Passion for yogurt & granola

Lately, I'm really into homemade dairy products. I'm not buying a cow or anything, but I do make cottage cheese and faux mascarpone on a daily basis. It was only natural, that I tried my hands on some home-made yogurt.

To be completely honest, I don't think I'll be repeating the experiment in a hurry, but only because we can get delicious, all natural yogurt in the local store at a comparable price.
From what I've read, it's quite tricky to get real yogurt with no funny additives but with natural cultures nowadays. I'm in no way nutrition expert so all I'll say here is: study the labels!

The best way to make your own yogurt is, of course, to get the bacteria cultures, but you can make do with a spoonful of good natural yogurt and some milk!
The key is temperature, all the rest is just waiting.

Home-made yogurt
1/2 liter milk
2-3 spoons of natural yogurt with bacteria cultures

Warm the milk to approx. 40 degrees (warm but not hot) and mix with yogurt. Keep it warm for 7-8 hours or overnight. Ideally, it should be left in 30-degree temperature.

As far as I know, there are some devices for home yogurt making, but I'm not so committed to this task to own, or even research one. You can leave it in a barely warm oven, on the balcony (if it's warm and sunny), wrap it in a blanket, pour into warm thermos etc.

Once it's ready keep it in the fridge. Of course, you can double or triple the ingredients- I read somewhere that home-made yogurt will last up to two weeks!
Oh, and you can make next one or two batches from this one, later on, you have to get the store bought yogurt again.

While I'm happy with store bought yogurt, I'm completely obsessed with home-made granola. It's my biweekly ritual to prepare a huge jar for our breakfasts and guilt-free snacks

Because I make it so often, I change the proportions and ingredients - and you can do the same - but here is the basic recipe:

400 g oats
100-200 g seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame,  etc)
100-200 g chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts etc)
100 g desiccated coconut (or other nuts)
150 g liquid honey (or sugar syrup)
2-3 spoons oil (sunflower, almond, coconut etc)
150 pureed apple

+ 100-200 g dried fruits (raisins, goji berry, cranberry etc)

Mix everything (apart from dried fruits) together until it forms rough crumbs. Spread evenly on baking parchment and bake 30-40 min in 160 degrees.
Everything should be golden-brown, dry and crunchy.
Cool it down, mix in dry fruits and store in a tight lid container for a couple of weeks.

And now, when you have both your yogurt and granola, try it with some passion fruit!