ReadyMade Yogurt

Voila! I made yogurt for the first time. I recently found a recipe in ReadyMade magazine that made it sound so easy...and then I found a crock at Goodwill that seemed perfect for the purpose. I have long wanted to make homemade yogurt, and may have even had one of those electric yogurt makers once with the little cups, so many years ago that I don't really recall. In any case, yogurt making never became a practice for me, the way I hope to make it now.

My goal is to free myself from plastic tubs, and to use Organic Valley or Traders Point organic milk, reducing the cost of organic yogurt. And to enjoy the process of transforming one thing to another, an insatiable pleasure.

So now we have 4 cups of fresh homemade organic yogurt in the fridge, with yogurt cheese not far behind. Here is the recipe from ReadyMade. If you travel to where is is archived, you'll find recipes for yogurt cheese and for a chilled yogurt soup.

CULTURE CLUB

Goodbye, plastic tubs! DIY yogurt is as simple as boiling milk
by Scott Hocker

Though yogurt bears a hard-to-shake association with health food stores and college co-ops [HEY, Scott! WTF? Get hip to the co-op, dude!] the creamy foodstuff is a delicious and versatile ingredient in the kitchen. Best of all, it’s ridiculously (and cheap) to make from scratch. All you need is a whole lot of milk, a tiny amount of all-natural store-bought yogurt, and an oven.

INGREDIENTS
1 qt. whole, lowfat, or nonfat milk
1 1/2 tbsp preservative-free, all-natural yogurt

MAKE IT
1. Preheat oven to approximately 200 degrees.
2. Pour milk into a large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-low heat. A higher flame may be used, but the higher the heat, the more constant stirring is required to ensure the milk doesn’t scorch.
3. When the milk comes to a boil, turn down the heat until the milk is gently simmering. (Careful: milk has a tendency to boil over quickly once it reaches the boiling point.) Let simmer for approximately two minutes.
4. Take the milk off the heat and let cool until the temperature on an instant-read thermometer is between 110 and 115 degrees.
5. In a four-cup bowl, blend yogurt with approximately 1/2 cup of the milk. (Adding some of the hot liquid, but not all of it, keeps the mixture from curdling and killing off the healthy bacteria.)
6. Turn off the oven.
7. Return the yogurt-milk mixture to the saucepan and stir with the remaining milk.
8. Divide the contents between two bowls and cover each with plastic wrap.
9. Place the bowls in the oven and drape a kitchen towel over them.
10. It will take anywhere from 6 to 15 hours for the yogurt to set. If after 6 hours it hasn’t gelled, simply leave the mixture in the oven and check back about every 3 hours.
11. Once it sets, refrigerate. The longer the yogurt sits in the refrigerator, the tangier it will be.