Hi everyone! I have been on a healthy eating kick since the new year. I have been dealing with some digestive issues half of my life (I’ll tell you about it sometime), and I decided to give the Specific Carbohydrate Diet/ food plan a go. I’m happy to report that it seems to be helping/working. SCD eating requires some planning and knowledge, and I have gotten a great amount of help from this book. One of the things the book recommends is to eat homemade yogurt which contains more probiotics than you can get in a pill. So, I have started to make my own yogurt. I have talked so much about it that Mom has gotten in on the action, too. We both bought one of these, which is a surprisingly great buy. (They paid for themselves in less than a month.) We each also bought an extra set of jars. We think it’s very French to have our yogurt in a jar rather than a plastic container. Plus, those jars are reusable again and again.
Making yogurt might sound like a tough undertaking, but we were surprised at how easy it is. We have been making unflavored/unsweetened yogurt, and then we add fruit, honey, and sometimes nuts when we are ready to eat it. If you are used to eating the sweetened/pudding style yogurt, this might take a little getting used to. It is a little tangy, but I now crave the taste. This yogurt is close to the consistency of Greek yogurt but not as thick. It really does taste like the yogurt we eat in France. Nothing like having an international experience in your own homes now and then!
HOMEMADE YOGURT
Source – Euro Cuisine instruction booklet,( this is the recipe mom uses.) Since I am following the SCD plan, mine takes a little longer to make. Since she is happy with hers, we figured we would share the easier recipe of the two.
Pour 42 ounces of pasteurized milk (we use whole milk) into a saucepan.
Heat the milk to 180 degrees or till it bubbles on the side of the pan. (this can help)
Remove the saucepan from the heat, and let the milk cool to 95 degrees.
Stir in 6 ounces of plain full fat yogurt (Mom uses Dannon) or a yogurt starter (I use this.) You need to do this to introduce the yogurt culture. Once you have made your first batch of yogurt, then you can stir in one jar of it into the cooled milk the next time you make it.
Mix the milk and yogurt well with a whisk.
Pour into the glass jars, and place them without their lids into the yogurt maker.
Cover with the clear, plastic dome. It will take 8 to 12 hours for the milk to become yogurt. I do everything at night, and let it process in the yogurt maker overnight. Once you make this, you will wonder why you haven’t done it before. You can place in the refrigerator to chill or thicken a little more.
Our family drinks/eats a lot of smoothies. Go here, here, and here for some smoothie recipes we have shared in the past. This would be the perfect yogurt to add to them.
We have put together some great finds for tomorrow, so we will see you here for our Seasons’ Saturday Selections.
Cheers!
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