Homemade Yogurt

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My best friend Wendy Koons Meir makes her own yogurt. This past March I spent a weekend with her and she showed me how easy it was. Yes, in the back of my mind too, I thought, Good Lord, who has time to do that? Kara gave me a yogurt maker for my birthday and I have made yogurt once a week now since May. And yes, it is that easy. When I take a moment and think about all the energy Danon and other yogurt makers take, from the maker, on the truck, to the grocery store, and when I buy it I drive it home. That's a lot of energy! We should all try to grow and make our own food. Plus there's no container to recycle. I just heard on CNN that there's two enormous plastic bottle piles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Wow, what a fat and lazy society we are. So here's how quick and easy it is to make yogurt for a week.

In a saucepan, warm to almost boil, 4 Cups Skim milk with 1/2 Cup of Nonfat Powdered Dry Milk. This takes about 20 minutes. Heat it until it almost boils then let it hang out for about 30 minutes until it gets down to 110 degrees. I use my candy thermometer in the pan until it's cool enough. Then add 1/2 Cup plain, non-fat yogurt and stir until somewhat combined. Then pour in the 7 glasses the yogurt maker comes with and put lids on them. Turn on the yogurt maker and let it cook for 8-10 hours then refrigerate. I have over heated that milk in the first step and it was nasty, boiled yogurt. And I have also put the yogurt in too soon and it will flatten (or kill) the good stuff inside. So take your time and get good at it.

I added Chloe and Biscuit and Chloe and I from our local Kids Marathon. We had 146 kids entered on that 29 degree morning! It was a great day!