Making Yogurt!

The kids and I headed to the splash pad this morning and had a blast!  My kids were among the biggest there and I'm thinking this is an activity they'll be outgrowing soon, but for now . . . they loved it!

Other than having fun at the splash pad one of the things I've got going today is making yogurt.   Several years ago I knew a few people who had yogurt making machines.  I looked into them one day, saw the price and decided I couldn't imagine how much yogurt I'd have to make before I "broke even" and the machine became cost effective.   That quick Swagbucks search was enough to begin and end any thought I had of making yogurt myself.

In the meantime I had pretty much stopped buying yogurt after reading the ingredient list.  Yeah---it didn't look like a healthy snack at all after that.  That kind of bummed me out because my kids LOVE yogurt!

Along came Stacy from Stacy Makes Cents.  Once I saw her post about making homemade yogurt I was HOOKED! I'm not a great cook, and I'm lazy, but I can totally do this! It's EASY and I can make a gallon of yogurt for the same price as a gallon of milk and without all the junk! YAY!  (The first time I had to buy some yogurt for the cultures, but every other time I just save same from the previous batch to use).  There's not a huge time commitment involved, either which means I'm able to get it going and then leave it alone and let it do it's thing while we go on with our day. Even warming/cooling the milk is low maintenance (as long as I don't forget about it, which I've never done *cough cough*).  As my 4 year old says, "Easy peasy lemon sqeezy".  (Thank you Goofy for that one)

Since I make a gallon at a time I use 4 quart mason jars and 1 half pint one.   The half-pint (anybody else think of Laura Ingalls Wilder when they hear "Half Pint"??) one is what I use to save the starter for next time.

During the school year 1 gallon lasts about a week because I add some frozen fruit to the plain yogurt and pack it in school lunches when we're low on fresh fruit.  (By the time lunch rolls around the fruit has defrosted and, when stirred it flavors the whole container).  I also make "jelly yogurt" where I add organic strawberry jelly from Coscto to flavor the yogurt. Occassionally I will just add raw honey.   Plain yogurt isn't the tastiest thing ever so I do sweeten it, but with things *I* add, not a list of stuff I can't pronounce and that's created in a lab.

I'm out of "regular" yogurt because this week I used it to make Greek yogurt to use in recipes like tzatziki sauce and strawberry protein pancake roll ups with yogurt filling so the time has come to make some more. 

I had to pick up milk at the store after our trip to the splash pad.  I didn't have a gallon of whole milk in the fridge, otherwise I would've been able to get everything going before our outing this morning.  (The kids drink 1% milk, but I use whole milk for yogurt for the extra creaminess).   Right now the milk is cooling and I'm about to put it in the jars and oven.  
Thanks, Stacy for teaching me how easy (and inexpensive) it is to make yogurt! :)