Making Home Made Yogurt For The First Time

If you see on the right bar of my blog, you will see I posted many other foodie websites that I admire. From

Candied Quince

, I read a posting about home made yogurt that she made. According to her, a home made yogurt taste better than the store bought yogurt and since she ate yogurt on daily basis, she must have know about it pretty well and this intrigue me to try it also.

Actually, I am not a yogurt eater but I know how nutritious yogurt is and since I have 2 kids now, I really want them to eat right.

Eight ounces of yogurt has almost half the calcium kids need daily. No wonder so many families love yogurt—this creamy, tangy food is a cool choice for any time of the day. It can be a yummy treat for breakfast; you can use it in dips or dressings as a healthful alternative for mayonnaise or sour cream; and yogurt is even terrific as a marinade on meat. It's not only delicious, it's very nutritious: Besides being packed with calcium, one serving of yogurt has about a third of the protein recommended for the day. It's also rich in B vitamins.

Yogurt is made by adding something to pasteurized milk that sounds scary—bacteria. But these harmless micro-organisms (or cultures) help the milk ferment to become yogurt and actually boost your immune system. Sometimes yogurt is heated to give it a longer shelf life, but the process destroys this beneficial bacteria. So when shopping, look for the words "contains live and active cultures" on the label. If you like fruit- flavored yogurt, consider stirring fresh fruit into plain yogurt; varieties sold with fruit may have added sugar.

The journey of making my very first own yogurt wasn't easy. First I went to many kitchen stores around here and NONE of them sell a yogurt maker. I even went accross the border one time to find it at the Premium Outlet Mall near Seattle and at that time for some reason 3 things I was looking for, including the yogurt maker were sold out! So I decide to just mail order it from my favorite baking store, the King Arthur Flour. It cost a lot to ship it to Canada because their base store is in the States but luckily last weekend I went down again to Seattle to meet my cousin Eliza and when I order the yogurt maker, I asked them to send it to Eliza's address instead so she can give it to me personally.

So the next morning after my return from Seattle, I went to buy a plain yogurt from the store. I have 2 choices to make home made yogurt, first using a powdered form life culture that I also ordered or I can made yogurt using the life culture from the store bought yogurt that will be mixed with the milk at home. I really want to try the second way.

So first I boil the milk first then cool it down. This is to ensure that the yogurt is more firm because this is the way I am used to eat yogurt in the States or Canada. I am not sure about in Europe.

Then when the milk is already cooled down, I mix my store bought yogurt in it. Then pour it into all 7 glass jars. The place the jar in side the yogurt maker for another 6 hrs. If I use skim milk or 2% milk I have to let it stay in there for longer hours and if I want firmer texture, I should add milk powder to it. But for now I want to try the most basic one using whole milk.



While the yogurt is being made. I made strawberry stew. So easy, basically I just cut them in small pieces, then place all of them in a saucepan, add a little water and as much sugar as I like. In this case... a lot. Then just let it simmer until they are thick. Store them in the fridge together with the yogurt.

The next morning, I serve my yogurt to my son with a teaspoonfull of the strawberry stew/compote ( I am not sure what to name this mixture ). I also read that I can mix the strawberry with the milk but then the yogurt will not be firm enough and I really want to see how firm the yogurt will be. It's quite firm actually when I taste it for the first time. I am please with the result. Since I am not a yogurt eater, I couldn't say if my home made one taste better than the store bought one. But for now, I can see that my children will eat a nutritious breakfast with this delicious home made yogurt. Next, I am going to make for myself a cool lassi drink with this yogurt. Just use my blender to crush the ice cubes first, then add my yogurt, a little sugar, and a pinch of salt and voila! I have a healthy drink on my hand.

Oh yeah...the strawberry compote/stew, has the same texture with strawberry jam so it can be use for spread for your toast in the morning.