Unique Use for Your Crockpot- Homemade Yogurt!

When you think of crockpots, you might think of using them to make one-pot meals, simmering something yummy all day long while you work, and dinner's ready in the evening. Crockpots are great for that, but here's another use: make yogurt! One quart of yogurt at our local grocery store costs almost 3 dollars. You can make a whole lot more yogurt so easily in the crockpot for a lot less money than to buy it already made! That's important if you enjoy making smoothies and such, like I shared with you in my last post! Besides, yogurt is full of good bacteria so essential for intestinal health, and even in preventing illness!

Here's how easy it is to make yogurt in a crockpot:

1/4 c storebought, plain yogurt OR 1/2 c homemade yogurt

8 c whole milk

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Pour milk in crockpot, put on lid, turn crockpot to low.

Leave for 2 1/5 hours.

Turn off crockpot, leave cover on. Let sit for 3 hours.

Take one to two cups of the warm milk and place in a mixing bowl. Mix in the storebought OR homemade yogurt.

Pour this mixture into the crockpot and stir into the rest of the milk.

Put lid on crockpot, fold and put a heavy towl over crockpot to insulate (leave crockpot off). Let sit overnight.

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Place yogurt into containers and store in the refrigerator. Keeps about 2 weeks.

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

The consistency of homemade yogurt is typically a bit thinner than storebought. If you continue to make yogurt from your other batches of homemade yogurt and you find it is becoming too thin, then purchase some plain yogurt from the store for your next batch. In the batch I just made, there was a lot of liquidy whey separated out. You may wish to carefully scoop out the yogurt around the whey for thicker yogurt, but I'd rather keep the nutrition from the whey and have thinner yogurt!

Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Legacies From Dough- Salt Dough Ornaments and Creations

Looking for some good holiday crafts? It's the perfect time of the year to start on those fun Christmas projects that can be used as gifts, or to decorate your home! Salt dough is a very inexpensive, versatile medium for creating all kinds of goodies! And, if you preserve them correctly, some of them could even become part of your legacy!

Last year I started on a pretty big project that I'd like to finish this year: Creating salt dough ornaments to use on a Jessie Tree. (The idea of a Jessie Tree is taken from Isaiah 11:1 in the Old Testament and uses symbols and Bible verses that point the way to the New Testament story of the birth of Christ and our need for salvation. You can find out how to make one, with free templates you and your children can color or use to make salt dough or other types of ornaments, as well as the verses that go along with them here).

These are a few of the ornaments I made. They still need to be painted:

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

You'll notice that several of the ornaments cracked during cooking. A little glue should fix this before I paint them, but beware, as I learned the hard way, not to make your salt dough creations too thin!

Here's the basic recipe for salt dough:

4 c all-purpose flour

1 c salt

1 1/2 cups hot tap water

2 tsp vegetable oil (optional)

food coloring to color the dough (optional)

Mix flour and salt together in mixing bowl. If you are going to add food coloring you can mix it into the water. Gradually add water to form a firm dough (you can add the vegetable oil now if you'd like, to make the dough a better texture to work with). If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour, or if the dough is too crumbly, add a tiny bit more water, until you get a pliable dough. Knead the dough until it is nice and elastic.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Form ornaments, letters, shapes, figurines from the dough using rolling pins, straws, toothpicks, cookie cutters or whatever tools you can find!

Here are some other types of Christmas ornaments I have made and still need to paint and put a ribbon on to hang them on the tree!:

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Place the salt-dough creations on the cookie sheet, leaving some space around each one. Baking time will vary according to the thickness of the salt dough creations. Make sure each part is completely dry and hard. If parts are browning during cooking, you can cover those areas with aluminum foil

Cool completely. You can now paint the creations, add ribbons and other decorative elements.

To preserve your creations, seal them on all sides with clear varnish or polyurethane spray.

If you have extra dough, it does not keep well, only a couple of days in the refrigerator.

One thing we did a few years ago, which makes a wonderful keepsake, is make handprints in salt dough. I first cut out circles using a large lid to fit the hand, then had each child press their hand in the dough to make their handprint. Using a toothpick, making tiny dots that run together, I printed each child's name, age, and the year. We already enjoy seeing how much they've grown when they now place their hands in their handprints from several years ago!

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Children love making salt dough creations! I have used this project to keep little ones occupied while babysitting, and at the end of the day they get to take home their creation to their mom and dad. I've also seen online some very intricate pieces of art formed from salt dough! It's pretty amazing what you can do with simple flour, salt, and water!

Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies