It's Yogurt Time!

That two-year-old daughter of ours, Baby Bear, doesn't like to eat much. She'll ingest as much juice and milk as you put in front of her -- usually a quart of each per day -- but the foods she'll take are pretty limited. Burritos with hot sauce, beans and rice, Goldfish and a few other things.

But that kid loves her some yogurt. And good yogurt, as you may know, ain't cheap. You can buy the little tubs laced with aspartame and other chemicals SUPER cheap, but not the good, clean, non-chemical varieties like Greek yogurt.

Enter the crock pot yogurt recipe Mama Bear found somewhere online.

Here you go:

It only takes a half-gallon of milk and a half-cup of store-bought (or other) yogurt with active cultures.

--Put the milk in a crock pot and turn it on Low. Leave for 2.5 hours.

--After 2.5 hours, turn off the crock pot and leave the lid on.

--After 3 more hours, remove two cups of the milk. Mix the half-cup of yogurt into the two cups of milk, then return to the crock pot. I usually do the mixing in an old pasta sauce jar. Just dump the milk and yogurt in, and shake. Stir it into the rest of the milk in the crock pot.

--Replace the lid and wrap the entire crock pot with a heavy towel to keep the remaining heat inside. Leave for eight hours, and when it's done, you have yogurt.

Very easy.

We've been buying powdered milk for about $12 for 22 quarts worth. With two quarts needed for this recipe, that means we're paying just over a dollar for a half-gallon of yogurt -- assuming we don't strain it to remove some of the extra water (or whey). And that's a bargain!

You can strain it. I take a small screen sieve, insert a smallish (unbleached) coffee filter, and pour some of the yogurt into it. Let the loose liquid drip through into a separate container to be discarded, then dump the remaining (very thick) yogurt into a bowl to be used anytime in the next week or so. The same filter can be used several more times, until the entire half-gallon of yogurt has been strained. Very good, very thick.

Remember to save a half-cup of the new yogurt to use as starter with the next batch, and you'll never have to buy yogurt again.