml) bottle red wine
    * 1/4 cup brandy
    * 1/4 cup orange flavored liqueur (recommended: triple sec or Grand Marnier)
    * 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
    * 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
    * 1/4 cup sugar
    * 1/2 orange, thinly sliced
    * 1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
    * 1 unwaxed apple, cored, and cut into thin wedges
    * 1 (750-ml) bottle sparkling water, chilled

Combine everything but the sparkling water in a large plastic container or glass pitchers. Cover and chill completely, 1 to 2 hours. When ready to serve, add the sparkling water.

i found our favorite cheap wine, crane lake, which tastes pretty terrible on its own, but mixed with all this other delicious stuff it's perfect. and it only costs $3/bottle. so we doubled the recipe. we were blessed with a continuing overflow of VSOP from our winter brandy drink days (thanks, megan) - including spiced cider and eggnog, and courtesy of sierra's grandma's liquor cabinet we also had triple sec. i picked up limes, lemons, and a ton of mandarins from the koreans, plus some fantastic meyer lemons we had from marty's uncle bobby's place (i sure miss those). rather than apple i went for the nectarines that were on sale at the korean market, which ended up being mostly overripe, but some of it was salvageable and along with the mandarins gave a nice sweetness to the sangria.

that's pretty much all i have to say about that - it was the best sunday afternoon ever. thumbs up for sangria. thanks to sierra and marty for sharing it with me. definitely fond memories for the town.

irish car bomb cupcakes

this week's mission was to make some kind of incredible thank-you gift to show my appreciation to our friends brutus and kyle, who let marty and i stay at their apartment all week preceding my cousin's wedding. cupcakes have been on my mind lately, and thanks to rachel's suggestion i headed over to smitten kitchen for this incredible recipe.

if you're unfamiliar with the drink sensation that is the "irish car bomb" it goes something like this: you take a shot glass and fill it half full of bailey's irish cream; float jameson irish whiskey on top to fill the shot glass, which you then drop (glass and all) into 3/4 pint of guinness and chug. i don't say "chug" lightly here. this is what they call a "volatile drink" - meaning it not only froths and foams when you drop the shot into the beer, but it will also start to curdle almost immediately if you let it, so you really don't want to waste time.

perhaps it's in bad taste to name a drink after an act of violence, and perhaps i'm perpetuating that by claiming the name for these cupcakes, but i admire a nation that refers to its period of ethno-political conflict as "The Troubles," and chocolate whiskey and beer cupcakes just doesn't have the same ring to it.

i've said it before, but smitten kitchen is brilliant. who would think to turn that into cupcake form? feel free to submit a comment here with suggestions of what else you'd like to see turned into cupcake form. i'll see what i can make happen.

i should also mention that these may top the list of most expensive homemade cupcakes ever.

could these few ingredients actually cost over $45? in hawai'i they sure can.
don't let this dissuade you from trying - i'm sure if you live someplace where food is reasonably priced you won't have the sticker shock. it's just that here in the most oil-dependent state in the nation we import 90% of our food from overseas, and that's a problem.

i drew the line at the $4 whole paycheck foods wanted to charge me for paper cupcake liners, and i'm going to go ahead and encourage a cultural shift here - do we really need to have our cupcakes half-wrapped in paper? my cupcake tin is nonstick, so it's not an issue on my end, and i am hopeful that the recipients of my baked goods will embrace the going green aspect of their gift.

i should also say these are not cupcakes for the fainthearted - neither for the baking nor the eating. it took me a solid 3 hours of baking/assembly, and well - you can see the ingredients.

so here's the recipe - from smitten kitchen: (with my comments in italics)

Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes
Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling (Updated to double it, based on many commenters suggestions — thanks!)
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (I recommend Jameson, though I had to substitute Jack Daniels because that's all I could find in the tiny airplane-sized bottle, and since i'm living in the house of jehovah right now with grandma ho i don't have the usual bottle of jameson in the cupboard)

Baileys Frosting
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Special equipment: 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer and a piping bag (though a plastic bag with the corner snipped off will also work - unless you let your ganache chill too long and then you bust multiple holes in the ziplock bag that result in many spouts for frosting, ahem)

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners (or not - save the earth!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. notice that says one cup of guinness - that means you'll have to drink the rest of the beer while baking, bonus! Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely. my cupcakes took 16-17 mins and were very fluffy/springy. i couldn't tell if they really tasted like guinness, or if i just had that taste in my mouth from finishing off the beer.

Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined. i used the microwave method - since i have use of a microwave at grandma's house and the chocolate melting process can be a little nerve-wracking when you're worried about ruining that hella expensive chocolate you just bought - it took maybe 2 rounds of 30 seconds each with a lot of stirring in between rounds to get there - don't overdo it. i have to say here, the chocolate ganache went from "mmm, that's tasty" with the ghiradelli and cream to "i may just have to pipe that directly into my mouth and forgo the whole cupcake thing" when i added the whiskey. turns out whiskey and chocolate is a knockout combination. i would even go ahead and add another couple teaspoons of whiskey next time to bump up the flavor. i was worried about it preventing the ganache from setting, but it set just fine.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.
she says "tasters" here like there are going to be cute little plugs of cake to pop in your mouth, but what i ended up with was a big pile of crumbs. not that that stopped me from shoving a handful in my mouth.

i'm including a picture of what an apple corer looks like here - because i had to ask somebody myself. it worked great, and i probably didn't even need the grapefruit knife, though i was super excited to have an excuse to use what is probably my favorite utensil of all time - grandma ho has this special grapefruit knife that has one end with two blades so that you can cut up both sides of the grapefruit section at the same time - i love this knife and i think about it every time i eat grapefruit. that's not the end i used for the cupcakes, i'm just excited about it.

 

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time. if i could have located my sifter after the move i would have used it here to sift in the powdered sugar so i wouldn't have to content with the lumps.

[This is a fantastic trick I picked up while working on the cupcakes article for Martha Stewart Living; the test kitchen chefs had found that when they added the sugar slowly, quick buttercream frostings got less grainy, and tended to require less sugar to thicken them up.]

When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Ice and decorate the cupcakes.

i was being stingy with the ganache at first, but i ended up with extra at the end - so don't be shy to fill them full. i also chilled the ganache a little too long in the fridge - and didn't let it come back to room temp before putting it into my makeshift pastry bag, so i busted some extra holes in the sides which ended up decorating the area around my cupcakes and hands as well.

i experimented with a few different designs. here's what the combination of whiskey ganache and baileys frosting looks like:

Do ahead: You can bake the cupcakes a week or two in advance and store them, well wrapped, in the freezer. You can also fill them before you freeze them. They also keep filled — or filled and frosted — in the fridge for a day. (Longer, they will start to get stale.)

i'll let you know how they are received.

falafel waffles

ok, so i can't take credit for it, but this is a brilliant idea: waffles made of falafel.
falafel waffles, if you will.

i love falafel, but mostly the crispy outsides, when it comes to the crumbly middle part of the falafel balls i'm less than interested. so when i found this suggestion to make falafel in the waffle iron i couldn't wait to try. plus you have the benefit of not having to deep fry the falafel balls. don't get me wrong, i have NO problem with frying stuff (and especially eating fried stuff), but it's probably healthy to try out other methods of cooking once in a while. the post i found uses falafel from a mix and reports success, but that's not what we do around here, so here's the falafel recipe i used to make it from scratch, from joan nathan's The Foods of Israel Today:

    * 1 cup dried chickpeas
    * 1/2 large onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
    * 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
    * 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
    * 1 teaspoon salt
    * 1/2-1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper
    * 4 cloves of garlic
    * 1 teaspoon cumin
    * 1 teaspoon baking powder
    * 4-6 tablespoons flour

1. Put the chickpeas in a large bowl and add enough cold water to cover them by at least 2 inches. Let soak overnight, then drain. Or use canned chickpeas, drained.

2. Place the drained, uncooked chickpeas and the onions in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed. (i followed the recipe here - but i would actually say go ahead and puree for the purposes of waffle falafel-making)

3. Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. You want to add enough bulgur or flour so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.

after refrigerating the mixture you can heat up your waffle iron and oil both sides generously. i found it a little awkward to pat the falafel into the waffle iron, since i'm used to pouring a liquid into the iron that then puffs up. this is not like that, what you put into the iron is what you get out - no expanding or shrinking, so go ahead and pat it in all the way to the edges. bake until golden brown.

i decided to use the waffles to dip into sauces, tahini sauce and raita - rather than putting them into pitas with lettuce and tomatoes as a sandwich, though that would also be good. the tahini sauce was a big hit, and the raita was a delicious pairing - deceptively hot and cool at the same time (marty's concept of a "pinch" of cayenne is a little more like one of my handfuls).

here are the recipes for those sauces:

Tahini Sauce (via Epicurious)

Gourmet | January 2004 
Yield: Makes about 1 1/4 cups
 
ingredients
2 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
1/2 cup well-stirred tahini (Middle Eastern sesame paste)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Mince garlic, then mash to a paste with sea salt. Whisk together garlic paste and remaining ingredients until combined well. Cooks' note: Tahini sauce can be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Cucumber-Mint Raita (via Epicurious)
Bon Appétit | August 2004
Yield: Makes 8 servings

ingredients
1 large unpeeled English hothouse cucumber, halved, seeded, coarsely grated
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
1/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon plus pinch of cayenne pepper
preparation

Wrap grated cucumber in kitchen towel and squeeze dry. Whisk yogurt, mint, cumin, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper in medium bowl to blend. Add cucumbers and toss to coat. Season raita to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated.) Sprinkle raita with pinch of cayenne pepper and serve.
Enjoy - and leave a comment to let me know how it goes if you try it!