Friday, August 5, 2011

Homemade Yogurt

   When I was sick last year I had a great GI doctor who grew up in the Himalayas!  He had an awesome accent and great old fashioned ideas as well as using modern medicine when needed.  Because of some of the food issues I had he suggested I eat lots of plain yogurt.  He asked me if I knew how to make it and I said yes, I had bought a little yogurt maker but it never turned out great.  He rolled his eyes and muttered something about Americans buying anything and proceeded to give me the best "recipe" ever for homemade yogurt.  I'm not sure it's a real recipe even!  Just a "how to"!

Take 1 gallon of Vitamin D milk (he said you could add some half n half to make it creamier if you want) and bring it JUST to a boil.  Turn off the heat and let cool until you can put your pinkie in the milk comfortably (yes really).  Add 3-8oz of plain yogurt (that's how you get the live bacteria) and stir.  He suggested just using one of the single cups of Dannon plain yogurt.  Pour it all in a pot or glass bowl.  Preheat your oven to the lowest setting then turn it off and put your yogurt in before you go to bed.  At 9am you have perfect yogurt.

That was his exact "recipe".  I have no idea what time I'm suppose to "go to bed"!  I just throw it in and it's usually good in the morning.  After the first batch you can just save 3-8oz of your own yogurt.  After a few batches you may want to add new.  I've never tried it with skim milk, I have to try that. We've been using a lot of yogurt for smoothies so I need to get back into the habit of making it.  Obviously you can make a 1/2 gallon instead and just add less yogurt.  He told me they would drink yogurt with salt and water to stay hydrated when he was growing up... tried that... ewwww!  It was pretty gross to this "American" but I'm sure it's great for your body especially in the heat.  For now I think I'll just stick to the yogurt!

Give it a try.  It really couldn't be simpler!

1 comment:

HillaryM said...

Hi Tami! visiting from the CM for Moms of Many Yahoo group. That's a mouthful :D I make our yogurt, too. I use a crockpot. I put the milk--either a gallon or half gallon into the crock. Turn on low for 2.5 hours--sometimes 3. Turn off and let cool down a bit approx 3 hours. I set timers so I don't completely forget, but I don't drop everything to tend to it when the timer goes off. After the cool down time, scoop out (I use a glass 2 cup measurer) some warm milk and stir in the starter--a cup (or so) of plain yogurt with live cultures. Stir this back into the crock, put the lid back on and wrap it all up in a towel. After 8-12 hours you have yogurt. I then put it into glass jars--mason, etc. keeping out a portion for starter for the next batch. The longer I leave it the more tart it becomes. It seems to be thicker with whole milk, thinner with skim milk. We use it in smoothies and as sour cream on tacos, etc. Yum!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...