Easy Homemade Yogurt

This yogurt is SERIOUSLY easy to make and oh so yummy.  Let's get to it!

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon whole organic milk

1/2 cup plain organic yogurt  (store bought for the first batch, after that, just reserve a half cup of homemade yogurt)

Pour your half gallon of milk into the crockpot and set on low for two and a half hours.

At the end of two and a half hours, turn the crock pot off and let it sit for 3 hours to cool down a little bit.  Then add your half cup of plain yogurt.  

Once you have the yogurt mixed in, put the lid back on and wrap the crockpot in a towel or two to hold in some heat. 

Let it sit for 8-12 hours and you will have yourself some plain yogurt.

I keep mine in mason jars in the fridge.  

It's not as thick as store bought yogurt, so if you want it that consistency just strain it through some cheesecloth.  Go ahead and add all the yummy things you can think of!  Fruit, granola, make some smoothies (our favorite!), go crazy!  

The chickens love it too!  It's a good little probiotic boost for them.  :)  

Photo Update

All of our chickens started laying.  We get an absurd amount of eggs every week. Around three dozen. I LOVE it!

Working out in the yard, I found this lovely thing.  We had one last year and discovered it's an Orb Weaver spider.  Apparently helpful in gardens, so I let it live.  But man oh man, I did not want to!  It's eating a yellow jacket, if that helps you understand the size of that thing!

Rose came home!  We adore her and her endless amounts of energy!  She has already started helping me round up the chickens.  Smart girl!

I've been having SO MUCH fun learning to make different things from scratch!  This is ricotta (in the bowl) and plain yogurt (in the jar).  SO much better than store bought and way easier than I thought it would be!  Never again will I be buying those!  I'm hoping to find a cow share so I can get raw milk but for now, it's just from store bought organic.  I can only imagine how much better it will taste when it's made from raw milk!

Fall seems to be here to stay and I could not be more excited about it!  My garden is all set to plant garlic.  I added LOTS of aged manure and am hoping to get the cloves in the ground by Monday.  It's my first time growing garlic and I've been trying really hard to amend the soil where they will be.  Hoping for a good crop next season!

Now you are all up to date!  :)