Homemade Yogurt Parfaits

Sometimes you have to just smile. :) I made these parfaits for my families breakfast. As they came down to eat, they were a little skeptical of what it had in it. It made me smile to myself, and think about the fact they have gotten to be the guinea pigs of the family. I used to have 7 children at home, now I am down to 2. My cooking has changed a lot in the last couple years. For me it is a new adventure to try new things. It is exciting to have some things I have never made before. I love filling my grocery basket up with new things instead of buying the same old thing. The thing that comes with experimenting is new foods, of course, is trial and error. :/

My latest thing I am trying is goats' milk. I went to a dairy and bought it fresh. I have heard a lot of great things about it. I am making kefir out of it. I made goat cheese out of it last night. It turned out well. My husband had gotten some goat cheese a couple of weeks ago, I really enjoyed it. So I love the continual learning, but my children never know what they are going to be eating. It is nice to be able to smile and laugh about it too, which I did do with them yesterday. It felt really good to laugh too. They will have fun memories of this time, and hopefully they will take some healthier ways to eat with them when they leave home. I know some of my other children have, and that makes me happy. For now I appreciate their patience with my desire to create and make new things. Each day is a new adventure for them and for me. :) There is so much out there to learn. I have learned so much, and yet have so much still to learn.

These Parfaits were really yummy. We have had them before, here is another version to try. I made homemade yogurt the other night, so it was the perfect breakfast when we were on the run in the morning. It would make a healthy dessert as well.

Ingredients:

3 C homemade plain yogurt or store bought
3-4 T honey (depends on how sweet you want it)
1 tsp vanilla
3-4 T flax ground up
1-2 C homemade granola
1 banana
1 C blueberries or another kind of berry

Directions:

1. Mix yogurt with honey and vanilla.

2. Then get a dish and make layers. I started off with. a scoop of yogurt, sprinkled on a teaspoon of flax, then homemade granola, spoonful of berries, a few cut up pieces of banana, then do those steps again. End with granola sprinkled on the top.

I hope you are having fun learning and exploring too!

Almond Cashew Chicken

1/2 C. Cashews unsalted (chopped in a food processor)
1/2 C. Almonds (chopped in a food processor)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 C. plain yogurt
2 lbs chicken tenders

1. Combine nuts, salt, basil and pepper. Pour into med. size bowl.

2. Pour yogurt in pie pan. Dip chicken into yogurt. Make sure the chicken is completely coated with yogurt. It will keep the chicken tender while baking.

3. Place in Pyrex dish. Bake at 350 I baked it for 45 min. (My chicken was frozen) Don't over cook or it will dry out the chicken.

Easy Summer meal!

Spinach salad

I found a great salad dressing on my Dole spinach package. I haven't bought the store dressings for a long time. It is so easy to make healthy ones at home. This is a low calorie dressing and tasty too. My son in law loved it!

Dressing

1C. plain yogurt (I used homemade)
1 T. fresh lemon juice
2 T. Honey
2 tsp poppy seeds (I left these out) May use chia sometime. :)
Salad

Spinach I used about 5 oz. (Half a package)
1/2 C Blueberries
6 or 7 strawberries sliced (You can use more if you want)
1/2 C. Almonds (chopped in up in food processor)

We make the almonds yummy by adding 2 T. Sugar or 1T. Xagave and the chopped almonds, put in a skillet on the stove. Cook still the sugar melts and thickens. Take off the stove and cool before serving. You could use other kinds of nuts, as well.
Mix all together. Put the salad together right before serving the spinach wilts quickly.

*Sorry I didn't get a picture before we ate it. Next time I make it, I will get a picture. It makes a very pretty salad.

* Tonight I used the dressing on a fruit salad with sliced apples, chopped oranges, grapes, dried cherries and I had some cooked chicken that I added. Put on spinach leaves. It tasted great! This dressing is versatile and very easy. :)

* Made it for Father's day! Here is the picture of it!

Berry Smoothie

I love this time of year. I went on a walk this morning. The colors were wonderful. :) I read an article today about the benefits of smoothies. 1. It helps to take off the pounds. :) 2. Fast and easy so you can take away the hunger pangs fast. 3. Packed with nutrition, if you put in the right ingredients; Like flax, berries, and yogurt. 4. The thickness takes up space in your stomach. Crowding out space for the junk food. 5. The study showed people consumed less calories in the day. The mixture I did was.....

2 C. Plain yogurt (I used the homemade)
3/4 C. Blackberries
3/4 C. Blueberries
6 Frozen Strawberries
1 1/2 Frozen Bananas *
1/4 C. Chia
1/4 C. Flax ground (I use a small coffee grinder)
1 T Xagave or Honey

Throw it all in the blender and turn it on for a couple minutes till all blended. It tasted great. It was filling. Three of us drank one recipe. If you don't want it as thick, you could add 1/2 water.*I peel the bananas and put them in the freezer, in ziplocks. They help to make the drink nice and creamy. :) Smoothies are a family favorite. I enjoy it better than ice cream. Also Drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day will make you not as hungry. I try to drink more than 8.

Granola Treat!

This is another recipe Jeanie passed along. I love the big chips of coconut. I hadn't used those before. This recipe is very versitile, and you could add your other favorite ingredients to it. For example, pumpkins seeds or dried fruit would go with this well.

For the class that I taught last week, I used the granola to make parfaits, with just a layer of granola, a layer of yogurt, another layer of granola, and then topped with fresh fruit. They were gone very quickly!

Jeanie's Granola

Mix together in large bowl:

12 c. rolled oats
3 c. chipped coconut, unsweetened

2 c. almonds chopped in food processor
2 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 c. flax seeds ground (they also could be whole, but you get more health benefits from ground)
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 T. cinnamon

Mix well in seperate bowl:

1/2 c. coconut oil or 1/2 c. olive oil
3/4 c. honey or 1/3 c. xagave & 1/4 c. honey (The honey makes it clump together well.)

Add 2 tsp. vanilla or 1 tsp. maple syrup or 1 tsp. almond extract. Pour over top of oatmeal mixture and stir through. Pour on to cookie sheets. Spread out. Bake 25 min at 300. I stir it about every 10 min.

Turn off oven and leave 3 hours or leave overnight. (I have done it both leaving it overnight and eating right after the cooking time. Both work! Both ways are yummy!)

Cream Cheese Anyone?

My friend Jeanie also introduced me to making cream cheese. It has been easy and a lot of fun.

After you have made yogurt and have let it thicken fully in the fridge, you can make cream cheese out of it. You simply put the yogurt in a cheesecloth bag, like the one pictured above. My bag came with my Yogourmet maker, but it would be easy to make a simple bag from cheesecloth. It doesn't need to be anything fancy.

Fill the bag with yogurt, then hang it from somewhere. You need to put a bowl under it to catch the whey that will come out of the bag. You then let it sit in the bag for 6-8 hours. At the end of the process you will have cream cheese. You then scoop it out of the bag and put it into the fridge until you are ready to make it into something. :) You can use the whey that has dripped out to add to something you are cooking. It has a lot of potassium in it.

This is what my plain cream cheese looks like. I like the consistency. It is very creamy, especially when compared to store-bought cream cheese. The other bonus is you know exactly what is in it. :) It very pure and fresh tasting.

I posted the Dill Garlic Dip recipe last week. I made with my homemade cream cheese. As shown in the picture above I also made strawberry cream cheese. I just got 1/2 C. cream cheese, 5 strawberries mashed up (you could use other soft fruits too) 1 Tbsp. agave. and mixed it all together. It was a great bagel spread. Jeanie also mentioned mixing some of it with a couple Tbsp. of peanut butter and some agave is delicious, using it to dip bananas into. It tasted really yummy.

You can basically use homemade cream cheese for whatever you usually use cream cheese for. You could make a cheesecake out of it. :) (Although I might leave out some of the sour cream in the recipe because the texture of this is so much lighter.) Let your creativity get to work.

Enjoy!

Making Yogurt

I learned from my new friend, Jeanie, how much fun and healthy making your own yogurt is! And it's pretty easy as well. While it is possible to make yogurt without a fancy machine, I decided it would be easier to purchase a machine to help me keep the temperature regulated. (Otherwise, you have to do that manually, and that was a little more work than I was interested in.)

I purchased the yogourmet, which I got on sale for $39.95. Usually they run a little higher, but look for a good place to buy it. But like I mentioned earlier, there are ways to make it without a machine as well.


The first thing you do is pour 8 cups of milk. That's the base for your yogurt. And then you boil it until it reaches between 180 to 190 degrees. (I even sometimes microwave it.) This kills any bacteria that might be remaining in the milk.


After you heat it up, then you need to cool it down. A ice water bath will help you cool down your mixture more quickly if you like. The temperature should remain at 105 degrees from now on. Plug in your yogurt maker now so it can begin heating up.


Add 2 teaspoons of plain yogurt as a starter. I like to use a more natural brand like Mountain High that has a lower sugar content and lots of good live active and probiotic cultures. I've also been told that some people really like Dannon plain yogurt. You should usually use a store-bought yogurt for your starter because of the active cultures it contains. If you always use your homemade yogurt for your starter, the amount of live cultures will become lower as time goes on.

You will need to mix the yogurt starter and a little bit of your heated milk well in a separate container, and then add it to the rest of the milk.


And since I usually use 1% milk, I also add 1/3 c. of instant nonfat powdered milk. If you use whole milk (which is preferred), you can omit this step.


Next you just pour it in your yogurt maker. Leave it on your counter without moving it for 4 to 4.5 hours, then put it in your refrigerator for 8 hours afterward before stirring it, to let it set.

The yogurt you have made is plain yogurt, so you will probably want to flavor it with fruit, granola, or vanilla, and xagave or honey to sweeten it. You can have fun coming up with all sorts of fun flavors. I just take a small amount out at a time, instead of making it all one flavor. Then I can use it for different flavors. The yogurt lasts for 3 weeks!

Dill Garlic Dip

1 C Cream Cheese (I used some that I made. :) More details about that next week.
If you use store bought you may want to mix in a couple Tbsp of Sour cream.)
1tsp dry parsley
1tsp dill weed (I love this :)
1tsp granulated garlic (I got this at Costco)
1tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt (I used real salt)

Mix it all together and you got a great dip for crackers, chips and vegetables. You could
also use it for baked potato topping, fish tacos. sweet potato fries. Come up with your
own yummy ideas. This was a hit with my family. Enjoy!