the view from the top of Wasson Peak was stunning!

You know where you kinda stick to the same things every week for simplicity sake? I've seemed to have finally escaped that food rut and have some easy & delicious recipes coming your way! One of which is this super simple yogurt.

This venture into yogurt-making started with Emi being sensitive to dairy.. she has developed some serious eczema that goes away when we reduce or eliminate dairy.


Back in my Pinterest boards I had saved a cold-start method that involved an Instant Pot - but my Instant Pot doesn't have that setting. Many of the other recipes require heating and cooling the milk to certain temperatures and that seemed too involved.. I don't have time to babysit yogurt when I have a fearless toddler to keep an eye on..

I needed it to be as simple as possible.

Back to the drawing board with the cold start yogurt method. Over on Amazon I found a highly rated and inexpensive yogurt maker - a machine that keeps jars of yogurt within the correct temperature range for the probiotics to happily multiply. So if your instant pot has a yogurt setting, feel free to use that! If not, get yourself a yogurt maker!


Other things you'll need:

Ultra-Pasturized Milk  - we love the Fairlife brand - it's lactose free, lower sugar and higher protein.  It was also the first one I tried.  It worked. Why fix something that isn’t broken?  I’m sticking with Fairlife, but you can use Organic Valley or Horizon, just check the labels.

A Starter/Live Cultures - Similar to how sourdough bread needs a starter, so does your yogurt. You can purchase freeze-dried starter, but the best (and most cost-effective) way in my opinion would be with yogurt. We used Fage, plain yogurt - but you can also use Chobani, Siggi, Dannon & Yoplait.

Once you’ve made your first batch of yogurt you can use your homemade yogurt as your starter.  Freeze some yogurt in an ice cube tray, and then use a couple thawed cubes in your next batch.

Cold Start Yogurt

Ingredients
1 gallon ultra pasteurized milk like Fairlife brand - let come to room temperature.
2 tbsp plain yogurt with live cultures like Fage brand

Instructions
1.  In a large metal or glass mixing bowl (or Instant Pot/IP) combine yogurt ingredients. Whisk until well combined. Evenly distribute into glass yogurt jars - if using Yogurt Maker.

2.  If using an Instant Pot, use the glass lid or make sure vent is open so pressure doesn't build. Press the yogurt setting, incubate for 8-10 hours.

If using a Yogurt maker, replace cover and set timer. The amount of fat content in your milk can affect the time as well as how soft or set you'd like your yogurt. Using the longer time frame for "greek-style" yogurt.

Whole Milk: 8-9 hours
2% milk: 10-11 hours
Skim Milk: 12-13 hours

3.  When done, without stirring, transfer yogurt jars with lids (or inner pot of IP with lid) to a refrigerator and chill for at least 3 hours (IP: 8 hours)


4.  Serve your cold start yogurt plain or with desired toppings - We like to add in a little vanilla extract, raw honey, jams/jellies or fresh fruit.

This will keep in refrigerator for 7 days.
This yogurt is thick, creamy and delicious and a FRACTION of the calories and sugar store bought yogurt has. We've been making a batch weekly and love it!

I plan to play around with making a coconut milk yogurt, however I'm not sure I can do that cold-start. Soon as I have that down, I'll share that too!

When you make this, I'd love to hear how it turns out! Come back and share below!

Before getting started writing this post, I took a stroll down memory lane and read through some of my day in the life posts from when I was pregnant with Aria.. or right after we had Emi. There's been times I felt like we were at maximum chaotic capacity where I wasn't sure we were ever going to catch our breath.. and other times where we had a routine down and things were smooth sailing. I always feel like Spring makes a big difference in our days. When we can open the windows, get outside for some fresh air and enjoy a little more daylight too. I also found as I was scrolling through my camera roll that I don't have a lot of pictures of Emi right now.. or ones where shes directly looking at the camera. She is literally always on the move and not a fan of me snapping a pictures at the moment.. so I sneak them in when I can.

Our day usually kicks off around 6:30, (although, we just got this clock and it's proving to be quite promising) Aria will come into tell me it's time to wake up. We usually get an hour or so to hang out on the couch together watching cartoons, sometimes I fall back asleep for a little bit. Emerson usually wakes up around 7:15, and Aria gets so excited to go greet her sister, say "mornin' Em'!" to her and rescue her from her crib.

Once Emi is up, it's her turn to pick the cartoon, so that means it's time for Dora.. and map.. and boots... and backpack - she'll announce all the characters. This give me about 10 minutes to take a quick shower or just throw on a little makeup & dry shampoo. I'll then make coffee & the girls’ breakfast, they’re really into waffles and yogurt right now which is the ultimate worst to clean up because Aria usually drips it all over eight layers of whatever tutu/dress she is wearing & Emi manages to look like she applied it as a mud mask. Beyond the mess.. breakfast has always been our favorite time of day in our house, I love their little fresh faces, bed hair & sleepy eyes.





If it's nice outside, we'll try to get out for a walk around the block, or just venture out to the yard for them to pull all the weeds into a bouquet of flowers. We've had a bit of a cold snap, so the the girls favorite thing to do is bring their play table to middle of the living room and lay out all their crayons, stickers and paper which quickly escalates to scribbles on the wall and stickers on the couch.

We'll play, paint or do some little crafts in the morning, take up a game of fishing for fish that don't bite fast enough or we'll bake something.. I've been on a muffin kick lately. Then the girls will have some lunch. Emi still takes a nap around 1pm or so. This gives Aria some "quiet time" to get all of her tiny little toys out or to do something extra with arts and crafts that Emi isn't quite ready for. I then take this time to try to get a few of my own projects done.  Aria tends to pull out all of her art supplies next to me at the table, knowing she can almost always distract me from what I am working on because painting is so tempting!

I try to get some sort of dinner prep started & clean up from lunch, and attempt to pick up some of the kids mess from the day. Often times this is something I meal-prepped, but sometimes I'll dress it up a bit or make something extra. Aria eats anything, but Emi tops the list of pickiest kid ever. She pretty much survives on cheese, crackers & mac n cheese.. but today she did eat her very first larabar.. well, half of it - but I'll take a win wherever I can get it.

Bath, books & bedtime take another solid hour (or more) we power through the pajama rodeo together & even though we are tired, really enjoy the end of the night with the kids. They usually have a case of the sillies, and have to dance it out or play a game of mini-hoops with daddy in the living room. Once the girls are asleep (generally by 8) we tag team cleaning the kitchen, picking up the house & whatever else needs to be done before we throw ourselves on the couch to relax. We both may work for another hour or so, but like to turn everything off for a bit before bed so we can catch up with each others’ day & hang out for a bit.

I love reading about other people’s schedules, and seeing how they go about their days, balancing kids, work & life. Some days outfits match, our meals are healthy & I might get a project done start to finish during naptime. Other days, we are in pajamas all day with yogurt on our faces & we alternate between tantrums & dance parties from dusk til dawn.

There are productive days & there are lazy days, and they all balance each other out.