Yogurt!

I am defiantly starting to think I have a 'thing'. 

You know, some people collect teapots or elephants with passion, some people have ultra clean houses all the time (not me!). It's their 'thing'. 

I am a compulsive maker of stuff! its just my 'thing'!

My latest stuff to make is yogurt. 

All of us like to eat yogurt here, so it made sense to try and make it so we can enjoy it free of whatever yucky stuff food manufacturers poke into it. And truthfully I cannot figure out why they bother, surely it costs more to conjure up all that crappy stuff to add to the yogurt, than to just make yogurt out of milk and that's it??

So yogurt making was mine to conquer. I had done plenty of reading on the net over the years, I had used the Easy Yo method for quite a while, but it was still out of a packet and had a lot of sugar in it.

I had plenty of failures, generally because I could not keep the yogurt warm long enough... or accidentally kept it way to warm! (see below!)

It looks bad, but it smelled just like yogurt :)

Eventually I had success using the Easy Yo equipment and my own ingredients, but I could only make less than half a litre at a time, which seemed crazy for a family of 5, we needed to go BIG!! So this is my method which renders about 1 litre of real super yummy creamy yogurt. 

Firstly you need...

~2 litres of milk ( I used full cream)

~8 tablespoons of natural unflavoured yogurt 

(I just save some from the last batch, it can be frozen!)

~a saucepan big enough to hold the milk

~a big crockery pot with a lid big enough to hold the lot (I use the one out of my slow cooker)

~an oven

~a towel or woollen blanket

~other bits of normal kitchen stuff

Firstly you need to warm the milk up till there's steam coming off the top of the milk ( not boiling! yuck!) this kills any bacteria already present in the milk that might upset the nice yogurt cultures.

*Now I am very distractable and have burnt many litres of milk, over flowing it all over my stove and floor. So if your like me, this is a good time to make coffee and stand and watch the milk, while thinking of all the things you will do with your yogurt!!*

Let it cool till its a bit warmer than body temp, you know just kinda cosy ;)

Scoop out a mugful of the warm milk and tip it into a bowl with your 8 tbls of yogurt and mix until its all blended. Stir it all back into your pot of warm milk. 

Turn your oven on the lowest possible setting, I turn mine on till I just hear the fan switch on! 

Pour all the milk into the crockery dish, with the lid on put the whole lot into the oven. Now the idea here is to warm up the dish, I can't tell you how long that will take in your oven. I jam a tea towel in my door so it stays open a bit and wait a few minutes then check.  When its winter I use this method to rise my bread too :)

 My slow cooker dish is really quite thick, which makes it perfect for holding the heat. 

Take the whole lot out when your satisfied and wrap the pot up with a snuggly towel or woollen blanket and pop it somewhere warm. Its going to need to be warm for 8 hours or so which can make things tricky! If your oven doesn't get really warm on its lowest setting you could just leave it in there with the door wedged open, or you could sit it near your wood heater. Sometimes I am co ordinated and bake bread etc at the same time so sit my pot on top of the stove/oven and it stays warm. You *could* put it in your bed with the electric blanket on (whatever works!!). Most of the time I just put the pot back in the oven like I did the first time, every couple of hours or when I feel its getting a bit cold. 

So after 8 hours or so you should have a pot full of white stuff that's kind of thick, you can eat it like this, or if you want it nice and thick you can strain it off. 

I use a piece of fabric from my stash, it looks like sheeting to me, or you could use a clean close weave tea towel or muslin if your fancy ;). I line my colander with the fabric and sit it on top of another bowl.

One of these days I will make a elasticised liner that fits in there perfect!

Pour in your yogurt carefully, the whey will start to drain off into the bowl underneath.

 Now more than likely its getting kind of late in the day because of the long warming time, so I stick the 2 bowls on top of each other in the fridge and deal with it again in the morning!

The benefit of leaving it in the fridge over night is the yogurt drains really well and you'll be left with a beautiful thick creamy yogurt.

This is the whey that drains away. There are plenty of uses for it, google is your friend! Have a look, you can use it in cooking..rinse your hair with it......or tip it down the sink like it do LOL

here is the finished product

mmmm yum!

pop it in a fancy Italian preserving jar that you're in love with OR any old container :)

scoop out in big blobs and enjoy! 

It tastes alot like sour cream but not as strong, you could replace it in recipes I am sure. You can add some honey, my girls love it like this, I love passionfruit, any seasonal fruits fresh or stewed would be delicious.... add muesli as well and have a breakfast fit for a king! Use it to make the dip tzatziki...The sky is the limit really!

I like to daydream about having a completely homemade diet, 'grind the wheat to make the bread' kind of complete. Besides me thinking its fun and getting a kick out of it, it would be so much more healthier to eat this way :)

Yogurt Facts!

•  Yogurt has been around for over 2000 years, and like many foodstuffs, came about quite by accident, after ancient, nomadic Turks found that milk they had transported in goatskin bags over many hours, had curdled in the heat.
•  The Turks called this new found product, yogurt ( proper pronunciation yo - ert) a derivation of their word yagmak ( don't pronounce the ' g' ) which means to curdle.
• yogurt is considered a cure for diarrhoea and a soothing lotion for sunburn as well as being used for other stomach ailments and irritating skin conditions, as well as fungal and /  or yeast infections and some bronchial conditions.
•  Due to the zinc content in yogurt, it is also known to be beneficial to sufferers of acne, which can be applied to affected areas of the skin.
•  Scientists and nutritionists have found that daily servings of yogurt have proved beneficial in children to help intestinal absorption of certain food types, that it heightens the immune response, increases fat loss, can help alleviate the symptoms of arthritis, guard against colon cancer and lower dangerous LDL and raise healthy HDL (cholesterol)

:) Happy Days

Jacq

We're really looking forward to being in Bendigo this Saturday with all our goodies! Pop in and say hi, we'd love to meet you :)