It was ambitious breakfast week and I got to do two things I’ve been meaning to try for a long time – make granola and yogurt from scratch! This was so easy! The hardest part was waiting 7 hours in anticipation until I could see if the yogurt worked or not. Once I had the granola and yogurt all ready, I sprinkled some sugar on sliced strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, and layered the three components in a wine glass.

YOGURT

Ingredients:

Whole milk (as much milk as you want yogurt)

Spoonful of yogurt with live cultures

Directions:

Pour milk into glass jar or small pan. Heat milk until it reaches 185°F. I believe this is to kill any bad bacteria in the milk that may flourish during the incubation of the yogurt. Cool milk in cold water bath until it reaches 110°F, then pour some of the warm milk into a cup with the spoonful of yogurt to warm it up a little bit. Pour milk/yogurt mixture back into the rest of the milk. Keep jar at 110°F for 7 hours to culture the yogurt – make sure you keep it in a place where it won’t be moved. I did this by filling a small cooler with warm water and covering it with a ton of towels and blankets. Every couple of hours I would replace some of the water with hot water to keep it nice and warm. After 7 hours it should have a layer of firm cream on the top and lots of tiny curds in it, and it smells and tastes like yogurt! Give the jar a good stir and/or shake – the disturbance will slow down the bacteria so that the yogurt culturing process begins to stop. If you keep incubating the yogurt, it will firm up a little more, but it will also become more sour, so play around with the flavors and consistencies by playing with the time. Throw it in the fridge, and it will firm up even more!

GRANOLA

Now for the easy part! I made Alton Brown’s Granola, but I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, and about 1 1/3 c sliced almonds and 2/3 c chopped walnuts. It toasts to such a beautiful color, and it’s really good straight out of the oven (I ate too much of this during the 7 hours I was waiting for my yogurt to become yogurt).