Yogurt and Yogurt Cheese

Yogurt is about the easiest thing you can make, you can even make it with store bought milk because you have to pasteurize your milk anyways.  We love yogurt so I make allot of it.  All you need is some plain good quality yogurt from the store to start your culture.

First heat the milk to pasteurize it

Then after it cools add the store bought yogurt and put it somewhere warm to "incubate"

I put mine in the crock pot on the "warm" setting.  This keeps it at the perfect incubating temperature.

After about 12 hours I have a thick yogurt and put it in the fridge to cool.

Yogurt cheese is just yogurt put into cheesecloth in a strainer over a bowl until most of the whey (liquid yellow stuff) drains out.  If left long enough its consistency is like cream cheese, if left for a shorter time its like sour cream and taste like it too.  You can use it in place of sour cream in recipes with no taste difference.  My sister said it is delicious (she's has very high standards on food) and compared it to her new favorite food Greek Yogurt.

Quick Update

I have been very very sick these past three days with the flu.  Fun fact.  You still have to get out there and milk the cow when you are sick.  Buttercup won't let Husband or Eldest Daughter milk her.  This is probably due to the fact that I've been the only one milking her so far.  One very experienced dairy man said "You can make a cow do whatever you want, as long as you do it over and over again."

Cows are creatures of habit.  They don't like change, so they sometimes will resist a new person milking them.  So I have to go sit in a drafty cold barn and milk that cow!  This is one of the drawbacks of animals.  No matter how you feel you still have to take care of them.  You should certainly take this into account before you get milk animals because so much depends on their milking schedule.  You cant delay by hours if you have been sick all night.  Oh well, at least we are getting milk we can use now.  And really she's a great cow.  She holds still and lets me milk her and my hands didn't hurt at all today.  But then again that might be the codeine cough syrup the doctor prescribed me helping ;)  I'll try to post some more but I've been so sick I can barely read.

This mornings milk.  About 1 1/2 gallon

Here are some of our eggs from the chickens.  They are laying about 6-8 per day now.