Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Yogurt Containers, the Next Frontier

I've pretty much banished plastic bottles from my life. My kids have reusable water bottles, I have mine and when I don't and find myself in need of a cold sip, I go glass. What I haven't managed to do is get control over the plastic yogurt containers. I didn't always think about yogurt containers. They seemed an unfortunate fact of life, like the little sleeves around fancy tea bags, and at least they were recyclable. But then everyone started making their own yogurt. Everywhere I looked there were recipes for homemade yogurt, even in the Yoga Journal in a waiting room the other day. Clearly, if I just applied myself to the task of making my own yogurt I could solve the plastic yogurt container problem. Except then I read what Laurie Colwin had to say about making yogurt, which is, basically, you've got to just keep trying and sometimes it will work. This is not exactly encouraging, but I tried anyway, and the yogurt I made was thin and gross. The River Cottage Family Cookbook recommends adding evaporated milk to thicken up the stuff. Maybe I'll try that, or maybe I'll just live with the guilt and hope for the recycling.

4 comments:

Sue Dickman said...

I'm sorry the yogurt you made didn't work. Unfortunately, I think it is a try-try again sort of thing. My first two batches were good and the third not so good. I still haven't tried with anything but whole milk because that's supposed to be the easiest. (And the bad third batch is making me slightly hesitant about trying again, but I'm going to.)

And if it makes you feel any better, I was using a plastic tupperware thing to put the yogurt in after I made it. I like the idea of glass, but I had the plastic, and it was the right size, and you know how it goes.

I'm not sure if you found it (because I posted early on in my May blogathon), but I did put up the granola recipe. It's here. It will taste good whether the yogurt is homemade or not!

Robin Aronson said...

I know I have to get back on the yogurt horse, or something. I had these dreams of making gorgeous yogurt with milk from the farm market! First, though, I think I'll try the granola!

roni said...

My husband bought me a yogurt maker that cost $25 on Amazon. I wasn't crazy about the idea of a single-purpose appliance, but the lovely local milk I buy costs $4 a quart and I was tired of pouring that down the drain each time the yogurt didn't set properly. I keep the yogurt in a quart-sized mason jar. I don't know why, but it really bugs me that I can't make yogurt without a machine. People used to make it in a *pouch,* for pete's sake!

Robin Aronson said...

But does the machine work? (And who knows what that pouch yogurt tasted like.....)