Homemade Yogurt

I started making my own homemade yogurt about a year ago when I ran across a recipe on the Frugal Girl website.

I still use this same process because it’s easy and now that I’ve done it so many times I’m able to whip it up pretty fast.

I like making yogurt mainly because it taste so much better and it cost a lot less than store bought.

It’s easy as could be, all you do is

heat up milk
cool it down
add a cup of prepared yogurt
pour it into jars
let the jars sit in a cooler with warm water for several hours.

I can get local raw milk so that’s what I make my yogurt with, but you can use commercial whole milk too.

The yogurt keeps for a month in the fridge so I just use a whole gallon of milk which turns out 5 pints of thick greek yogurt and 2 quarts of whey for me.

Yep, whey. You know that protein whey that everyone wants in their diets now and most people have to buy the powdered stuff at the store. Well, make your own yogurt and you’ll have plenty of it. (more on that later)

The ingredients you’ll need is:

1 gallon full fat milk
1 cup of non flavored yogurt (your starter yogurt)

The equipment you’ll need is:

A heavy bottom stock pot (not cast iron)
A thermometer
A Whisk
Canning funnel
Measuring cup or ladle
Quart size mason jars (preferably wide mouth)
A cooler

This is what I do:

Pour your gallon of milk into a heavy bottomed stock pot
Gradually bring the temperature of the milk up to 190 – 195 degrees while gently stirring occasionally (do not scrape the bottom of the pot as it may scald a bit and you don’t want that in your yogurt)
Fill a sink with ice cold water while milk is reaching temperature
Gently lower the pot of milk into the ice water to cool the temperature down to 120 degrees
Remove the pot from the sink of water on to a towel on the counter
Thoroughly whisk in your starter yogurt
Ladle the mixture into your jars and put the lids on tight
Put the jars in a cooler and pour 2 quarts of warm water into the cooler
Keep water in cooler at 120 degrees for 4 hours
Remove yogurt from cooler and refrigerate

At this point you have yogurt that is ready to eat.

However if you want a thicker yogurt like a greek yogurt (especially if using raw milk, which tends to make a thinner consistency) then continue on doing this:

Let yogurt refrigerate overnight in the jars
Strain all but 1.5 cups yogurt through a fine cloth to release the whey (I have to do this in batches and it usually takes a few hours)

Whisk the 1.5 cup of thinner yogurt into the thicker yogurt to end up with a perfect creamy textured yogurt.
Spoon yogurt into jars, put lids on and refrigerate.

Remember to set aside 1 cup of your yogurt as the starter for your next batch.

I’m afraid that my post has made it sound like making yogurt is a long difficult process, but really it’s not.

Keep in mind that most of the process is giving it time to set up and time to strain, but that’s not hands on time.

It really is easy and so worth it.

I hope you’ll give it a try.

We use yogurt in place of sour cream because not only does it taste great it’s better for us too.

Once you taste your homemade yogurt you’ll never go back to store bought yogurt again.

Till next time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five

This week was “stay out of the stores” week and I’m happy to say that I’ve been rather successful too.

Well, I did have to stop and pick up a few canning jars, but that’s it.

I realized that each day either on my way to work or on my way home the thought of stopping at the store just somehow instantly popped in my mind.

Just like hey it’s 12:00 time to eat lunch, or hey it’s bedtime time to brush my teeth, hey I’m in the car lets stop at the store….

What is that!!!

What I know about myself is that if I don’t make a conscious effort to stay out of the stores then my subconscious will come up with something that I need and I’ll be at the stores every day.

So this weeks frugal five is more about the things I didn’t do instead of the things I did do.

Not one morning did I stop at the stores on the way to work to pick up something I thought I might need.
Only one evening did I stop at a store to pick up canning jars, but bought nothing else that I thought I might need.
I did not carry my credit card with me all week, purposefully.
I did not spend any of the cash in my wallet and used a store credit to purchase the canning jars I picked up.
I did not buy breakfast, lunch or dinner out all week.

I did however “put up” (canning) 16 jars of salsa, 7 jars of tomato juice, 5 jars of sweet relish, 16 jars of (my version) salsa verde, we packed our lunches, dried our clothes on the clothes line (in between storms), added money to the pickle jar and are still breathing fresh air and loving it.

Salsa Verde 2

What frugal fun have you had this week?

Till next time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five

I’ve mentioned before that I wouldn’t really consider us “preppers” as much as I like to consider us as just being prepared. Because of our homestead lifestyle and growing a lot of our own foods, having a stock pile tends to come with the territory. I also try to shop in bulk to take advantage of better pricing which segways us into this weeks frugal five.

Kroger had an awesome buy 5 deal on several items this past week. Peanut butter being one of them, so I stocked up on 10 jars for .99¢ each. (Goes great with the grape jelly I made) 🙂
Kroger also had Dave’s Killer Bread in the buy 5 deal so I bought 10 loaves (for the freezer) at $3.19 a loaf. I know this is still expensive for a loaf of bread, but we love this bread and consider it worth the price for Organic.
A little while back I made some blackberry jam, but didn’t remove the seeds and while it had a great flavor, we just couldn’t tolerate the seeds. Since I was in jelly making mode this week I opened all the jars, strained the seeds, ran it through my food mill, cooked it down with another box of pectin and re-canned it. I certainly wasn’t going to waste it, so now we have some seedless blackberry jam we can enjoy.
I have a bit of a confession to make. I love cherry season and when they are plentiful in the grocery stores I can’t resist. I buy them every week, and it can get a little expensive. Monday I bought a big bag of cherries for the week and they looked good when I got them, but then by the next day they had gotten all soft and shriveled and did not taste good at all. I called the grocery store and she told me to bring my receipt in and they would either give me more cherries or refund my money.
Similar to number 4, this week when I purchased avocados, they looked perfect, not too soft and no bad spots, but when I sliced them open every one of them were at least 50% black inside. Again the nice woman at the grocery store told me to bring my receipt and they would replace them or refund my money.
Bonus – We had a rep visit us at work yesterday and brought in a huge box of Panera bagels that apparently no one wanted so I brought them home. I know some people may snicker at this, but seriously why waste food? Why? The Z Man and I will enjoy them. I can see some bacon, egg and tomato breakfast bagels in our future this weekend and probably toasted bagels with butter and grape jelly 😉

Including our daily frugals of drying clothes on the clothes line, packing lunches for work and still adding my quit smoking money to the pickle jar and breathing fresh air.

How about you, what frugal fun have you had this week?

Till next time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five

Last week I hit a deer and the insurance company totaled my car. While the damage wasn’t extensive, the repair cost exceeded the value of the car, well the value of the car to them (not me).

We are buying the car back and the Z Man will make the repairs and we’ll bank the balance of the pay off. How is this frugal?

Not using the money from the insurance company to buy a new (to me) car.
Buying the car back from the insurance company because we have taken care of the car and know it’s a good car and has more life left in it.
The Z Man will find the replacement parts at a salvage yard, saving a lot of money instead of buying new parts.
I will get a rental car (provided by the insurance company) to drive for 10 days while the Z Man fixes my car, instead of driving our truck that doesn’t get the best gas mileage.
Realizing how fortunate I am to have a husband that is more frugal than I am and is also a Mr. Fix It.
Also realizing that I am much more fortunate than the deer. 😦
Dinners cooked at home, laundry dried on the clothes line, money in the pickle jar and still breathing fresh air (quit smoking).

The things I like about my car are: