E is for Eats

My last post about making yogurt provided a basic guide for making yogurt at home. Well, I have really refined the process over the past few months and I thought an update was in order. Also, I have found a simple way to strain yogurt to make thick, creamy Greek-style yogurt. So, here is my revised yogurt making method: 1. Take 6 oz container of plain yogurt with live active cultures out of the fridge. Let it sit on the counter until it's about room temperature. 2. Pour 42 oz of milk into a saucepan. Heat the milk until it's warm to the touch, but not hot. DO NOT bring it to a boil. This differs from my previous post. I found that bringing the yogurt up to 180 degrees and them letting it cool, only consumed a lot of time and sometimes caused the yogurt to have a gritty texture. It did not help thicken it as I had read. 3. While the milk is warming, put the room temperature yogurt into a bowl and gently smooth it out with a spoon or rubber spatula. You want...

Homemade yogurt, with Gabrielle's granola. Last year we decided to buy a slow cooker. In looking up recipes for our new appliance, we found a basic recipe for making yogurt in the slow cooker.   It made sense to try to make yogurt because we were spending so much on it every week and we had about a million of those quart-sized, plastic yogurt containers. Truthfully, I don’t remember the exact recipe I used but it was probably this one: crockpot365.blogspot.com “Plug in your crockpot and turn to low. Add an entire half-gallon of milk. Cover and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours. Unplug your crockpot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours. When 3 hours have passed, scoop out 2 cups of the warmish milk and put it in a bowl. Whisk in 1/2 cup of store-bought live/active culture yogurt. Then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. Stir to combine. Put the lid back on your crockpot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation...