A recent Martha Stewart Living had Martha making smoothies with Kefir and I had recently taken antibiotics for a sinus infection/bronchitis and needed something with active cultures to restore my GI flora so I decided to give it a try. So far I have made a couple smoothies with strawberries, banana, kefir and a little of a chai flavored soy protein drink I also had bought to try. The second one I didn’t even bother to sweeten with honey. They actually taste pretty good.
I heard Kefir was kind of strong tasting by itself and I admit not being brave enough to taste it plain, after all it’s lumpy milk! It looks completely disgusting, it doesn’t have much of a smell though (or I still don’t have my sense of smell back). The bottle says it has 10 different active cultures so it must be better than yogurt, right?
I am enjoying it in smoothie form but I got to wondering if there is anything else that can be done with it? Is it really that great for you nutritionally? (It’s lumpy milk!) So any one else here a kefir fan that could share some recipes or other information?
I live in a neighborhood full of Soviet immigrants so, it’s easy to find kefir. Most of the stuff seems to be thin yogurt. I have not had the guts to try the plain varieties.
Kefir seems to come in several varieties. At one end of the spectum, you have weird lumpy homemade varieties that taste like goat gone bad. They’re supposed to be very healthy, or something, and contain lots of good bacteria.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s factory made kefir, for sale in supermarkets and ethnic stores. This is a deliciously fresh pure dairy product that seems to combine the best qualities of yoghurt and buttermilk. That kefir is so delicious I don’t care if it is or isn’t healthy. It certainly doesn’t make any outrageous health claims on tha package.
What Maastricht said. The home-made kefir provided me by a friend who’s into “living foods” (yet she gets upset about eating live fish, go figure) was rather a test of my food tolerance (which is quite high.)
Okay, so I will avoid the goat gone bad homemade variety. I don’t know if it’s the placebo effect or what but earlier today my intestines were feeling a little out of sorts, there was some churning and other things going on, I figured it was from the antibiotics so I made a Kefir smoothie and started feeling better right away. I also feel more energetic when I’ve had one of those smoothies. I still haven’t felt brave enough to try it plain, maybe I could blend it a little to get rid of the lumps.
I make “yogurt cheese” where I let the yogurt sit in a funnel with a coffee filter and let the extra liquid drain off. This leaves a thicker yogurt that can be used for dips, sauces, whatever. I wonder if I could do this with kefir?