Hi!
Well I made yogurt yesterday, but haven''t tried it ye! it needs to sit in the fridge for a while first.
I just did the old fashion way (how my mom does it). If that doesn''t work then I might look into the yogurt makers. Although, there is not much to it since all the machine does is keep the yogurt warm while it "cooks". This is not really needed because you can just pour the mixture in a topperware and then wrap it with a couple of kitchen towels and leave it in the microwave overnight.
So here is what I did.
1) Pour about 1/2 gallon of organic fat free milk into a pot (no measurements, this was just the size on my pot! haha). Then add a couple of tbl spoons of dry non-fat milk and bring it to a boil (in slow heat and stirring ocassionally so the bottom wouldn''t burn). I don''t think you want it to a "full" boil....but just enough to start seeing bubbles in the middle and the little bubbles around the sides of the pot.
2) Then you take the pot off the stove and let it air cool. Ideally, you have a thermomether to let you know when it''s "time"...but you can also eye ball it (that''s what I did). You want the milk to be at a luke warm point. Enough were you can touch the pot and be able to leave your hands there without getting burned. When it''s at that point then you take the skin off the top of the milk and throw it away.
3) Take a small cup and put in there a 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt. Be sure to use non-fat plain yogurt that contains live cultures. I used Stonyfield plain non-fat organic yogurt. Pour a little bit of the milk mixture in the cup and mix well (until it''s smooth). Once it''s smooth, pour into the pot and mix together. Just slowly stir, you don''t need to add much air to the mixture. Pour the mixture into a container, close it, cover it with a kitchen towel, place it somewhere...and walk away!
. I did mine at about 10pm and this morning like at 8am I put it in the fridge.
I''ll let you guys know how it turns out!
Apparently in that book "Why French women don''t get fat", the author talks about eating home made yogurt. Eating yogurt in general is great for you because it has the "good bacteria"...but yogurt from the store has additives, sugars and other thing that your body doesn''t need!.
Once you have your home made yogurt ready, you can add fresh fruits (or frozen, such as blueberries! they go great in plain yogurt!), honey (or any other sweetener of your preference...but in this case, you control the sugar amounts!), granola, nuts (I love mine with chopped walnuts!!).
Anyway...I hope this is helpful!. I hope mine turned out well, but if it didn''t I will just have to try again!!!
M~