Don’t worry … I’m not going to ruin my reputation as Less Than Perfect Homemaker over here. I wouldn’t want to shatter any illusions!

Oh sure, I’m going to share my homemade yogurt recipe. You know, the one that gives you delicious yogurt in the crock pot and you pay $4 for a half gallon of organic milk and get four times the amount of organic yogurt in those little tubes? Or something like that. I’m bored with the math piece of it.

All I know is: my kids like yogurt. I like them to have yogurt. I like them to have yogurt without lots of additives. This is WAY cheaper than buying it.

So – yogurt recipe.

Lovely shot of my yogurt set-up:

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Beautiful staged shot of the finished product with some delicious homemade pumpkin granola. Mmmm.

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I was talking with a friend at church the other day about the beautifully staged blog pictures … after all, any photographer knows the secret is in the cropping. So let’s rotate to the right and left of my pretty yogurt bowl.

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Ah yes … spices, towels, recipes, a tea kettle, and generic Nutella shoved to the left. Cooking spray, the morning’s pancakes, tea pot, and other assorted mess to the right.

That yogurt still tastes really good, though.

One more tip for the yogurt: I use the Infantino Squeeze Station to make yogurt pouches for the kids, especially for Jude. (No product sponsoring or linking or endorsing … I just bought the Squeeze Station and use it with variable success.)

The last time I made the yogurt, I thawed and pureed some frozen berries, sprinkled a little bit of stevia in with it, and mixed some of it into the yogurt. These made pretty little yogurt pouches that Jude LOVED. (Turns out Nora likes this yogurt plain and Seth just doesn’t want it.) Pretty little yogurt pouches ready for going to daycare or in the diaper bag for lunch/snack out on the town.

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Oh, and I also made a huge mess. (More non-staged photos with the iPhone!)

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So if you’d like to do your yogurt in pouches, here are some things I’ve learned:

  • Gravity can be the easiest way to get it in the pouch. That little plunger creates some mighty suction and will pull the yogurt right back out of the pouch.
  • Have your next three pouches already laid out before you start removing the newly-filled three. That way you can slide them in and get the leftover draining into the new pouch.
  • Have the caps out before you take the pouch off the station. That big puddle is from a pouch I laid down so I could grab the caps. Yogurt is runny, and in other news: I’m a genius.
  • I REALLY like having one of those flexible cutting boards under the Squeeze Station. It makes clean-up a lot easier!

There you have it. The messy, non-foolproof way to make organic yogurt at home and put it in squeezy pouches. Seriously though, this made 15 pouches, 2 bowls, and one extra container that’s anywhere from 2-4 cups of yogurt.

And a mess. Did I mention the mess?