Mission: Yogurt.

I've mentioned before that I make my own chicken stock and laundry detergent. We often hang dry our clothes to avoid using the dryer. I wish we had little plot where we could start a garden, but I think I'm going to try to at least grow some spinach in a container on our balcony. I once seriously considered getting a tiny hand-cranked device that would operate as a washing machine for very small loads of laundry; I found it in a catalog for a hardware store up north that caters heavily to the Amish community. (Yes, I know about such things as hardware stores up north that cater heavily to the Amish community.) As lazy as I am, it seems I also desire to be a prairie woman of sorts. A lazy prairie woman. I mean, I don't want to plow fields or break out the old washboard and lye soap. 

In my quest for semi-prairie-womanhood, I'm about to take it to a whole new Boring level.

I'm gonna make my own yogurt, y'all.

At least, I'm going to try. This could be a epic win for the Sheffield household, or an epic disaster. Alternatively, it may be just a minor success or a slight failure. The outcome doesn't have to be epic. That's just unnecessary hyperbole. My apologies.

Why am I going to attempt this? There are several reasons. We like yogurt. It is good for us. It would be cheaper to make our own than to purchase it. I could completely control the quality of the ingredients used (to the extent that I buy the best ingredients--namely, milk--that I can). But the main reason is: I just wanna try it.

A passage of the book French Women Don't Get Fat, which I've already chewed your ear (singed your eyeball?) about, is devoted to yogurt. The author thinks it's her secret weapon for maintaining her "equilibrium"--a steady weight. She mentions that she has a yogurt maker and makes her own, but also mentions a time she spent in Greece where a local told her how they do it over there, which she spells out for the reader.

"Say whhhaaaaa... make your own yogurt? Do people really do this?!"

There are some things that we are so accustomed to buying pre-made that we can't even conceive that they ever used to be made in the homes of people who consumed them. Yogurt is definitely one of those things that I'd never given half a thought to how its made. My experience was that it was "made" by exchanging money for your favorite variety at Publix, then tearing off a foil seal. Delicious, and so easy, too!

After reading that snippet in the book, I scoured the Intertubes and found a number of resources for how to make your own.

Some of them seem to be a little too complicated in creating the appropriate environment to incubate your cooked milk so that it becomes yogurt, so I'm going with the one I deem will be easiest, which is the recipe given in French Women Don't Get Fat.

I'd love some feedback. Whether it turns into a raging success or sad failure, would you like to know about it? The recipe, how it turned out, whether I'll ever waste my time with it again? And have any of you ever tried it? Let me know!

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