Hasty Tasty Yogurt

From previous posts you’ve seen that I like making my own food as much as possible to avoid mysterious or harmful additives. I’m a breast cancer survivor who’s especially vigilant about my food. Much as I enjoy yogurt, I don’t enjoy a) paying too much for premium quality or b) consuming nasty additives like carrageenan, which my doctor tells me to avoid. So as with mayonnaise and barbecue sauce, I make my own.

Three Ingredients

It’s time-consuming to make yogurt, but I’ve come up with a hasty (or as hasty as possible) and tasty version. It has three ingredients only: 1 quart milk (Skim works if you want less fat), 2 Tbsp. honey, and ½ cup plain yogurt with live cultures (always save 1/2 cup of your homemade yogurt as a starter for the next batch). The honey may add calories, but it makes this the best tasting yogurt I’ve had. I eat it plain most of the time, although it’s great with fruit or cereal. Give it a try.

Here’s all you have to do:

• Combine milk and honey in a 2 quart saucepan and whisk to combine.
• Heat gently over medium heat to 120°F.

Heat gently to 120°

• Remove from heat and allow temperature to drop to 115°F.Important: Use a thermometer. Overheating kills the cultures
• Temper the yogurt by mixing it with 1 cup of the heated milk.
• Gently fold yogurt mixture into milk/honey mixture. Pour into a large glass jar or container.
• Wrap container in an electric heating pad and place in a larger pot. Cover.

Set Heating Pad to Medium.

• Plug in heating pad and set to medium (do not allow yogurt temperature to exceed 115°)
• Allow yogurt to ferment for 8 hours.

Ferment 6-8 hours.

• Cool the yogurt overnight in the refrigerator.
• Using yogurt strainers or cheesecloth, strain the whey from the yogurt to thicken it. Allow yogurt to strain in the refrigerator for about two hours.

Strain whey from yogurt.

• Gently spoon thickened yogurt into containers, label, and refrigerate.
• Avoid stirring the yogurt. Fold added fruit, granola, etc. gently into yogurt before serving.

Yield: 2 pints

Yum!

Note: Use within a month (But mine never lasts that long!).

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