Greek Yogurt

These cold mornings have kept me in the apartment lately. I have been looking at cooking shows on Netflix and trying out different things. I love yogurt, especially Greek yogurt. I couldn't find a yogurt maker or cheese cloth for straining it or even a thermometer. So I experimented.

I bought a plug-in light socket and an extension cord and rigged up a warm spot inside of a large cooking pan. I did that by putting the light inside the pan and covering it with a towel. I guessed at the temperatures needed for the yogurt. I put the scalded and cooled milk along with half a cup of yogurt into a glass canning jar. Then I tucked the glass jar which had been wrapped in a wash cloth, inside of the pan with the light. Covered it and left it with the light on, inside the pan for eight hours. It worked. I had a jar of yogurt which I strained through a paper coffee filter in the frig overnight. Ended up with Greek yogurt. This first batch has some blueberries in it. Now it is on to the next batch. Living in Mexico where many things can't be found, leads to lots of creativity. 

Here is a photo of a small portion of the first batch that I made, with a few blueberries. No sugar. Delicious.

Maybe a picture will be worth a thousand words. Below is the Yogurt maker. Since I also couldn't find a light bulb less than 25 watts, I had to separate it from the yogurt by using my vegetable steamer and a microwave safe cereal bowl. 

I used a big glass canning jar like the empty one in the photo, but with the lid on. Below is a photo of the yogurt which is straining out the whey. I put it in the frig like that overnight and will come out like my first batch in that first photo. 



I need to figure out something to make with that whey. Maybe a soup? Don't want to waste anything.