Ben goes through yogurt like crazy! It was getting so expensive at $4 a quart, especially because the only whole milk yogurt I could find was the organic version. I don’t really care about buying organic, but it certainly was getting pricey. I came across a few sites that said you could make your own yogurt in the slowcooker. Weird, but I thought I’d give it a try. One failed miserably and another I tweaked a few times so that it works for us.

Slowcooker Yogurt (makes 2 quarts)
1/2 gallon whole milk
1/2 cup plain, or vanilla, store-bought yogurt (with live cultures) OR 1/2 cup yogurt saved from your last batch of Slow-Cooker Yogurt
2/3 cup powdered milk
1 tbsp unflavored gelatin (or 1 packet)
2 tbsp vanilla (optional)

1. Turn your slow cooker on Low, plug it in, and add a half gallon of milk. Whisk in the powdered milk. Cover and allow milk to heat for 2½ hours.

2. When the time is up, turn off the slowcooker. Keep your cooker covered.

3. Meanwhile, soften the optional gelatin in 1/4 cup cool water and then transfer it to a double boiler.

4. Heat in the double boiler until the gelatin granules are dissolved, stirring continually.

5. Stir and heat just until warm, being careful not to overheat the gelatin, since overheating gelatin reduces its gelling properties.

6. Whisk this gelatin mixture into milk in the cooker.

7. Cover and then let it sit for 3 hours. (Remember, slow cooker is off)

8. When the 3 hours are up, whisk the ½ cup of live-culture yogurt into the crockpot of milk.

9. Cover. Wrap a large towel around the cooker to keep the warmth in.

10. Let the mixture sit for 8 hours or overnight.

11. If you wish, whisk the vanilla into the remaining yogurt.

12. Refrigerate your yogurt in canning jars or other containers.

Recipe adapted from here

Notes
Steps 9-12 are from original recipe. You can do it this way, or after I mix in the yogurt…I pour everything into two quart glass canning jars. I stick these in a little travel cooler we have, fill it with hot water and let that all sit for 8 hours. This seems to work better than just covering the crockpot in a towel.

I haven’t tried it with skim or 1% milk for myself, so I’m not sure if that turns out well.

Sometimes I add the vanilla (because lets face it, plain yogurt really isn’t that good). Other times I just mix some fruit in.

Yogurt tastes best if it’s been in the fridge for 24 hours.

All of this seems like a lot, but it gets pretty easy once you do it a few times.

Or “Bahr” as Ben says. Little boy loves his bear…throwing him, snuggling with him and chewing on him. Andy calls him Slime Bear, as he’s often covered in Ben slobber. Bear even came with us to Wegmans today and rode the conveyor belt with the groceries. Ben’s idea, not mine :)

Ben had minor surgery today. He had a cyst under his eyebrow that we’d been watching for 6+ months. It slowly kept getting bigger so we decided it was just time to get it removed. He saw the pediatric plastic surgeon this morning and was well taken care of by the staff of a local surgery center.

He was really good while we waited for the doctor, only getting ornery towards the end. He was mostly interested in the hospital bracelet around his ankle. Bear and blankie helped get him through too.

Afterwards, he was very much out of it and pretty grumpy (I would be too!)

He ate some animal crackers and milk and that made things a little better (he had to miss breakfast so he was pretty hungry). He got 5 stitches that will dissolve over time and there will be the tiniest little scar in the crease of his eyelid. The black scribble on his forehead is just marker indicating which eyelid had the little lump.

We just took it easy today, watched a little Sesame and snuggled. Although he didn’t “nap all day” like they told me he would ;-) He was just grumpy and kind of out of it, but started to act more like himself after dinner. We have a follow up in two weeks to check things over and find out what the little lumpy actually was. His pediatrician along with the dermatologist we saw along the way and the plastic surgeon all think it’s just a clump of dead skin cells and gunk that started collecting after he bonked himself there. So I’m not too worried about it and very thankful for the skilled, compassionate staff who helped us today.