Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I use a Euro Cuisine maker that I bought at SLT. I have been making my own for a few years now and I get great pleasure out of it. Primarily because it is just fun to do and secondly I know that there is nothing in it but starter culture and raw milk. I let it go an hour longer than the recipe says to, but it seems to be creamier and tangier when I do.

An old Maryland recipe.
For 1 lb. of Crab (picked free of shell)
1 heaping soup spoon of mayo
1 good squirt of yellow mustard (2 teaspoons?)
1 TBS of good horseradish
1 egg
tabasco to taste. Not too much. the vinegar will overpower the crab
Dump the crab into a bowl and dust it with Old Bay.
Add a small handful of finely chopped parsley.
Add a dusting of finely ground Ritz cracker crumbs. (a few TBS at most)
Gently toss.
Mix all of the wet ingredients and fold about half of it into the crab. Add more of the wet until the mixture just holds together.
Gently shape into desired size / shape.
Let rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Broil, pan fry or deep fry. If you broil them, brush with melted butter or olive oil before putting them into the oven.

Ditto: avidly!

After reading this, I decided that I had to try making yogurt. I just put the first attempt in the fridge to chill. I tend to like the thicker Greek-style yogurt, so I might strain it tomorrow. So far, it looks okay and it tasted pretty good for being warm.

Wow, I don't believe I said "piece of mind" instead of "peace of mind" up there. Obviously I only had a piece of my mind to work with - it was late, I was tired.

It's important not to use too much starter yogurt in each batch--I use 1 level tablespoon for each quart of milk. More than that crowds the bacillus and produces yogurt that's sour and watery.

I had the Donvier and loved it at first (it took a while to get the recipe right: we like it really tart). Then the warming units seemed to go out: my yogurt would never set, and I'd just have sour milk. However, many props to Donvier, who asked me to send in the broken base and then sent me a brand new unit. I ended up giving this away when I thought we were moving overseas.

I wouldn't buy it again myself, because I think it can totally be done without special equipment. Search youtube for the Good Eats episode on yogurt, or just the food network website for his recipe. That being said, I haven't done so.

But homemade yogurt is so much better than the store bought.

I make my yogurt with a yogurt maker (the model I have is Salton, was about $30, but is for some reason not currently available on Amazon, where I bought mine). It is so easy and not fussy at all - and though a yogurt maker is specialized equipment, it's far from fancy and it's worth it to me for the piece of mind knowing that my yogurt will be kept at the correct temperature, especially since I like mine quite sour and thick, so I usually let it go about 10-12 hours.

I originally bought my yogurt maker because I wanted to make unsweetened soy yogurt (which I've never found in stores), and I wanted to avoid using all those plastic containers - even buying it by the quart they really added up. I highly recommend making your own yogurt, if you eat it regularly - it's economical and you have total control over what goes into it.