WalnutCreek, those are perfect! Thanks for the link : ) Almost at 6 oz. and I can stack them one on top of the other in the fridge too (won't do that with glass jars, too worried they'd fall, break). Really? 4 weeks? I've been trying to make it fresh every week because I wasn't sure! I could make far more and it'd last longer. Huge thank you for that answer!

colleenoz, well, what can I say, only the best here. I mean, price is no object. :-D

Well, the $200.00 yogurt probably has gold in it...for the "rich and famous", you know!

I am paranoid about bad bacteria. I read a lot of articles about how long it keeps. Most said a week to 10 days, but I play it safe. I have yet to trust myself with sour dough bread starter! But, I think I have yogurt figured out.

You can also sterilize everything in your Instant Pot unless the plastic products melt. Set I.P. for 1 minute. I really thought the dishwasher would work, but maybe some detergent was left on. Who knows!

My husband loves honey AND fruit in his. I believe he uses a lot of honey though. Sort of defeats the purpose of less calories! My yogurt is not very sour since it does not take 8 hours. I already had the proofer, and it keeps the yogurt at exactly the right temperature even when it is winter.

Peke, my husband has a very strong sweet tooth, and apparently there's a less well-known carbohydrate tooth, because he's got one or two of those, as well. The man eats anything I cook so I am grateful, and he'll eat every vegetable, but give him a carb-less meal, and he notices. If asked, he'd like to have fried potatoes, beans, and cornbread. For dinner. And lunch. And most like breakfast. That's why I'm shocked he asks for a small cup (6 oz) of yogurt smoothie. See, I knew there was a way to sterilize in the IP. I didn't write that down, though.

Ya know, if there were $200 yogurt, I bet someone, somewhere, would buy it ; )

Hmmm, I wonder if our husbands are clones. Except mine would also want fried fish and fried okra with the beans, fried potatoes, and cornbread....that or a footlong chili cheese coney with onion rings would be my husband's idea of a favorite meal. I can't get him to understand that he can't eat that way any longer. He can have pizza if it is thin crust, but he wants deep pan. Definitely a "carb" gene. He is Italian, after all. Moderation does not work for him. If cookies or chips are in the house, he has to eat them. A bowl of chips while watching TV instead of a sandwich with a small amount of chips.

Hey, Pillog! How is your Breville food processor doing? Did you ever figure out how to get parmesan grated finely enough?

Peke, aside from the part about being Italian, I think we are married to the same man. Loves fried fish, and fried okra? He eats it like popcorn. It's the chips comment that has me convinced we are both his wife (wives?). That's what he grabs instead of anything else. Fruit, even cheese in the fridge. Nope. I have him on chips restriction. Moderation... he has no clue what that is : )

Hmmm. If we are sharing one husband, you really should have kept him more in Jan and Feb when he was home after back surgery. I really needed a break! TV was on all day long. I needed silence! You get him for the next surgery! 😁

There used to be a $100 hamburger on a Hollywood environs restaurant menu, back in the days when $100 would buy dinner for four and then some. It was a $5 luxury hamburger and a $95 bottle of fine champaign. :) I've heard of other versions that have caviar on (terrible thing to do to both the caviar and the burger) or gold leaf (real waste of gold leaf, which just becomes gold poop). $200 yoghurt will be interpreted as a typo no matter how fancy the accompanying wine is. :)

Hey Peke! The Breville FP is still magnificent. The fine grater on parm is okay. It looks like the fine shreds you can buy, like on the small holes of a box grater, that looks like maggots (which I've only seen in illustrations, but eeew). I kept the old Cuisinart, with its rasp disc, up out of the way for when I really want it. For cooking the maggots will do. :) And for a condiment, I have my old box grater. But just in case....The Cuisinart still turns on, even though the button is broken. I keep checking to see if they come out with additional disks for the Breville, though the housings for all the attachments already take up a lot of room. :)

More on pricing: I think a lot depends on transportation. There used to be cows near the cities. There's "infill" now instead. Fluid milk gets transported by tanker to bottling plants. Thence, it goes in cartons/jugs or yoghurt containers to the stores/distributors. Transporting yoghurt is probably a lot cheaper per unit because there's so much less water. But if the dairy and plant are local to both the farms and the stores, that's going to be much less of a consideration. This interpretation, not fact.

Pillog, When I use my S blade, my Parmigiana-Reggiano gets ground fine. I did finely grate some the other day and yep, it looked like maggots! I keep both the ground and the grated in the freezer. I hate buying it pregrated with that powdery junk on it. Costs more if preheated, too.

You might try grating it then using the S blade.

Peeling cucumbers was a no go. They turned out all bruised looking. I still love my Breville, too. I love making pie crust with it. It still gets used 4 or 5 times a week. I don't use it to dice during the week since the dicers are a pain to clean, but I do use it to dice large amounts of vegies that I am freezing.

Between gold leaf poop and maggot-like parm, I can't stop laughing! You crack me up, plllog!

I wanted that breville, but don't have the room. Darn it.

Peke, that's him. Same guy. TV on constantly. He's got his own room to watch now, but still. Me, I like the quiet. And he's had back surgery, so this must be his 2nd with you? Strange. Very strange. :-)

Thank's, Peke. I'll try the blade. :)

The peeler is meant for harder things, and no more than 2-3 inches in any direction. I've used it on other kinds of roots and an apple. It works. They do get beat up, but I don't think they lose any more than by peeling. This is for cooking in volume, not for pretty salads. :) I've used the peeler the most for latkes. :) Lots and lots of them.

2Many, if I've made you laugh, my day is complete. ;)

2many, you KNOW I make yogurt, I've made it for years. I use my Excaliber food processor because I can take out all the trays and place quart canning jars in it, so I make it by the gallons, I have 3 quarts in my refrigerator right now:

Yeah, can you tell I was nearly out and made an "emergency" batch? That front jar is about a cup short, coincidentally that is exactly the amount I used in a batch of muffins.

I use the "recipe" I got years ago from Fias County Farms:

https://www.fiascofarm.com/dairy/yogurt.htm

I periodically buy a pint of non fat plain greek yogurt to "start" my batch with. I usually start my next batch with the last of the last batch, if that makes sense, but each batch gets more and more "sour", until it's just too much. It also gets a bit less thick after a while, so eventually I just start a new batch.

And I don't even like the nasty, slimy, sour stuff. I use it for baking instead of sour cream, but Elery loves it. I can gag it down if I mix in some granola and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup, but I still don't like it. The texture is just terrible for me.

Annie

I used to make yogurt regularly....so long ago that I used my daughter, who is now 60) baby bottle sterilizer to "cook" it. I used extra powdered skim milk both to make it thicker and to boost the protein content. Not sure why i stopped except that plain yogurt became easier to find in the store.

Well, Annie, no, I didn't know, but I guess I should have! You do, after all, make everything there is to make! I can't believe you, who has a farm, has to 'gag down' anything edible! Isn't there some kind of law that you are supposed to like anything that can be grown or made from scratch?! Your yogurt looks so good to me! But I do understand, it's just not for everyone.

lindac92, I also see that Annie's recipe says one can add powdered milk... I'm going to do that next batch. I bought some low fat powdered milk and won't use it for anything... but this : )

Powdered milk can be useful in baking. :)

2many, it's the texture, I definitely have a problem with texture. I finally learned to eat peanut butter, but I still cannot eat bananas, they are too mushy. I can't even put jello in my mouth without gagging, it just feels so.....icky. Yogurt is slimy, smoothies are just weird and somehow they are never actually smooth, canned pie filling is gelatinous. So, it's not just sour or sweet or whatever, it has nothing to do with flavor, it's all texture. So, if I can get past the texture, I can eat it, LOL.

Annie

@annie1992: I have two granddaughters who are just like that, too, with textures. When they were toddlers, they couldn't explain it to me, they would just start gagging. When they were older, they finally found the correct word to tell me what the problem was. So I understand, totally. For example, they love banana bread and banana cake, but just can't eat bananas though they tried many times to do so. Finally, they gave up on ever being able to eat bananas.

Ok, I'll quit raggin' on ya, Annie! Me? I have scent issues sometimes. But it's bad scents that make me wanna barf : )

Plllog, I've got a few recipes that call for just a tad of powdered milk, but not many. I was trying to find it prior to isolation, and the store had just this one, very lonely box of low-fat, sitting all by itself on the shelf. I took pity, brought it home ; )

I just saw this thread and laughed because I am making IP yogurt right this moment. I use a copycat Oui recipe that I love. I always buy a new jar of Oui for my starter (because I like it). I can't find Plain so I use Vanilla instead - you use such a miniscule amount (2 tsps) that you can't really taste the vanilla. I make it without sugar or other flavorings. I tried making yogurt with 2% milk and although it was okay, I went back to using whole milk (and I add 3/4 cup of half and half, just because it tastes good).

I sometimes make Greek yogurt but mostly for cooking reasons. For me, it's too thick and it coats my tongue in an unpleasant way.

I also am not a fan of using 2%. Just not rich enough for me! I do like the Greek I make but then, I can remove it from straining early so it's not as thick, too. I used some with horseradish for ham the other night, rather than my usual creme fraiche, and found I preferred it. Imagine that?!

Crème fraîche has its appeal and is useful at times, but it doesn't actually have flavor of its own (which is a good trait when you're making stuff out of it). I'm not surprised at all that you preferred your own good yoghurt for ham!

Well, I sure was! LOL! You know me, plllog, I like rich food at times, in moderation. But yeah, that shocked me. I thought the bit of tartness in the yogurt would take away from the horseradish, but instead it added to the condiment. I'll always love a dollop of creme fraiche in my scrambled eggs, though : )

To my palate crème fraîche has a wonderful flavor. I make it occasionally and love to have it with fresh fruit and a bit of brown sugar for a quick dessert.

I do also use it when I make beef stroganoff, in place of sour cream, as well as potato soup - it doesn't separate like sour cream will, especially when frozen and reheated. I add lime to it for fish tacos, as well.

2many, When you make the Greek yogurt, remember to keep the whey. It keeps for a long time in the fridge or you can use it when you make bread. I really like the taste of whey bread.

Thank you jerzeegirl... you know, I was going to save it to use in my next batch of bread, and not once, not twice, but three times I tossed it out (small bowl, had to remove the whey more than once). Duh! Does it keep up to 2 weeks? I've only made greek once. Next week I'll make it again.

I think the whey keeps for a couple of months in the refrigerator, but I never trust my memory. Plus, I can only keep so much whey.

Annie, I feel that way about tomatoes, tapioca, guacamole, couscous, and tabouli. Bananas are okay for about 2 days. Before or after the sweet spot on bananas, and I won't touch them.

2Many, put the whey in a jar with a lid and use a sharpie to label it "Whey for Bread". There are all kinds of things you can use whey for. It does keep, but give it a sniff.

Re crème fraîche, it does have the milky flavor, and if you're making your own, it might have a bit of fermentation flavor, but mostly the point of the "fresh" is that while it functions like sour cream for texture, it's not sour and it takes the flavor of what you combine it with rather than asserting its own. Fat carries flavor. So, it's great in eggs and stroganoff, where the unctuous creaminess is the point. In a condiment, it's fine, it carries the flavor, but it will spread the horseradish and dilute its flavor, which the added tang of yoghurt will add complexity and punch it up. Additionally, ham has the salty, and almost sweet hammy flavor (I'm not talking about glazed or sweetened, just kind of sweet as opposed to roast beef's savoriness). The tang of the yoghurt will make a nice contrast, activating other parts or your tongue.

There are a lot of things that "diet" people use yoghurt for instead of some kind of cream, where it curdles, or slithers or otherwise is just all wrong. But sometimes it's just fab. :)

2Many, I'll one up you on the eggs. If I"m going rich (I do know how to resist!), I'm going right to the cultured butter. :)

It definitely keeps more than two weeks but if you don't know when you are going to use it, you can freeze it. I freeze it in plastic bags.

Good to know it keeps a while. Plllog, you're right about the flavors. Walnutcreek, it was far better with homemade yogurt.

Oh, kill me know. LOL! I was drooling over `good` butter on a website yesterday, and told myself to hold off. I don't need to hear this plllog! Ha!

Walnutcreek, my granddaughter, The Princess, LOVES yogurt, but of course she loves the sweetened fruity kind, not my homemade version. The texture does the same to her, though, so she takes a bite, retches a little, swallows, takes another bite. Her mother cannot watch her eat it, LOL. She won't eat mashed potatoes either, and she's 16! And now The Princess In Training also has some "texture issues". Her doctor called it a "sensory processing disorder", and her Mother had to tell him that there were a whole bunch of us with that, we never knew it had a name other than "picky", LOL. And Madi is like her mother in that she has to have all the tags cut out of her shirt, she can't stand that on the back of her neck. More sensory processing...

Now, I can eat part of a banana, if it's really firm and I slice it really thinly and cover it with Hershey's syrup. There's a Cordon Rose Banana Cake from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible, though, and it's amazing.

Annie

Oh, man! Those tags!!! They poke and scratch and are miserable, though most of my current clothes have softer ones and I don't have to resew the edging (my father used to cut them close to the stitching and that scratched worse!). I don't have food texture issues (dislikes, sure, but not issues), but I can't sleep if there's a little lump or wrinkle in my bed. My mother used to lament the Princess and the Pea, but those were made up in the story. Real in my bed!

The hereditary yoghurt/banana texture abhorrence is fascinating!! I had no idea it ran in families! Especially interesting that the princess likes yoghurt and still has to gag it down. :) Annie, you have the most interesting family!

Love knowing the texture issue has a name, too, Annie. Have to let my granddaughters know the medical term; they will love it. Makes me think of extra sensory perception (ESP).

It just goes to show that those of us with texture issues, have never really gone hungry. I bet we would ignore the textures if we were starving. It is a good thing I did not live during the middle ages!

I make it every week. A half gallon to a gallon, depending on the menu for the week. I use whole milk, and add powdered non fat milk for extra creaminess. I use the whole milk yogurt from the Indian market as the starter, but it’s much more liquid in consistency. But I make lots of Indian food that’s suited to that type. Nothing beats homemade lassi! And yogurt is a classic marinade.

—Linda

—-——

Cook's Kitchen, good to see you here (I started GW in the kitchen forum when we started remodeling)! So all this time I've been making Lassi! We've been drinking a lot of mango and peach. Yes, the homemade is not as thick. By the way, it's pronounced luhssi, not Lassi, like the dog, correct?

I've never added cardemon, but will next time. I do like cardemon on fruits and carrots.

I usually make a gallon of yogurt at a time by filling quart canning jars with milk and heating them (no lid) in a large (8 qt) pot of water on the stovetop (clean washcloth inside bottom of pot before adding jars). When milk temp is 185, remove to cool on rack/counter. When milk temp is somewhere between 100 - 115 mix 2 tablespoons of room temperature plain yogurt with some of the cooled milk and stir back into jar and cap with plastic lid (I do this step separately for however many jars I'm making). Put jars in oven with the light on and leave for at least 6 hours . . . I usually leave overnight. Refrigerate and enjoy as is or strain for thicker texture. I saw this method on another web site years ago and it is easy to adjust and has minimal cleanup!

Peke, you are wrong. I grew up really poor, and often we'd come home from school and Grandma would hand my brother a 410 rifle and tell him to shoot dinner. So, I've eaten everything from porcupine to muskrat (which is terrible, BTW). One of our favorite snacks was cold potatoes, Grandma would boil a big pot full of potatoes and we had potatoes with every meal, because we grew them. An afternoon snack for a hungry child was a cold boiled potato with salt. We often ran into bears while picking blackberries in the National Forest, but we would not give up those precious berries.

When there was nothing else, we had cornmeal mush. Grandma would put the breakfast leftovers into a loaf pan, slice it when it got cold and fry it for supper. I would go to bed hungry before I'd eat it.

Dad was a rear tail gunner who flew 24 combat missions over Korea, when he came home he was running a 2 man sawmill by himself. He slipped and nearly took off his foot. He spent several months at the VA hospital in Ann Arbor and more time recovering, while Mother and Grandma (who lived with us) scrambled to feed the three children. After Dad recovered and got a "good" job, we bought a farm because Dad said no matter how bad things got, we could grow a lot of vegetables on 125 acres. And we did grow vegetables, had a cow for milk, Grandma got chickens, we raised beef. I got a job when I was 14 and worked 60 hours a week all the way through high school for $1 an hour. I got up at 4 am, milked the cows while Dad went to work, took a shower, went to school. I worked after school and Dad did the night milking while I worked. I didn't attend a single high school dance because those were just reasons for me to pick up some more hours. I spent one summer breaking Shetland ponies to earn money for my first car, that was the worst job ever, but it was still better than working that chicken joint, cutting up chickens and baking the rolls for submarine sandwiches.

So yes, I've been hungry and I still wouldn't eat the mush. If I had been starving to death, I'd have probably eaten it, but I would still gag. And now that I'm an adult and have worked my whole life so I don't have to eat mush, I'm not eating it. My husband and I bought the farm I grew up on when my Dad died, and I still have a big organic garden and canned over 700 jars of food last year. We raise and slaughter our own chickens and raise grass fed organic beef for the freezer. I have fruit trees and berry bushes and an asparagus patch. And yes, it's work. Lots of work, but I love being outside and playing in the dirt. My friends laughed and called me a "prepper", but now it's been really handy, and I've not had to eat mush, even during this pandemic.

Oh, and I managed to work 2 jobs, raise 2 daughters as a single mother and simultaneously get a degree in criminal law so I could get a better job, and never have to eat mush (or yogurt) again!

Annie

Annie, skipping a meal is different than I was talking about...I was talking about real hunger, as in starvation. But, I am with you on the mush and yogurt, and I will add applesauce, tapioca, oatmeal, grits, etc. If I had gone without food for several weeks, then I would eat the mush too. That is what I meant. I guess that is how the people on survivor shows eat bugs and worms.

My afternoon snack was sliced white bread or a raw potato with salt. (I think raw potatoes are bad for you. Solanine poisoning with repeated exposure.) That is probably why I love bread today. I hate wax green beans, tomatoes, and beets because that is what I had to harvest from the time I was five. My parents couldn't just plant one short row...they planted 3 or 4 rows that were mine to pick.. I know we canned everything we could, but a lot of vegies were wasted because they just planted too many. My mother grew up living in a tent in a town called Robert Lee, Texas, so I am guessing they did not have much to eat. I know she picked cotton at a very early age and did it for years. She would over plant today if she wasn't 91 years old. The Depression was a horrible time. She ate lots of "Hoover Hogs" in Texas! (armadillos and jackrabbits.)

Chickens....I swear I smelled boiling chickens and feathers when you mentioned chickens. I still hate the smell of boiling chicken. We had to kill, gut, boil, and pluck 200+ chickens on a weekend. We used several pairs of old tube socks on our hands. I have no idea why! Nasty smell, boiled feathers! My sister was deathly afraid of chickens, and she wrecked the car one day while taking chickens (in cages) to the sale barn! They were flapping all over in the car when they escaped their cages.

Yes, what you do is very hard work, but you are eating the freshest food with no genetic modification, chemicals, etc....

I feel like I should say, "And I walked to school in the snow and rain...(I really did.)"

But, not barefoot! LOL 😁 It adds to our character!

Greek yogurt in Greece is very thick. That was my first exposure to "Greek" yogurt. It has added fat so is very rich and creamy. 10% milkfat is usual but you can get even 15%. Usually served with honey to drizzle on it. Consistency of sour cream.

At the greek bed and breakfast where we stayed 6 years ago, it was large part of breakfast. We would all eat big bowls full with nothing but honey on it.

I doubt you can get it with added fat in the US. It's been trendy here for a few years, but bears little resemblance to real Greek yogurt. I laugh when I see a label stating "Non-fat" greek yogurt.

I use whole milk Greek yogurt as a starter. You have to experiment with brands. Some are sour. We buy non-national, non-advertised brands we get at an ethnic grocery store.

I have a vintage Salton yogurt maker I have had for 40+ years. I didn't use it early on when the only brand you could get was Dannon, which I don't like. Now that I can get good yogurt for a starter, I use mine every week.

We use more yogurt than I can make. The thick yogurt as it comes gets used to make Tzaziki sauce and similar. I don't bother to strain my resulting product. Mine is just to eat.

I'll have to try drizzling honey over the 'greek' yogurt I have - even though it's not authentic, I do enjoy it and as mentioned above, I do not care for the greek yogurt I can buy. Thanks for telling us about it, linnea56. I made another batch the other day (almost a gallon this time, should last a bit longer, I hope!) and didn't strain any of it. But I did forget to add the powdered milk to make it thicker - duh. There's always next time.

Hmmm, stomach's rumbling. Time to try the honey now! LOL!

HOLY COW! I've found my new favorite "sweet" snack! Thank you linnea! I just ate a fairly decent sized portion of my greek yogurt (strained yogurt) with local honey swirled through it... seriously, it tastes decadent!

You know, the internet knows everything we do. I get various "food" newsletters via email and just like that, I start getting recipes for frozen yogurt. I might actually do that....

Annie

Ha, tell me about it! I see microgreen adds, cat tree ads (our cats are getting a cat tree, lol!), among others!

DH just informed me he'd like to try frozen yogurt. Really? Because I just made him vanilla ice cream, and bought him (because I was running out of oomph and didn't think I'd get the ice cream made) chocolate peanut butter ice cream (which I had a bite of last night, and it's too rich), and salted caramel.

I'm thinking when 'we' get through all that ice cream (that'll take DH maybe less than 2 weeks), he can have frozen yogurt. Far better for him. I'm betting it tastes really good, too.

And that reminds me... just before Valentine's last year, DH asked if I had been looking at jewelry online because our computer was showing jewelry ads. I explained no, that we were nearing Valentine's day so jewelers were pushing ads at that time, and not to worry! LOL!

I was watching Brad Leone make yogurt tonight because I thought I might want to make it myself - just so that I would not have to go to the store, but now I'm not so sure.

Very timely as I was just pondering my next "fermented" food to make after sourdough. I thought I would need to find unpasteurized milk to start it, or yogurt with truly active cultures. Did not know you could order dried culture online. Any place else sell it besides Amazon? I'd rather support a more localish business or at least one I know more about provenance with . . . .

I was under the impression that you could use store-bought Greek yogurt as a starter, especially since whatever yogurt you make can be used as a starter as well, sort of like sourdough.

I don't know if I can control the temperature accurately enough to make yogurt. I think Brad said that he used the oven light as a heat source, but if the light is LED, that would not create heat. The lowest setting on my oven in Cathedral City is 135°, which is acceptable for dehydrating but not for yogurt. Outdoor temperature today is 114°, and that might be too warm also. I'll have to see what temperature it is in my garage when I go back there next week-end. It's supposed to be 118° in Palm Springs this week but cool down to 111° by next Friday, which would be an acceptable temperature for me. I don't want to go there when the lows are in the 90s.

My yogurt maker is about 110. My house is usually cold ( except in summer) so I usually have to wrap towels around it. So a few degrees warmer is probably ok. But not much more.

Lars, making yogurt is so easy. I like it much better than store-bought. Here is my method:

Buy a good quality plain yogurt for your seed yogurt. Have four clean quart jars ready. Pour a gallon jug of whole milk into a stockpot. Heat to 180F and then drop the temp down to 110F (I use an ice water bath in the summer and snow in the winter). Put a ladleful of the cooled milk into a bowl and mix it with a couple Tbs of your seed yogurt. Pour back into the stockpot and stir to distribute. Ladle milk into your quart jars, a canning funnel helps to keep it from splashing out. I put the jars into a water bath canner along with three repurposed glass passata jars that are filled with boiling water (they are slim and tall). I put the pot on a folded up blanket and then drape another heavy blanket over the entire pot. Let sit for about 7-7 1/2 hours and then refrigerate. If you want Greek yogurt, just strain it over a bowl in the fridge. I use the mesh filter from a Chef's Planet multipurpose filter funnel set to strain it.