I’m a bit weird when it comes to what goes into my children. They don’t eat a lot of candy if any at all. NO juices with dyes, occasional takeout, chips, or things with sugary contents. I try to always provide vegetables as a snack…try. I’m so glad they love them! My sister tells them that their eyes will grow big and makes a big bug-eyed face O.O.

I recently discovered that my big little is lactose intolerant. It would be so embarrassing how bad he’d get gas. “Boys are boys,”  I thought. Farting is apart of them growing into men. And then their would be bad stomach aches following.

I started to buy lactaid milk and cut down cooking with different things that bothered him. It helped a little but there were still things left that gave him bad gas and stomach aches, like yogurt and cheeses.

I’m a stickler for homemade. That means I know what goes in and am not surprised by what could possibly come out. LOL

Any way. I’ve seen a few posts like these floating around on pinterest. So that’s originally where the idea came from. I had a hard time finding answers to my lactose free questions though. I saw that you could make ricotta cheese lactose-free from this lady so I thought I’d give the yogurt a go.

I used a gallon of whole lactaid milk

a half cup of Chobani plain Greek yogurt

a sieve

and two paper towels to strain

I also used a meat thermometer to read the temps

First, I set my 5 qt crockpot to high and poured a gallon of whole lactaid milk inside for 3 hours or until the temp read 180 degrees

After 3 hours I turned it off and let it sit for another 3 hours on the counter until the crockpot was warm to 115 degrees

I scooped out 1 cup of the yogurt into a measuring cup and added the half cup of plain Greek yogurt

(when buying a starter yogurt make sure it says active and live cultures in the ingredients)

I chose Greek yogurt because it had little to nothing in it. I wanted my yogurt as close to natural without any chemicals as much as possible.

I didn’t cover the crockpot until it was cooled to 115 degrees

I then wrapped it in a towel and put it in the oven (not turned on) to incubate (with the light on )

The live cultures in the yogurt need the warmth from the light to be able to do their thing

(Please forgive my dirty oven)

I’m a working mom. So what. lol

I put my crockpot in the oven for 8 hours

I chose to put it in the oven to ensure warmth because my kitchen gets drafty

otherwise you can put it wherever

**Note: The crockpot should not be hot or cold. When you touch it should be warm. Too warm will mean the cultures die, too cold will mean they don’t work.

When I took it out I was so excited to see that it worked!

I’ve heard that the less yogurt you use to start it the thicker it gets and you won’t have to strain it

Mine was thick enough for me but I know my children like it thicker

I didn’t have cheesecloth so I lined a sieve with paper towel and dumped the yogurt in it for 30 minutes

You can see it it thickening as it sits. The longer it sits, the thicker it gets. (you could even go all the way and make yogurt cheese)

This was all the whey I got from half of the yogurt

In the end I sweetened it with honey to taste and two tsp of vanilla extract

I plan on cooking down some berries with honey and mixing it in the other batch I have.

(You also don’t have to use a crockpot. You can warm the milk in a pot and follow the rest of the steps. I think you would definitely want to use a thermometer if you do.)

I thought it was delicious and will make it forever! 🙂

So tell me? What would you add in to make it yummy?