Homemade Yogurt

Homemade Yogurt with Granola and Bananas





I’d been wanting to make homemade yogurt for years.  After MUCH trial and error I finally figured it out (thanks to the One Good Thing by Jillee blog).  I took Jillee’s recipe plus comments posted under the recipe and I had the perfect recipe for me.  The only problem is that the end product was too sweet for me and there was too much of it. 

I needed a small batch of unsweetened yogurt.  Now I have it:

Homemade plain yogurt (Small Batch)

For this recipe you will need:

2 cups of non fat milk

½ cup powdered milk

2 tablespoons of yogurt with live and active yogurt cultures

Food thermometer

Microwave

1 clean, dry bath towel

Mix milk and powdered milk in a pan.   Heat to 180 degrees.  Remove milk from heat and allow it to cool to 110 degrees.  Whisk in yogurt.  Pour mixture into a container (I use a Ball canning jar).  Heat a cup of water in the microwave for 2 minutes.  This step is to raise the temperature inside the microwave.  Wrap the milk jar in a towel and place it in the warm microwave.  Close the microwave door and leave it closed over night (or approx. 12 hours).  

Add powdered milk to milk

Use plain yogurt with Live and Active yogurt cultures







Heat water in the microwave to warm the oven

Wrap warm milk in a towel





Place towel wrapped yogurt inside the microwave

Make sure the microwave stays closed overnight

In the morning, your yogurt is all done

YUM!

Banana’s Foster

1 medium ripe (not over ripe) banana – sliced

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 Tablespoon milk or soy milk

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

Cinnamon

Heat bananas and butter over medium heat until butter is melted.  Make sure that all bananas are coated with butter.  Sprinkle brown sugar on top of bananas.  Stir until the sugar is melted.  Add milk and remove from heat.  Stir in vanilla and salt.  Garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Homemade Granola

There is ALWAYS granola in my house.  For this recipe I simply garnished with a handful of my standard peanut butter granola.  Here's the recipe.

Homemade Peanut Butter Granola

2 Tablespoons butter or margarine

1/3 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup honey or brown sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

1½ cups rolled oats

Pinch of ginger (optional)

Pinch of allspice (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a saucepan or skillet melt butter, peanut butter and sugar.  Remove from heat.  Stir in cinnamon, salt, ginger, allspice and vanilla.  Stir in oats.  Make sure the oats are fully coated with the peanut butter mixture.

Spread oat and peanut butter mixture on a cookie sheet.  Bake until the edges are brown (about 20 minutes).  Remove from the oven and cool.

Break cooled granola into pieces.  Store in an air tight container.