Yogurt!

 

For my birthday this year I got a yogurt maker, and we have loved it! I've been looking at items we buy a lot of and seeing if I can make them on my own. Steve likes to take yogurt in his lunches, and yogurt can be quite expensive, not to mention full of sugar. What I describe below costs about $.07 per yogurt cup and has 4-6 grams of sugar in each one.

I looked on amazon.com and chose this yogurt maker based on the ratings. I especially like that it comes with individual cups (for the lunch-on-the-go). I did find some websites that explained how to make yogurt without this (like in your crockpot), so if you want to explore something like that before spending $30 that's another possibility. I'm really happy with my yogurt maker though and glad to have it. The first batch took a while since I didn't know what I was doing, but now I can make it in just a few minutes. Here's what I do:

1. Put 5 C milk in a pan. I whisk 1 C of powdered milk in a medium sauce pan with 5 C of water. You can also use 5 cups of regular milk, but powdered milk will be half the price (I get mine at the local LDS home storage center) and it makes a really nice consistency for the yogurt. 
2. Bring it up to 180 degrees (I would recommend using a cooking thermometer, but boiling point is about 212 degrees to give you an idea of what 180 is). 
3. Put it in the fridge until it cools down to at least 110 degrees (30-45 min). You have to cool it down enough though or it will be too hot and kill your starter. 
4. Add starter and any desired flavorings. I stir in 3 TB plain yogurt (This is your starter. Mix it with a tsp of milk so that it's a good pouring consistency), 3 TB of vanilla, and a few TB of sugar. You could also leave the sugar out and add honey before you eat it if you want to sweeten it. Each tsp of sugar is 4 grams, so if you add 8 tsps of sugar, each cup of yogurt will have 4 grams of sugar in it. That's WAY less than the 20-40 grams in store yogurt.
5. Pour into yogurt cups and follow manufacturing directions to start the process. I set mine for 9 hours and it comes out great for our tastes.  

So that's how I make it. There are instructions with the yogurt maker that I followed, and then I just explored ways to flavor it how we like it. Here are some of the things we do with our yogurt.

Add a spoonful of homemade strawberry jam and send it in a lunch.

Serve it as a delicious snack or side to a meal for the kids!

Use it as a sour cream substitute in ANY recipe, such as this delicious sour cream lemon pie or these amazing thick, soft sugar cookes. I also made this melt in your mouth chicken recipe last week that called for mayo when I realized I was out. I used a cup of yogurt instead and it was delicous!

Sprinkle some homemade granola on top for breakfast.

Put it in a fruit smoothie I adapt from here. You can mix and match any kind of fruit really,  I especially like pears. Makes about four 8 oz servings.

• 2 C frozen fruit (I usually use a frozen banana and 1 C of frozen grapes)
• 1 C milk
• 1 yogurt cup
• (A squirt of honey if your fruit isn't sweet enough)

Blend and enjoy!