the yogurt debacle...

well, it's really not so much a debacle as a lesson learned on my part. the problem arose when i shuffled out into the kitchen a few mornings ago, peered into the crockpot, saw that my milk had transformed itself into actual yogurt and got all excited. i dug up a spoon, took a bite. good, plain yogurt. amazing. i feel like supermommy, goddess of the kitchen, having mastered yet another useful, out-of-the-ordinary cooking skill. i will never buy yogurt again. i rock.

and then i offer lucy a bite. she takes a spoonful with gusto--after all, she's a true yogurt aficionado. she makes a slight face. she coughs. she gags. she she spits on the floor. "that not good, mommy. that very yucky." she then proceeds to fetch herself a cloth napkin and--i kid you not--wipe off her tongue. looks directly at me. "your yogurt no good." and goes off to dump puzzle pieces all over my living room floor.

seriously.

i'm now toying with lots of different flavorings to make the yogurt more toddler-friendly. i don't want to add lots of sugar--it defeats part of the purpose of making it myself. so far we've tried honey (no dice), brown sugar with a dash of vanilla (she ate a couple bites before throwing in the towel), and mashed strawberries with a sprinkling of sugar (half a bowl eaten). the problem (or should i say, funny thing) about lucy is that she's not one to forgive and forget. homemade yogurt is now an absolute no way, mom in her book. which means i'm serving her yogurt out of an old (well-washed) yogurt container i fished out of the recycling. trickery at its finest--she won't touch the stuff from my bowl, but at least she's giving each new concoction a whirl. gotcha, lucy.

all in all, i felt that the crockpot method for making homemade yogurt was great. super-simple (it honestly can't get any easier--watching the clock for a couple of hours was the hardest part). the recipe made a ton--next time i will half it, as lucy is the only die-hard yogurt fan in the house and she only eats 4-6 ounces per day. i love the fact that the packaging for making a half-gallon's worth of yogurt consisted of a glass milk bottle and a ceramic yogurt container--both returnable for reuse. the only actual trash generated was the plastic top on the milk bottle. my total cost was $7--$4 for a half-gallon of local organic milk and $3 for the local, organic yogurt i used for starter. next time i won't need starter, so total cost will be reduced accordingly.

i found the yogurt a bit thin for my taste, so i strained some of the water out using a coffee filter. a messy procedure, but i did like the resulting product a bit more--did i mention i'm not really a yogurt girl? we've got a ton of lemons around the house, so tomorrow i'll try flavoring some with a bit of fresh-squeezed juice and some zest. lucy might not approve, but it sounds good to me.