Coconut Yogurt!

I get requests for my husband's Coconut Yogurt recipe all the time! Why? Because here in Canada, we can't buy coconut yogurt very easily. When Miss A was diagnosed with her food issues, dairy was cut out, but then so was soy, and I was unable to eat soy as well. Miss A had been eating copious amounts of yogurt so taking her off it cold turkey seemed .. well, difficult. So Chef Husband started doing some research into an alternative. After a lot of surfing the web, he stumbled upon some success.

First, we invested in a yogurt maker. It cost about $60 but is worth every penny if you plan to make yogurt more than a couple of times. It keeps the yogurt at the right temperature the whole time without having to be diligent about checking the temperature.

Also, we buy a yogurt starter. The one that we currently use has dairy (yogourmet), but there is an alternative called yo-life that is also dairy free.

First step is to pour 2 cans of coconut milk into a saucepan - do not use the lite version as it won't thicken!

Add just a little less than 1/4 cup of tapioca starch (you can also use a combination of agar agar and tapioca starch)

You want to heat the milk up but it does not need to come to a boil.

Remove from heat and once it reached about 105F (it will have to cool down to get here), you can stir in your yogurt starter (once you've made it once, you can use that yogurt to start your next batch). Why can't you add it right away? It will kill all the bacteria!

Ladle it into your jars that came with your yogurt maker (or you can use mason jars) and let it heat for 4-6 hours. If you're making it with dairy you need to let it go longer. *Note: If you use yo-life, you will need to let it go for about 12 hours.

After 4-6 hours, remove and lid the jars, and place in the fridge. Voila! Coconut yogurt homemade!

We use some multivitamins and liquid calcium to enhance the nutrients of the yogurt for Miss A, and we sweeten it with agave and real maple syrup. Both kids eat it for breakfast with cereal, as does Chef Husband!

Hope you enjoyed and if you have questions, let me know! (And I'll ask the Chef because truthfully, I've neve rmade this yogurt..)

Stay tuned - within the next couple of days I'm going to have a giveaway!!! And, I will have the results from my second biopsy to share that turned out to be a lot more positive than I anticipated!