Homemade Yogurt!

As I stated in my previous post, we decided to try to make some yogurt. We made it in the crockpot and it was super easy. I had read some comments on another blog about the house being cold affecting the yogurt process, so I wrapped up the crockpot with the towel and put it in the oven overnight. The oven was still slightly warm when I did this from when we used it earlier. It worked great and this morning, we had yogurt! I didn't measure it, but it was pretty much at the same level in the pot as it was when I poured the half a gallon of milk in. So, pretty much, we got a half a gallon of yogurt. Since the milk was $1.58 a gallon and we used half a gallon, it cost $.79 for that ingredient. I used almost one whole yogurt I bought at the store for $.40 as the starter. So the total cost for a half a gallon of yogurt was $1.19. There are 64 ounces in a half a gallon. The yogurt cups I bought yetserday for $.40 a piece were 6 oz. At that rate 64 oz would be about $4.27.

Of course, my kids usually eat yogurt like trix yogurt, so they didn't want the plain yogurt. They had some fun today experimenting with the flavorings. First they made vanilla with some vanilla flavoring and honey.



Then they added some strawberries and some of the strawberry juice for strawberry yogurt.



Then they decided to try koolaid as a flavoring. This one is strawberry koolaid sweetened with some powdered sugar.



And then of course, one of the kids who had the vanilla yogurt decided she wanted koolaid in hers too-so they gave her some orange koolaid to mix in. According to the reports, this one tasted like a dreamsicle!




So, while koolaid may not be that healthy, my kids are definitley eating their yogurt and enjoying it! What a fun afternoon! We'll definitely be doing this one again and maybe often.