Ingredients

• 1 2/3 C Nonfat Powdered Milk
• 4 C Water
• 2 C Greek Style Yogurt Bites - Freeze Dried

Directions

1. Rehydrate the powdered milk in water. The nonfat milk does not mix as easily as instant milk, but there are several ways to do it effectively. I use a pitcher that has a "plunger" and fill part way with water, then add powder and finish with on top. Using the plunger to mix is effective. You could also use a blender, or an immersion blender. All these techniques take just a few minutes.
2. Heat the milk in a double boiler (or a bowl placed over a pan of water) until the milk reaches a temperature of 180 degrees. Stir often to keep the heat distributed evenly. Remove milk from heat - at this point if you like a thick, greek style yogurt add some more milk powder - up to 1/3 cup. Don't worry it mixes in easily to the hot milk. If your preference is a thinner, more runny yogurt you can skip this step.
3. Place the bowl or pan of milk in a sink or big bowl of cold water - do not dump the milk in the water - just use the water to cool the pan so the milk will cool faster. Drop the temperature to 115 degrees. Remove the pan from water
4. Add yogurt bites and stir into milk. Don't worry about stirring until they are all dissolved - just stir them in well (about 30 seconds). If it bothers you that there are still small pieces of yogurt bites, you can stir it one more time in about 5-10 minutes, but after that - No Stirring!
5. If you don't have a yogurt maker skip to next step. If you have a yogurt maker follow the instructions that came with it to culture your yogurt. If you don't have a yogurt maker (like me), there are many ways to culture yogurt. You will need to maintain a temp of 100-115 degrees for several hours. I use my oven - I have a bread proofing feature which sets the temp at 100 degrees. The oven I had before this one had a drying feature which allowed me to set the temperature at 110 degrees. You can use a heating pad or a cooler with hot water bottles, anything that will keep the yogurt warm.
6. Just let your yogurt set and incubate, undisturbed, for 7-10 hours. The longer the yogurt sets the more tart and thicker it becomes. I will usually incubate my yogurt about 9 hours for my personal preference. When it is finished incubating, put it in a container (or containers) with a lid and refrigerate for several hours.
7. It can be used in recipes calling for unsweetened yogurt, as a substitution for sour cream, or in your favorite smoothie. To eat it for breakfast or a snack, I will sweeten with Thrive FD Honey Crytals, add a little shake of Thrive Vanilla Powder, reconstituted Thrive FD fruit, and topped with seeds or granola. So healthy - So delicious!!