Yogurt

That's right, this recipe is for making your own yogurt at home.  The coolest part is you don't even need to buy a special (and pricey) yogurt maker, you can make this in your crock pot!  I got the recipe from Sarah's Musings and I am quite impressed!  We use this yogurt recipe primarily in our smoothies but I've also been using it to make our own cream cheese which is super easy too and I'll explain at the bottom of this post how to do that.

Crock Pot Yogurt

1/2 gallon (8 cups) whole milk
1/2 cup live/active plain yogurt (the container will say live or active on it)
you'll also need:
     -crock pot
     -heavy bath towel or blanket

1.  Pour milk into a 4 quart crock pot and turn on to low.  Cover and allow to cook for two and a half hours.
2.  After two and a half hours have elapsed, turn off crock pot, unplug from the wall and allow to sit, covered for three hours.
3.  After the three hours is up, whisk in the yogurt and re-cover.  Cover and wrap the entire crock pot with a large bath towel or blanket and leave on the counter for eight hours.
4.  After eight hours has passed the yogurt is done.  Just put it into containers and place in the fridge.  If you like flavored yogurt, now is the time to flavor it.  Stir in fresh or frozen fruit and maybe a little bit of honey or stir in some vanilla.  Make sure to save a half cup of the plain yogurt so you can use it to make yogurt again!

*To make cream cheese:   line a colander with cheese cloth or coffee filters, place over a bowl and fill with yogurt (see above image).  The whey will drain off into the bowl and you'll be left with cream cheese!  I hear you can save the whey for and use it to soak grains or make lacto-fermented foods (quite honestly I have no idea what those mean but I'm going to be looking into it so I'm not wasting the whey.  I've included links in case you want to do some research yourself)  It's also suggested to add it to smoothies, I haven't tried that yet but I think I will today!