Who knew Greek yogurt was this easy, or making it rain with my savings.

In the words of the incomparable Fat Joe: "got a handful of stacks better grab an umbrella." That is how I feel about discovering how to make Greek yogurt! No more bankrupting myself over a pint of Chobani, or haunting the markdown section at Kroger looking for some Noosa. It is really so, so easy. It does take the better part of two days, but you will have a week's worth of yogurt to show for it.

Ingredients

1 gallon of milk, any kind (though goat milk tends to be runnier)
2 tsp starter yogurt (with lactobacillus bulgaricus and streptococcus thermophilus, check your label!)

Equipment

crockpot
thermometer
measuring cup
measuring spoons
bath towel
small cereal bowl
optional large catch bowl
optional clothespins
optional colander
optional muslin, cheesecloth, or kitchen towel

Start by putting a gallon of milk into your crockpot, put the lid on, and turn the temperature on high. Go and watch a couple episodes of Extreme Cheapskates (oh.my.god.) and come back when the temperature reaches 180-190 degrees. If there is a little skin on the milk, just peel it off with a fork. Turn off the heat and let the temperature come back down to 110 degrees. This is the perfect temperature to allow the bacteria to flourish and create the yogurt. Usually it takes two hours or so to come back down to temp.

When the temperature reaches 110, take out one cup of the heated milk and put it in a small bowl. Add two tablespoons of yogurt. I used two tablespoons of yogurt out of the penguin's moo-tube the first time I made this. Whisk the yogurt and the milk together very well, and then add the cup of milk back. Take your whisk and do side to side rather than circular stirs so the milk doesn't get too disturbed.

Put the lid back on the crock and move it to the oven. Wrap the crock in a bath towel and turn on the oven light, and let that baby cook overnight for 10-12 hours.

Pull the crock out of the oven the next day, and revel in your yogurt! You can stop at this point, and eat the yogurt as is. There should be a layer of liquid whey on top, which you can keep if you prefer runnier yogurt. But if you are like me and prefer a thicker yogurt, you have just one more step.

I put a muslin cloth over a colander and fastened it with clothespins, and put the colander over a catch bowl. Carefully pour the yogurt over the muslin and watch the whey drain off. I personally like to let it drain for two hours for max thickness.

Something like that.

After the whey drains, scoop the yogurt out of the bowl with a spoon and put it in a container for the refrigerator.

I like to add a little bit of honey and some preserves to the yogurt to flavor and sweeten it up some. Today I got a little fancy and added some diced strawberries. The yogurt should keep for 10-12 days in your refrigerator, but it usually gets wolfed down in three days at our house.

Boom.

(Note: Don't throw away the whey you drain off the yogurt! There are a lot of uses for it. Make some ricotta cheese, water it down and feed your plants with it, put it in a smoothie for some high protein power, and several etc. other uses for this super liquid!)

Salt Dough Holiday Decorations

I've been feeling particularly festive this holiday season. Christmas isn't usually my thing: stressing out in the kitchen preparing a fete of dishes and entertainments is enough to send me crawling under my covers with a bottle of wine. I enjoy cooking but I am still (awkwardly) working on the art of entertaining. Wrapping christmas presents used to be enough for me to consider institutionalizing myself. If the corners weren't straight and my lines weren't perfect I would mope and watch a marathon of depressing holiday movies. Too bad my mother and grandmother set the bar for aesthetics so high. Now that the penguin is on the brink of turning three, though, I have been finding myself participating more in the holiday. Nothing like a toddler to light the fire under my holiday ass.

Today I am making salt dough ornaments, because I am stuck at the house in the middle of a December monsoon with my two and a half kids. Babysitting was actually pleasant for ten entire minutes, which makes this cheap and fun art project altogether worth it.

Salt Dough Handprints

Ingredients:

1 cup table salt

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup warm water

optional three or four drops food coloring

optional acrylic paint

optional ribbon, twine, or raffia

Here's how easy this is: throw the flour and salt in a bowl, and slowly add water with the food coloring mixed in until the flour and salt mixture makes a dough. If the dough is too sticky and sticks to your hands or the counter, add a little more flour. I kneaded the ball of dough on the counter until the color was thoroughly mixed in and the consistency was like gritty play-doh. Separate the dough into three or four balls. Roll them out flat with a rolling pin or cup or whatever it is you have: I used a can of peaches. Use what you've got.

And then the fun part for the kids. They went back to their shenanigans pretty pleased with themselves that they made their handprints by themselves. The teeny-tiny was less than impressed, so I just used her foot instead. Then I took a drinking straw and made a hole in the top of the handprints so they could be hung.

I put the handprints on a cookie sheet with some wax paper underneath and put them in the oven set to 200 degrees. I expect to pull them out in two hours or so. Maybe I'll get fancy and paint some gold stars on them with acrylic. I've heard that you could use finger paint if you aren't feeling quite so daring, but I imagine this would soften the dough at the worst and flake off at best. Use your own judgment.

Here they are in the oven. Fancy, eh? Now to go see what they have destroyed in my 15 minute absence.