How to save $500 a year

Aiden does not eat well. This is no secret. He will only eat a handful of things, one of them happens to be yogurt with fruit in it. I discovered greek yogurt about a year ago and have bought it for Aiden ever since. He likes the creaminess better and I like that it has more calories, fat and protein than regular yogurt. I buy Aiden the FAGE brand plain whole milk greek yogurt because it has 20 grams of fat and 16 grams of protein per carton. But it costs $2 for a 7 oz. carton, and he eats a carton a day. Do the math - that's $14 a week, almost $60 a month and $728 a year. On yogurt. Seems a little ridiculous.

My mom pointed out that I could make my own, and I went out to search the web for recipes to make my own greek yogurt. I found several recipes and ended up using pieces of all of them to make a recipe that worked for me. All you need is 2 ingredients and a couple tools: a half gallon of milk (fat content of your choice), a carton of pre-made yogurt, cheesecloth and a candy thermometer.

In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of milk and 2 1/2 tablespoons of pre-made yogurt. This is your starter and will give you your yogurt making bacteria. I used Aiden's regular yogurt, but I plan on using some of my homemade batch to start my next batch.

Heat the remainder of the milk in a large pan over medium heat, stirring very often, until it reaches 180 degrees on a candy thermometer. Pour the milk into a large casserole dish and let it sit to cool back down to 110 degrees - it took about a half hour to cool down to the right temperature. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 100 degrees or as low as it will go, then turn off the oven but leave your oven light on to keep your it warm.

Once the milk is cooled to 110 degrees add in your milk/yogurt starter mixture, mix well and put the lid on the casserole dish, wrap it with a dish cloth and place it in the oven, being careful not to touch the oven light with the towel. Leave it in the oven, with the light on for a good 8 hours and check it, mine took about 9 hours to get thick enough.

Place 4 layers of cheesecloth into a strainer and put that into a large bowl (hint: buy good cheesecloth and you can re-use it!). Pour in your yogurt and place in the refrigerator for about 8 hours - I left mine in overnight. Then spoon the yogurt into canning jars or plastic containers. It should keep for 10-12 days in the refrigerator. It made about 44 oz. of yogurt.

 

I did a taste test, while mine did not turn out as thick as the FAGE, it is milder and a lot less sour tasting. In my opinion, my homemade yogurt tastes better. All I do is add mashed fruit and drizzle in a little honey, and it is perfect for Aiden. I might try adding some vanilla bean next time when heating up the milk just for fun.

I can use organic milk with added DHA, which makes me feel like it is even better for him.  But the best part is that it will only cost me the price of a half gallon of milk to make enough to last a week! Which is $3.79, or about $15 a month, and $130 a year! Yay for saving money and making my baby good for you food :-)