Yogurt Cup Pile-up

by Julia Parker, from the September 2004 Newsletter

Hanging from my nightstand with green and blue masking tape is a stick, string and yogurt lid piece. It’s a rainbow mobile, lovingly assembled and attached to my table by my daughter. We may not be beating swords into plowshares at our house, but we can make art from our trash and recyclables. At least, that’s what we’ve been doing since the Co-op became filled to the gills with all of our reusable yogurt containers. And, we can only have so many re-used yogurt containers full of mystery leftovers in the refrigerator, so many yogurt containers filled with beads, buttons, glitter and stickers, and so many yogurt containers for washing our paint brushes. So, we’ve begun making sculptures and mobiles with our Brown Cow, Nancy’s, Wallaby detritus.

Yogurt cups (and other containers of this genre) cut well into a variety of shapes. For little ones, like my 4-year-old, the edges of the lids make nice “rainbows” or “smiles” if cut in half. Paint doesn’t stick well to yogurt containers but bits of scrap paper or foil can dress things up a bit. I personally like the look of fragments of color and words from the original containers.

Most importantly though is that kids learn to think of art in creative ways—allowing them to take something that may not seem like your standard art material and work it into something that is aesthetic and meaningful to them. So, make some yogurt lid spirals, some yogurt monsters, yogurt cup mobiles or whatever your child imagines. And, if worse comes to worst and your house and grandma’s house are filled with yogurt container art, you can use the recipe below to make your own yogurt in reusable glass jars.

To make your own yogurt, you’ll need a candy thermometer, milk, a small amount of plain yogurt, clean glass jars (or you can reuse old but very clean yogurt containers) and a heating pad.

Heat one quart milk in a saucepan to 170 degrees F.
Cool to 130 degrees F.
Add 1/3 cup plain yogurt.
Option: add 1 cup non-instant powdered milk for thicker yogurt.

Place mixture in loosely covered containers. (I use Ball jars with the lids loosely attached.)
Set jars on a heating pad covered with a towel, with the pad set on ‘low’ for 6–8 hours.
Add honey, fruit, maple syrup, stevia, or anything else that strikes your fancy when you are ready to eat the yogurt.
Now that will take care of that yogurt cup pile-up!

Julia Parker is a mother, a doula, and a recovering academic.

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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