Crock-Pot Yogurt

They're alive!  Bacteria.  Everywhere.  Doesn't sound tasty, right?  But this is a post about awesome bacteria.  Yogurt cultures.  "Live and active" as the yogurt tubs tout.  This is all about the life's work of those little buggers: making us yogurt.  In a Crock-Pot.  With about two minutes worth of (human) work.

I don't remember how I stumbled across this, but the idea hails entirely from Stephanie, the self-proclaimed "Crock-Pot Lady" over at her blog A Year of CrockPotting.  That post has spawned many comments and other blog posts, with people reporting on results of their various experiments such as using lowfat milk, soy milk, or even coconut milk as starters, different ideas for how to thicken the yogurt, etc.

There are two ingredients - milk and yogurt.  (Yes, yogurt - we need the first round of those live cultures to come from somewhere.)  Buy plain (as in sugar and flavor free) yogurt from the store for your first batch; use your own yogurt for subsequent batches.  Some of the various websites recommend Stonyfield Farm brand for your starter yogurt, claiming it has a higher level of active cultures.  That's what I used and had success on my first try so I'll recommend you do the same.   As for the milk - I used 2% and got a reasonably thickened yogurt.  You can, of course, use whole milk if you don't mind the extra calories.

Incredible Crock-Pot Yogurt
Conceived of by Stephanie at A Year of CrockPotting
Makes approximately 1/2 gallon
Printable Version


Ingredients:
1/2 gallon milk
1/2 cup yogurt
Optional - 1 envelope nonfat dry milk powder

Method:
Pour milk into Crock-Pot.  Cover and heat on low for 2 1/2 hours.
Turn off/unplug Crock-Pot.  Let cool for 3 hours.
Remove a small amount of the warmed milk and pour into a bowl.  Whisk in the yogurt and return the mixture to the pot.  Stir to combine.  Optional - stir in envelope of dry milk powder.
Wrap Crock-Pot in a heavy towel and let sit for at least six hours.  Longer periods will produce a more dense, tart yogurt.
Refrigerate yogurt to store; it will keep for about two weeks.

Verdict?  Amazing.  The yogurt was very creamy and mildly tart.  None of that artificial aftertaste you get from the store bought stuff.  None of the weird gluey consistency or artificially thickened texture.  You can tell that this is the real stuff.  I'm not going back to store-bought.  There's no reason to, what with the fact that this can be made overnight.  This is cheaper, super easy,  tastes better, uses less plastic, and is kind of fun!

If you prefer sweetened, flavored yogurt, then what is nice about making your own is that you can control exactly what goes in - i.e., no artificial colors or flavors.  Go beyond just sugar and try honey or maple syrup.  To add fruit flavors just puree the fruit and stir it in.  Or even easier - just add a spoonful of your favorite jam to each serving of yogurt and stir it in as you go.  The flavors you can make are basically limitless.

And check out the savings:  1/2 gallon of Stonyfield yogurt (2 quart containers) is $12 at my local store.  1/2 gallon of milk is $1.90, an envelope of milk powder is $1, making 1/2 gallon of homemade yogurt more than 4 times cheaper than store-bought.  With the completion of my third batch I have now more than made back the $20 I spent to buy the Crock-Pot.  Excellent.

Update:  I just finished making my third batch of yogurt and still am very happy with it.  Using just 2% milk yields a somewhat thin but still quite good  yogurt.  You have two options for thickening your yogurt:  1) add the packet of milk powder as described in the recipe, or 2) strain out the whey.  To do this, line a strainer with cheesecloth and fill with your yogurt.  Set the strainer atop a large bowl and refrigerate for several hours.  The whey (the sticky liquid that rises to the top of your little yogurt containers) will drain out, leaving you with something like Greek-style yogurt, slightly thicker than sour cream.  This has a great mouth feel, very velvety on the tongue.  You can also stir back in some of the whey later if you feel the yogurt is too thick.  Save the rest of the whey to use in place of water in baking.  If you're going to stir in fruit or liquid flavoring, I recommend you use the straining approach to thickening, as the powder-thickened yogurt will begin to thin the more you stir it.

Intro to AZEats

So a good friend of mine is in the Peace Corps in Azerbaijan. I miss her lots, but admire her dedication and willingness to go quite out of her way to do good stuff for others.

Anyhow, a few days after I started this blog we were chatting and I asked her if there was anything I could send her from the U.S. Her request was not for stuff, but for recipes - in particular, recipes that could be made with the foods available where she is. I loved the idea, and thought it was a good way to kind of steer this blog in an actual direction from time to time as opposed to just random (but yummy!) recipes.

(Image above is of a market in Baku, Azerbaijan, taken by Flickr user LOOMstudio, used pursuant to Creative Commons license, and making me hungry for megastrawberries.)

So - look for recipes tagged with "AZEats"; those recipes contain only ingredients on the list of foods my friend said she has available. I'll also likely only select recipes that aren't terribly fussy; i.e., nothing that requires any special equipment or annoying preparation techniques.

I actually already have my first AZEats recipe posted, the carrot, spinach, and rice stew. Look for recipe #2 to be posted soon!




(Second image is of white cheese, I think of the same kind that my friend was telling me about. Taken by Flickr user Loomstudio.)

New blog name - Commonplace Kitchen

I'm really not as self-deprecating as the original "Hello world!" post (in conjunction with the blog name) suggested. I think this will work better: Commonplace Kitchen.

"Commonplace" because I'm not doing anything super special (in the kitchen or in this blog); I think everyone is capable of doing the same, if not much better. As I said - I'm no pro.

But I also like thinking of "common place" i.e., how the kitchen becomes a gathering spot for all in the house. You know how it goes at parties; despite the fact that the rest of the house is cozy and inviting, everyone winds up hanging out in the kitchen. It has its own draw.

So - Commonplace Kitchen it is. Let's go!

Quick detour - I thought I'd explain a bit more about what it is I plan to do here. Most of the content will be recipes, usually falling into one of three categories: 1) non-recipe: These are simple recipes that usually don't need any sort of measurements.
2) re-recipe: These are recipes I saw elsewhere. I will post a review of the recipe as well as the recipe itself. I will cite the original source so if you like the recipe you can find more like it.
3) me-recipe: These are my own creations.

I will also discuss related things such as specific foods/food products, kitchen equipment, etc. And, of course, there will be some digressions. Welcome again.

Hello world!

Ignore that title. That is something I learned in that intro programming class that I barely passed (thanks, tutor Kate!). (Apologies to Prof. S.)

The world is ending. I created a blog. I kind of hate them, but a wee bit of self-loathing never hurt anyone, did it?

Anyhow - why are we here? I have little special to say. But I read a lot of other people's food blogs, and some of them are great, and some aren't. I figure I can make this a pretty mediocre effort and still someone might like it.

Who cares kitchen?
1) That is my general thought about blogs. Who cares? I'm not interested in what you think the sexiest bath product is or why you're too cool to own a television or...whatever.
2) I don't expect any of you to think that I have anything amazing to say. I expect a lot of you to read my posts and think "who cares?" (And by "a lot" I mean the three people I'll probably share this with.)
3) I plan to post a lot about my kitchen experiments. For a lot of you, food is irrelevant. So you'd also probably think "who cares?" when reading this.
4) They will indeed be kitchen experiments, because I'm no pro. And for that reason, a lot of you will wonder who cares about what a kitchen novice has to say. There will be some recipes. There will be a lot of non-recipes. There will be randomness about which many of you will not give a crap.
5) But hopefully at least one or two of you will care. And for that reason, I titled this "who cares" instead of "nobody cares kitchen."
6) I'm not a writer. The prose here will not be good. So if you're looking for a beautifully written blog - surf on.
7) There are a few things I do care a great deal about. They will make appearances here from time to time. Who cares? Well, I do.