homemade yogurt

I recently got married and was in the process of moving in to my husband's apartment. The move took a really long time, and by the end of it all, we were faced with a bit of a situation. We had wayyy too much food! I would especially like to highlight one item here...we had two full gallons of milk, which were slowly creeping past their expiry dates. In efforts to save this milk somehow, I thought of the many things I could do with it, and here's one successful attempt :) It worked so well I have already tried it 3-4 times.

Ingredients

• Milk - 4 cups
• Starter yogurt - 4 tbsps
• Food thermometer (optional)

Steps

1. Heat up the milk to about 185F. If you don't have a food thermometer, bring the milk to a rolling boil.
2. Cool down the milk to about 110F and mix in the starter yogurt. If you don't have a thermometer, it should be lukewarm to touch.
3. Set the container down in a warm place (a turned off oven or microwave) for at least 8 hours (or overnight). I also tried warming the oven to 100F and let it go and the yogurt was ready in about 8 hours!

Remember that the live cultures in the yogurt have to grow and really hot milk will basically kill of any bacteria (good or bad) in the milk and yogurt. Milk that's cooled down too much won't provide a conducive environment for the bacteria to grow and for your yogurt to set up. Also, when your yogurt turns sour, all it means is that there are more active cultures in the yogurt, i.e. your yogurt is more fermented!

I can't stand sour yogurt so I turn it into another dish called kadhi. Recipe for that coming up soon!