Yogurt got its start in either Turkey or Bulgaria (opinions vary)... a long, long time ago. All it is, really, is milk and a special kind of bacteria (I won't go into details about the Latin name).

A neighbor of mine, P~, wrote about making homemade yogurt and I decided to give it a try. Last night the kiddos and I decided to embark on the adventure.

My 3 year old and I went to the store to pick up what we need: the milk and a source of the live bacteria cultures (plain yogurt). Now, before you go crying that it's cheating to make yogurt from yogurt, let me explain. All I needed the yogurt for was the live bacteria cultures, nothing more. Wally World didn't have any plain yogurt, so I got some vanilla yogurt instead; they did have some nice organic whole milk, so I got 1/2 gallon of that, too.

Back home my two older kids and I got out the sauce pan, put the milk on to simmer (you've got to heat it above 200 degrees F. for at least 10 minutes). This kills off all the bacteria in the milk; only certain kinds of bacteria turn milk into yogurt, and the kind in the milk doesn't. This turned out to be rather difficult to get the milk hot enough without boiling (and boiling over, which it did a couple times) -- made more difficult by trying to balance a candy thermometer in the milk (without touching the bottom).

Here are some tips:

• Get it hot relatively slowly (so you don't burn the milk to the bottom of the pot)
• Stir continuously (that means DON'T STOP STIRRING)
• Heat on medium high until the milk "rolls" in the bottom of the pan (simmering)
• As soon as the simmering starts, keep it at that temperature for 10 minutes

Next, fill your sink with cold water (the colder the better). You're going to put the pot of hot milk into the cold water to reduce the temperature quickly. This is where the thermometer comes in handy. You want to cool the milk to about 130 (no lower than 120) so when you add the bacteria you don't kill them (remember, that's why we heated the milk in the first place).

Once you're at the right temp, remove the pot from the cold water and set it on a hot pad and wrap towels around it. We went a step further, and had our crock pot heated and waiting for us, unplugged it and wrapped towels around it (you'll see why later).

Next, take a couple cups of warm milk out of the pot and whisk in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup yogurt until smooth. Then take this mixture and whisk it into the pot (again, until smooth). We added a large tablespoon of vanilla extract for flavor, but could have easily tripled that amount).

Cover the pot, insulate (towels), and leave out all night. You want to keep the milk nice and warm so the bacteria can do their work turning the milk into yogurt (around 100 is a good rule of thumb).

In the morning (or at least 6 hours later) your milk has turned to yogurt. Refrigerate and serve cold.