With my oldest, I craved hard boiled eggs, of all things. Never liked 'em before. Always wondered why we bothered to color eggs in our house when no one wanted to eat them. Well, until I went to school in Houghton and was introduced to pickled eggs (definitely an acquired taste).
That has not much to do with anything other than this: my oldest son looooves Yoplait orange creme yogurt. And I love to give it to him. He doesn't drink milk, won't eat cheese. In fact, the only dairy products this kid eats are ice cream and Yoplait orange creme yogurt. He doesn't eat a whole lot of leafy greens, either, so I'm a little concerned about calcium.
But (and I think you know me well enough to know where this is going) Yoplait orange creme yogurt is expensive. Eighty cents per 6 oz cup. That's $2.40 for 3 servings per day. $16.80 per week. $72 per month. I love the kid, and I want him to have calcium, but I do not want to pay $72 a month to feed his yogurt habit.
So I decided to make it myself. Making yogurt is easy. Making it taste like orange creme? That's a little more difficult, but I was up to the challenge. Yesterday, AKD declared it perfect (after only 2 tries. This girl knows what she's doing). Want to make your own? Here's how:
First, make some yogurt. I used the recipe here. It uses a crockpot, of all things, and is very straightforward and so easy. You just heat up some milk, let it cool, add some yogurt, and then let it sit for several hours or overnight. The hardest part is finding a small container of plain yogurt to use as a starter (I used Stoneyfield brand from my grocery store's organic section--it was leftover from a recipe I made last week). I stopped before the straining step because I wanted regular, not Greek style, yogurt.
Once the yogurt's made, give it a stir, then scoop out half a cup and save it to make your next batch.
Next, add 2 small packages of vanilla instant pudding to the plain, non-strained yogurt. The pudding has the dual purpose of adding flavor and thickening the yogurt a bit. You can skip this step if you want, and just keep the yogurt plain.
If you're not sure that you'll be able to use up half a gallon of yogurt within 7 to 10 days, freeze it in individual portion sizes. Somehow I don't think that'll be a problem around here.
Next, flavor your yogurt. Add fruit purees, juices, jellies or jams, spices, even chocolate--whatever suits your fancy. You're only limited by your imagination.
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| It's not much to look at, but it sure tastes good! |
Here's what we did:
To make a single serving of orange creme yogurt, add 3 Tablespoons orange juice and 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar to 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt. To make a larger batch, add 2 1/4 c. orange juice and 2 T sugar to 6 c. of yogurt. It tastes even more orange cremeish after sitting in the fridge for a bit, so keep that in mind and plan ahead.
So. Now that you know how easy it is to make your own yogurt, what flavor combinations are you planning to try?
So. Now that you know how easy it is to make your own yogurt, what flavor combinations are you planning to try?
What type of milk do you use? As in ... 1%, 2%, skim? Whole milk? I would guess you could use whatever your people prefer ... right?
ReplyDeleteOoh. Sorry. I had that in there, but took it out. Use whatever you want. The more fat, the thicker and creamier it'll be. I used 3 c. 2% and 5 c. skim. Some people add dry milk or gelatin to their skim yogurt to make it thicker.
DeleteHi! I would love the recipe for this yogurt but the link in your article no longer works. My sons will literally only eat the orange cream Yoplait flavor and it's always out at the stores and getting expensive! Thanks! Wendy C
ReplyDeleteSorry about that, Wendy. Here's the recipe: http://bluefield5.blogspot.com/2015/06/revised-creamy-homemade-greek-yogurt.html.
ReplyDeleteI skipped the straining step when I made orange creme. You could also just use plain yogurt (it's less expensive in the 32oz tubs) from the grocery store if you don't want to make it yourself.