HOMEMADE YOGURT!!!!!!

Today I made my first batch of homemade yogurt!!!

Tim and I recently acquired an Excalibur Dehydrator (thank you Craigslist) and today, for the first time, got to see that little black box work it's magic. Matt purchased some milk from a local creamery and we carefully followed the recipe that came in the dehydrator cookbook. I will share it with you, as any oven will work just as well, the dehydrator just makes it a bit easier to control the temp.

Fantastic DIY Homemade Yogurt:

* 4 cups of milk (organic of course is preferred, but not necessary)

*1/2 cup of dry milk

* 2 Tbs. of Yogurt starter (plain yogurt is fine as long as it has ACTIVE LIVE cultures in it).

Heat oven, or dehydrator to 115 degrees F. Do NOT make it warmer than that, or the cultures will die and you will simply end up with warm milk...

Mix liquid milk and dry milk together in a sauce pan. Bring to a gentle boil for a few seconds (careful not to scorch the milk...) remove the milk from the heat right after it begins to boil. Allow mixture to cool until it reaches 120 degrees. At this point take 1/4 a cup of the pan and mix it in a clean glass bowl with the yogurt starter. Whip well. :) Then when you have it all mixed, add it to the rest of the milk and stir well. Then, put your milky mixture into clean glass jars with lids. We used canning jars and they worked great. Place them carefully into the oven or dehydrator for 3 hours at 115 degrees. Check them after the three hours to see if your yogurt has set. Leave them in for longer if needed, checking them every 15 minutes or so. We left ours for 4 hours, and it was still a bit soupy when we took it out. After it is set, add fruit, honey, sugar, or whatever else you would like and then stick it in your fridge. We added pecans, frozen bananas, and browns sugar. Both Matt and Tim LOVED it! I was thrilled to have made it from scratch and had a very happy tummy afterwards as well.

Cheers to the handmade & homemade life!

-Meg