Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Yogurt



This week I promised myself to start making yogurt. I used to do it before I had kids, but the wild things sort of knocked me off of my hobbies for a while, and I'm finally getting back to things like yogurt making.
So, a couple of days ago I made a batch of yogurt which has been devoured by the youngest wild thing and I as an after-school snack. It was amazing. Creamy, not too tangy, and really not in need of much in the way of sweetening. We like honey with ours. (He likes lots of honey with his. He informed me once that ALL of his teeth are sweet teeth.)
Here's how I made it:
In a microwavable Pyrex bowl, I poured 4 cups of milk, then microwaved it for about 10 minutes. Once it reached 180 degrees, I took it out of the microwave and let it sit until it reached 110 degrees. Then I added 1/4 cup of yogurt, mixed it all up really well, and dumped it all into a quart jar.
Here's where the fun part came in. I don't have a yogurt maker. They are more expensive than I remember (especially since I got my last yogurt maker at a thrift store...) and online there are all kinds of wacky contraptions for keeping the milk at 100 degrees. I loved looking at them all. People use cardboard boxes, ovens, coolers, crock pots, and all sorts of combinations to make yogurt.
I have a cooler and a heating pad, so that's what I used. I put the jar into the cooler, popped in a heating pad set to "low", and walked away. Six hours later, I had great yogurt!
My friend told me that I have officially obtained "White Trash" status, and my husband looked at me strangely when he saw the contraption, but hey, it worked!
Maybe some day I'll get a machine, but for now I'm happy.
And, I'm eating delicious yogurt.

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