homemade yogurt!

Dave and I go through about two tubs of yogurt every two weeks - one vanilla for him, one plain for me.  We mix it in muesli, in oatmeal, in baking.  We have it for snacks.  We buy the 32oz. tubs to save a little money, but it's still about $3.50 a tub... which comes to about $14 a month.  I had been wanting to try making my own yogurt, just for fun, and then I realized how much money it would save!  A gallon of skim milk is $2 - and that would make BOTH our two tubs of yogurt!

First, I found a yogurt recipe with easy instructions.  I went to my friend's blog, The Cooks Next Door, and found step-by-step yogurt making details!  I didn't want to make a whole gallon milk of yogurt, partly because Dave and I wouldn't eat that much, and partly because I didn't want to waste a whole gallon of milk on the first try (just in case it didn't come out).  I started with half a gallon.

My and Talia's mission yesterday was to walk to Kroger to pick up a little yogurt for the starter.  I had hoped to find a small cup of plain yogurt, but no such luck.  I grudgingly settled for natural vanilla.

(source)

I used my new candy thermometer and brought the milk to 185, then cooled it in the sink to 110, added the starter yogurt, and poured it into jars.  The jars went in to the cooler, along with two bottles filled with warm water.  I zipped the cooler shut and let it sit for a little over 4 hours.

Dave and I were so excited to see the results!

Dave was not a fan.  I thought it tasted right, but it was a little hard to tell.  The yogurt was warm, from the cooler, and a little loose - it would firm up more overnight in the fridge.

This morning I tried it again!

(Please excuse the super-crappy picture.  Bad kitchen lighting + bad photographer = craptastic pictures.)  Thicker and tasted just like it should!  The next venture is to make sweetened vanilla yogurt for Dave.

In general this process was really, really easy.  I have no reason not to make yogurt in the future - it really only took about 20 minutes to bring it to the right temp and to cool it.  Then you pour it in jars and let it sit.  So easy!!

Also, I've been using Google Analytics to see how many hits my site gets and from where, which is really cool.  But last night when I looked I saw that someone searched "boys and girls showering together"... which led them to my blog.  Unsurprisingly, they didn't stay and read.