A favorite breakfast and snack in our house is homemade yogurt. My daughter eats it plain without any sweetener. We put it in smoothies, top it with fruit or granola, and add it to muffins. I’ve been making it for several years now.

Why make yogurt? It’s cheaper and there are no added ingredients. Plain yogurt is one of those products you shouldn’t have to read the label on when you are shopping. Unfortunately though, you do. It’s so simple. The actual labor of making yogurt is pretty much nothing. Most of the time you are just ignoring it. Yogurt is something you should add to your “make from scratch” list.

I use my 6 quart slow cooker from start to finish to make my easy homemade yogurt. A friend uses the same method but does it on the stove in a heavy pot. The slow cooker would give a little better insulation during the setting period. You can also place it in a warmer location – such as a (turned off) oven when the light turned on.

Options for Thicker Yogurt:

Use Whole Milk – I always use whole milk and my yogurt thickens enough for our tastes. It does turn out thicker in the summer when the house stays warmer though. If the yogurt isn’t thick enough for you or you choose to use a lower fat milk, you can do one of the following options.

Strain  – Strain it to your desired consistency using a tea towel or cheese cloth. Obviously you’ll end up with not as much yogurt using this method but you can still use the liquid you strained off for baking, smoothies etc.

Gelatin – Add 1-2 teaspoons of gelatin (details on how to do that when we get to the recipe) to have your yogurt set up really well.

Step 1:

Slow Cooker Method: Pour 8 cups of milk into your slow cooker, cover, and turn to low.
Stove Top Method: Pour 8 cups of milk into a heavy pan and turn stove to low.

Step 2:

With Thermometer: Heat to 180-185 degrees and turn off heat.
Without Thermometer: A thermometer takes the guessing out of it but you can also just go by looks. Turn the slow cooker or stove off shortly before you think it’s going to boil. (It might be just starting to slightly bubble around the very edges of the pan.)

Slow Cooker: This will take 2 – 2 1/2 hours covered depending on the temperature of your house.
Stove Top: If you do it on the stove, stir it occasionally during the process to keep it from scorching on the bottom.

Step 3:

With Thermometer: Let the milk cool down to 115 degrees. I like to make sure mine isn’t any cooler than that because I’ve found it won’t set up as well for me. You don’t want it to be too hot though otherwise it will kill the cultures in the yogurt when you add it.
Without Thermometer: Go by touch! You should be able to easily stick your finger in without burning it. The milk should feel a little hotter than just warm though.

Step 4:

Scoop out 1-2 cups of the warm milk and stir 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (with active cultures) into it. Pour back into the slow cooker or pan and stir together.

Optional Step:

If you want to add gelatin for a thicker yogurt, now is the time to do it! Simply sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of gelatin over the top of the milk and gentle whisk it in. Then proceed to step 5.

Step 5:

Replace lid on the cover slow cooker or crockpot with several heavy towels to keep it insulated. I cover my slow cooker with 3 big towels and leave it on the counter over night. If you are using a pan, you might want to cover it with towels and place in the oven with the light on or in a cooler to help keep it insulated better.

Let your milk/yogurt sit insulated for 8-12 hours. I’ve found closer to 10 hours is better for the yogurt to turn out thicker.

Step 6:

After the 8-12 hours are up, remove the towels and transfer the pot/slow cooker insert to the refrigerator and let cool completely. (Again, you can eat it sooner but I’ve just found it sets up thicker if I let it cool completely first.)

This is how well my whole milk yogurt (made with only milk and yogurt) thickens up:

Step 7:

Transfer yogurt into your food storage containers and keep in the refrigerator.

Top with fruit, granola, jam or even eat plain. If you want, you can sweeten to taste using a drizzle of maple syrup, honey or other sweetener of your choice.

Do you make yogurt? What’s your favorite method?

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Homemade pizza takes very little time to whip up. However, some days you might not have the time or energy to knead up some dough. Maybe you’ll be gone and want to have an easy supper available for your kids or your family might be getting back from a vacation and want something that can be in the oven in minutes.

Whatever the reason, sometimes frozen pizzas are convenient. Sure, you could also freeze just pizza dough and some people love it. I’ll be honest, I don’t care for the taste of frozen dough thawed and then baked (plus, you have to plan hours in advance to take it out of the freezer). I’d rather take the time to make it up fresh. Traditional frozen pizzas don’t have the texture of a freshly make one either, but they aren’t supposed to so I’m okay with it.

After several experiments with making homemade frozen pizza, this was our favorite method.

I prefer to freeze the crust and toppings separately (instead of already put together like you buy at the store) so that I don’t have to worry so much when packaging and the toppings shifting. It also works well to make the crusts a little smaller so that they can fit into a gallon zipped bag stacked up on each other. (If you use 2 gallon bags you could make them a little bigger.)

Don’t forget, you can use these tips for making a pizza frugally on frozen ones too!

Preparation:

1. Make up a batch of pizza dough. I double this recipe and divide it into three portions and roll out into crusts that will fit into a zipped bag. (You could also do individual sized pizzas.)

2. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and bake each crust for 5-7 minutes and flip and bake on the other side for 3-5 minutes. (The first time you do this, keep an eye on it! Overcooked crust is not good.) You are not baking it all the way. It will finish baking when you cook it from the freezer. Let cool.

3. Make a batch of sauce. If you are doubling the crust recipe, double this as well. Freeze in individual size portions either in small Tupperware or in mini zipped baggies. Determine this based off of your crust size or how many pizzas you will be baking at a time.

4. Grate cheese and separate into zipped baggies for each pizza.

5. Assemble all of the other toppings – chopped onions, diced bell peppers, chicken, pepperoni etc. I put all of my diced/sliced veggies together into pizza sized portions in baggies and the meat divided into pizza sized portions into another baggie.
To ensure your veggies don’t stick together, you can spread them out on a baking sheet and once frozen transfer to the portion sized baggies.

6. Assemble for the freezer. You can do this one of two ways:

• Either slide a crust (or however many you know you’d make for a meal) into a zipped baggy and then slide the little bags of sauce, cheese, and toppings into the same bag on top of the crust and freeze.
• Or place all of your crusts into one bag and all of the sauce, cheese, and toppings into another. Then when it comes time to bake simply pull out the right number of supplies from each bag.

Baking:

1. Preheat oven (and pizza stone if you have one) to 425 degrees.
2. While oven is preheating, run the frozen sauce under hot water to defrost.
3. Remove your crust from the freezer, spread with sauce, and top with the packets of veggies and cheese.
4. Slide frozen pizza into the oven and bake for 8-15 minutes (depending on size and crust thickness)

You can do all the prep on one day (perhaps a day you are already making homemade pizza for supper). Double, triple or quadruple the recipe depending on your family size and how many you want (since you are already going to be grating and chopping increasing the amounts you do isn’t going to add that much time).

On the day you pull a frozen pizza out of your freezer for supper, you can have it baking in the time it takes to preheat your oven. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

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