More Instant Pot love

Made yogurt this weekend and it's awesome!  Milk was on sale for $1.75 a gallon so I got LOTS of yogurt for a fraction of what I normally pay!!

Also made pulled pork.  I think I died and went to pork heaven. 

What goes in the yogurt? What's the texture /taste similar to? 

I LOVE yogurt so I'm tempted to get one but then at the same time, I'm trying to move to 3 meals a day which wouldn't give me much opportunity to eat it. Why oh why is life so complicated lol!!?

I eat yogurt as part of my meal all the time. I might have yogurt with fruit, or yogurt and a piece of toast with peanut butter, or yogurt, some nuts and raw veggies. Works well as part of a meal for me!

The yogurt was simple:  Milk and yogurt culture.  I used 1 gallon of 2% milk and 1/2 cup of Fage 2% plain.  When it was done, I strained it in cheese cloth but then today I decided it wasn't thick enough so I strained it again!  The texture was more like Greek style yogurt.  Since I cook with it, I made plain.  Figured I can always add flavors for breakfast :)

I bought the Instapot because of the yogurt function. I have been making yogurt for years but this is the easy button. I don't do the boiling thing in the instapot, takes too much watching. I do it in the microwave or stove, and just put my mix in the Instapot.

Have been experimenting with how long to cook hard boiled eggs. There are lots of formulas out there, but mostly I got eggs with soft centers or again too much watching like the 6-6-6 formula. (6 minutes steam, 6 minutes natural release, 6 minutes in cold water) If I am going to take something easy like boiling eggs, the instapot has to make it easier or faster. So after many soft centered eggs I got to- Manual Set 9 minutes - (could even do 10) quick release, put in cold water. These are eggs I could make deviled eggs or egg salad with. I put one cup or so water in the bottom, steamer basket in -with eggs on top.

I did hard boiled eggs at 6-6-6 and they were perfect. The thing that amazed me about doing them in the Instant Pot was how easy they were to peel!  

Poached eggs this morning were wonderful and so easy to make while I was getting everything else for breakfast done.

I may have to try boiling the milk in the microwave or on the stove next time.  Do you just bring it to a boil or to a temperature?  It was the waiting for it to cool to 115 that took the time!

First of all it doesn't need to come to a boil (212 degrees) ...if you want to go high 180 is all that is needed. I used to do it on a pot on the stove, then but a large stainless steel bowl in the sink with ice and water and put the pot in there and watch the temp, stirring occasionally...and it took about 5 minutes for it to come under 120 degrees. It only has to be below 120 when you add your starter yogurt. The yogurt and stirring will cool it even more, so actually the day I made it in the IP it was below 115 by the time it went into the IP.

All that being said... I don't even do the 180 thing anymore. The milk is already pasteurized, and whatever mumbo jumbo they tell you why you need to make it 180 or why you can't use ultrapastuerized milk isn't true. I just heat it to 120 ish in my Pampered Chef batter bowl in the microwave. (I do 1/2 gallon. last time I used Fairlife milk -lower carb higher protein) You just have to keep checking the temp. I think last time it took about 6 minutes. Stir in my starter yogurt and put it in the IP and pressed the yogurt button. it was a little grainer than normal on the bottom, but I think that was from sitting on warm after the 8 hours - I did it overnight. But once I stirred it and it cooled it was fine.

I use Whole milk. 2 most important things - below 120 when you add the yogurt- and starter yogurt with active cultures. If you don't have yogurt success try a different starter. I have had good luck with Dannon, Stonyfield farms and Aldi greek yogurt. I have had failures with some starter yogurts that said they had active cultures. They obviously didn't.

Alton Brown from Food TV is the one that convinced me it didn't need to go to 180 degrees... didn't just make it up.

Thank you!  I will try this next time.  

If Alton says it, it must be true!

I am all about keeping it simple... if you tell me I don't need an extra step, I will gladly take it out.

Still have not tried eggs in the IP. I go through phases where I eat a lot, then none for a long period because I get sick of them. I can't stand peeling them though, so looking forward to trying it!