Fresh Yogurt

I'm currently making a batch of fresh yogurt for Simran.  Homemade yogurt is the only kind Sameer likes (it's sweeter than the stuff you get from the store -- more like Greek yogurt -- also it's what he grew up eating in his mother's kitchen), but I consider this batch "for Simran" because I'm making it with whole milk.  I avoid giving her much dairy (see anything written by Caldwell Esselstyn or Colin Campbell, or watch the documentary "Forks Over Knives" on Netflix to understand why), but even knowledgeable nutrition experts (e.g., Joel Fuhrman) seem to think yogurt can be beneficial for kids, so I sometimes give it to her mixed with fruit puree.  It also helps keep her fat intake up since she eats very little fat aside from walnuts, hemp milk, and the occasional avocado or cheese.  I learned to make fresh yogurt (a.k.a. Indian "dahi") from Sameer, whose mother was explaining it to him over the phone at the time.  Here is how I do it.  You can find more detailed, scientific explanations all over the internet.

Ingredients
1 quart milk (use whole milk for full fat yogurt; use skim for nonfat yogurt)
2 tbs plain yogurt (you can buy special enzymes for this, but I always just use whatever plain yogurt is in the fridge as my starter)

Directions

1. Take the yogurt you're going to be using as starter out of the fridge so it can get closer to room temperature.

2. Pour the quart of milk into a medium sized pot and bring just to a boil.  Not a rolling boil, but just until it starts to get frothy and foamy on top.  It will start to smell weirdly sweet about the same time.  How long this takes will depend on how high the heat is.  I cook mine at medium heat for maybe five minutes.  Remove the pot from heat.

3. Let the cooked milk cool until you can put a finger in it and it feels just barely warm to the touch.  If you've ever fixed a bottle or bathwater for a baby, it should feel about like that.  Now add a couple spoonfuls of the starter yogurt.  Stir well until the yogurt is all incorporated into the milk.

4.  If you have a yogurt maker, pour the cooked milk into the little jars, leaving a little space at the top of each.  Seal them shut, load them into the yogurt maker, and turn it on.  Leave it alone for about 8 hours; then put the sealed jars into the fridge to chill.  If you don't have a yogurt maker, what you do is dependent on how warm it is in your kitchen.  The milk needs to stay at about 100 degrees for about 8 hours to become yogurt, so you can do this by heating your oven to just above that (it cools slightly whenever you open the oven door), turning it off, and then putting a sealed container of the milk inside.  After about 8 hours, put the sealed container in the refrigerator.  This worked reliably for me when I did it in the summer, but I did it once in winter and the temperature difference even inside my oven was too great, and after 8 hours I still just had cooked milk.  So if you don't have a yogurt maker, you need to account for temperature differences in your home.