Frugal Living - Yoghurt & Cheese Making

After the second warming and cooling, the homemade yoghurt thickened up and looked like yoghurt. I may be biased, but I thought it tasted MUCH better than the shop bought stuff and that was before flavouring it with a swirl of mango coulis for breakfast.

I got one full litre plus the equivalent of a single carton from the 1litre UHT skimmed milk. I used Approved Food milk powder and a couple of spoonfuls of Sainsbury's Basics natural yoghurt to start it off, so here's how the costs break down, for the purposes of frugality. I've based it on non-special offer prices

• 500g Carton natural yoghurt - 46p
• 1L UHT skimmed milk - 49p
• I tablespoon milk powder - 9p?
• Boiling kettle - 1p
• TOTAL £1.05

From the above, I got:

• 1 small jar of soft cheese
• 1 glass of whey (for baking & health drinks)
• 11 pots of yoghurt
• 4 tablespoons of yoghurt frozen for later use as a starter.

The yoghurt can be served with almost anything and will be fine for adding to recipes. I KNOW it has no artificial preservatives, colouring or sweeteners. I haven't sweetened it at all.

I'll also be trying my hand at frozen yoghurt, once there's some space in the freezer, and half of this first batch will be made into soft cheese.

I can now think of another 3 items to add to my 'no need to buy' list (soft cheese, yoghurt, ice cream). EXCELLENT!

YOGHURT

For making in a flask - put boiling water in the flask to warm it before you start. If making in the easiyo add your boiling water to the fill level. 2tablespoons yoghurt starter (either bought live yoghurt or 2 tablespoons of your own once you get going) 1 litre uht milk (i use skimmed) 2 tablespoons dried milk powder (makes it thicker) warm the uht milk up in a jug in the microwave until it is hand hot, doesn't need to be too hot with uht as all the bugs are already treated. Add your yoghurt starter, mix in your dried milk powder and pour into your flask/easiyo maker. Leave 8 hours/overnight, remove, stir, cool in the fridge, and eat. My forst lot didn't thicken up first time around, so I reheated the milk mix and the flask and left it overnight. It was fine by morning.

SOFT CHEESE

For the soft cheese the home made yoghurt strains much quicker than shop bought. Line a sieve with muslin, or a jelly bag will probably work, place over a jug or bowl to collect the separated whey. Add your yoghurt, which will reduce by about 1/3. If you fold the muslin over the top of the yoghurt you can weight it with a small saucer or similar to help the process. Place in the fridge and leave overnight to strain.

These are the instructions for home made yoghurt and soft cheese as recommended by neighbour. My first attempt is today, 26th February 2010. I'm using an ordinary 1L flask, a non-branded natural yoghurt as my starter and non-branded milk powder.

ICE CREAM

Previously, I have only ever made ice cream or sorbet using eggs and milk or cream, when it's available on offer. For basic ice cream, I'd use 4 eggs, 1 cup of sugar and about 4 cups of milk or milk/cream mix plus vanilla flavouring to your taste. Mix the eggs, sugar and half the milk together and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until the mix begins to thinken. Remove from heat and allow to cook. Whilst this is cooling, mix the cream with the vanilla flavouring. If using milk only, add a tablespoon of powdered milk to help thicken it up a bit. Pour this into the cooled, cooked mix, stir well and then decant to a tub into the freezer. The mixture needs thorough mixing every hour to ensure it stays creamy. For a white, minty ice cream, I do similar to above but only use the egg whites. Rather than adding vanilla, I add freshly picked mint leaves, finely chopped, and then add grated chocolate to the cooled mix before it goes into the freezer. Now that I've learned the frugal art of making yoghurt, I'll be attempting all sorts of flavours - cheaper than traditional ice cream because there's no cooking to do, just freeze the yoghurt the same way as above. Check out my homemade ice cream maker that I'll use to make the frozen yoghurt.