Yogurt Recipe and Smoothies

I was asked by a couple of you about my homemade yogurt and smoothies. I got my homemade yogurt recipe from Candy at Welcome To Keeping The Home. This is the recipe How to Make Yogurt

Making yogurt is easy - especially if you do it in a slow cooker, or crock pot, as shown below...

NOTE: Start the below process in the evening, before you make dinner. This way, your yogurt will be ready the next morning, when you wake up.

INGREDIENTS:

-1/2 cup of store bought, natural, active/live culture, full fat (not low fat or fat free) plain yogurt. (This will be your starter. After your first batch of yogurt, you can use 1/2 cup of some of your homemade yogurt as a starter instead.)

-8 cups of whole milk. Pasteurized and Homogenized is fine, but do not use ultra-pasteurized.

HOW TO MAKE IT

1. Pour the milk into a crock pot, and turn the crock pot on low. Leave it alone for 2.5 hours, cooking on low.

2. Turn the crock pot off, leave the cover on, and let the milk sit for 3 hours.

3. Mix the yogurt starter into the milk.

4. Put the lid on the crock pot, and then fold and put a heavy bath towel over the crock pot to insulate in the leftover heat (leave the crock pot turned off), and go to bed.

6. The next morning, you'll have yogurt waiting for you in your crock pot. :-) Home made yogurt is thinner than store-bought.

7. Pour the yogurt into a container, cover it, and put it into the fridge. Let the yogurt fully cool down to the fridge temp.

8. Then, if you'd like to add fruit to your yogurt, put a few cups of chopped fruit (of your choice) into a blender, and blend. Then mix the blended fruit into the yogurt and return it to the fridge to cool back down to fridge temp.

If you'd like a thicker yogurt, then strain the yogurt through a double layer of cheese cloth, letting the yellow whey liquid drip through the cloth, and into a bowl. Do this for an hour or two, and you'll have a thicker yogurt. Straining the yogurt makes Greek Yogurt.

As far as the smoothies are concerned I mix what sounds yummy and healthy. I use yogurt and fruit. Adding honey or Stevia for more sweetness along with wheat germ too. One of my favorites is the orange juice with banana! I have a list of 165 smoothie recipes I got from a group I belong to. On the green smoothies I am still experimenting with them. I try different ones from the Green Smoothy Challenge . There are some good ones that I have tried and liked. But it is more to a persons taste of if they like the taste of one vegetable over the other. Hope this helps out. Hugs, Bobbi Jo