Meal Ideas: Homemade Yogurt

Would you believe me if I told you that you can make yogurt at home, in a crock pot? It's true, and I do it all the time; saving a bunch of money. It's not a labour-intensive project, but does take the better part of a day. The recipe is from the website A Year of Slow Cooking, but I've slightly tweaked the method (I find my version comes out a bit thicker than if I use hers). By the way, that website has a ton of gluten free recipes on it as well.

What you need:
*8 C of whole milk (88g cho)
*1/2 C of store-bought natural, live/active culture plain yogurt. This is your starter yogurt. Once you have made your own, you can use that as a starter. (8g cho)

To Make:
*Using at least a 4-quart crock pot, set on low and add milk. Cover, and let it sit for at least 3 hours. I'm sort of lazy on the timing thing and last time I made this I think I left it for about 3 1/2 hours. It still came out fine.
*After 3 hours have passed, turn off crock pot and let sit for 3 more hours (again, I've let it sit a bit longer, maybe by 30 minutes).
*After the next three hours are done, open up your crock pot, scoop out 2 cups of milk and put into a bowl. Add the 1/2 C of plain yogurt and whisk together. Add the mixture back into the crock pot and stir.
*Cover and wrap the crock pot in a thick towel. Let sit for at least 8 hours (when I make this recipe, I usually start at about 3:00 pm. That way I'm wrapping the crock pot to let it sit for the 8 hours right before I go to bed).
*At the end of the 8 hours you will have a HUGE batch of plain yogurt! YUM!

Why It's a Great Meal:
I'm still selling Elise on the plain yogurt, but she's getting there. I suppose she's just been too spoiled eating Yobaby all this time. What I love about this is I can use it for all sorts of other recipes and it is so much cheaper than store bought plain yogurt. Today I simmered some strawberries and banana together, then blended them with the yogurt to make some yogurt pops for Elise to enjoy this afternoon.

I'm also hoping to add granola to Elise's repertoire when she finally gets more of her teeth in, and I think the yogurt would be great over fruit, with some granola sprinkled on top.

The plain yogurt has a very low carb factor, usually coming out to .05, and keeps for about 7-10 days.

***edited to add: It took some convincing, but Elise came around and really likes the yogurt pops I made for her. There's no added sugar, so they are a bit on the sour side. I bet I could get away with adding a tiny amount of sugar, but I'd rather Elise get used to the no sugar added variety.