We get a dozen locally gathered eggs each week with our CSA. They make for a quick dinner that gets eaten:
I hate yogurt. Not all yogurt, just the kind you get in the little plastic cups at the grocery store. You know, the stuff with the consistency of snot. Watery, over-sugared or loaded with artificial crap. Blech. I was interested in the newer Greek yogurts that hit the stores a year or so ago, and I like the Fage 0%, but was still looking for something a little different, something that holds the spoon up when I let go.
Something my kids wouldn't steal.
I figured if I couldn't find it, I'd have to make it. Now I make all our yogurt. It's an easy process, especially with a little incubator. I use a powdered starter.
Start with clean jars. I would be afraid of what might happen with dirty ones.
Warm, fresh yogurt smells a little funky as it is.
I run my jars through the dishwasher and keep the caps on until I'm ready to use them.
Organic milk is the only milk we use in the house.
I like the cow on the carton. I'm assuming the cow is not missing.
I've used both 2% and skim for my yogurt. They work equally well.
Your use will depend on personal tastes and your spouse's tolerance for fat free milk.
I believe this step is optional, but from what I've read, not heating the milk can result in a different texture. I don't really want to mess with my spoon-propping texture.
Someday when I'm feeling adventurous I might try not heating it, but for now it works for me. My little incubator and the starter call for 42 ounces of milk.
Heat to 180 degrees, or just to the boiling point. I read somewhere that it's heated properly when the bubbles start climbing the sides of the pan. I think that means I'm heated properly after a few days with my kids during summer break. You know, climbing the walls.
After heating, the milk has to be cooled down to 111-113 degrees before you add the cultures.
I put the pan in a cold water bath to facilitate this. Careful, or your pan will float away.
This is my yogurt starter. I buy it in these big boxes from Amazon. You can also just use a container of prepared yogurt. Reduce the amount of milk to accommodate for the extra volume, or you'll be cursing when you pour the mixture into the little jars.
Okay, the milk has chilled down.
Add your starter and whisk it gently until the starter is dissolved. Don't sniff the starter.
It's the reason for that warm, fresh yogurt funky smell and if you get the powder stuck in your nose you'll smell yogurt funk for hours.
Pour the milk-starter mixture into your little jars (or a big jar if you're using the oven).
Here's my little jars in my little
incubator. The incubator keeps the mixture at about 110 degrees F for
the duration of the incubation, usually 6-7 hours. A friend of mine warned me not to jostle the yogurt while it incubates, otherwise I'd have yogurt chunks. I'm not testing that, just taking her word for it.
Now wait....
And voila! Yogurt.
I use a strainer to thicken my yogurt, so I empty all the little jars into two strainers.
Looks like this.
And this is how I clean the jars.
Kidding.
Not really.
Now wait overnight. Or 6-8 hours, or however long you want to wait. Just check the texture now and then until it's what you want. If you let it go for 24 hours, you get yogurt cheese, which is a nice substitute for sour cream or cream cheese.
This is what it looks like in the morning (look at what a nice job those dogs did on the jars!).
That yellow stuff in the bottom is what strained out overnight. It's whey. I'm fairly certain there are creative things that can be done with this, but I think it's what's responsible for that funky smell.
I'll pass.
You let me know if you find a use for it.
Anyway, you can see here how firm the yogurt is. Yep. That's what I like.
And so, out of 42 ounces of milk, I got about 2 cups of super-firm, creamy, yogurt yumminess.
Those little plastic cups are handy.
I like to mix some cherry preserves into my yogurt. Hubby likes orange marmalade in his. Lemon or lime curd is nice, too. The dogs like it plain or with preserves.
So we'll pick up another CSA box today. I'm excited. We also got a nice zucchini off the plant outside. I'm sure I would have had a bumper crop of zucchini, but I made the fatal mistake of sending my younger son out with a knife to cut off the vegetable. He was, apparently, offended by the fact that zucchini vines escaped the raised bed and started to root in the yard, so he cut them all off.
Sigh...
Here's a recent dinner:
