Easy Yogurt Parfait

EASY YOGURT PARFAIT

For a light, refreshing dessert or snack, here's an easy way to make yourself a quick parfait:

• 1/4 c. fresh blueberries
• 1/2 medium banana, sliced
• 1 tbsp Strawberry Icebox Jam (or Strawberry Apple Jam)
• 1 tbsp cashew pieces
• 1/4 c. plain kefir (liquid yogurt)

Combine ingredients in a dish and serve.

The fruits give you sweetness and a variety of flavors. The cashews give you texture. The kefir provides a cool backdrop. The protein in the kefir and the fat in the cashews help slow down absorption of the natural sugars in the fruits.

Homemade vs. Packaged Foods

Because my recent recipes have been turning out quite tasty, I've now supplanted quite a number of categories of packaged foods in my diet with homemade items. That means I can eat healthier, cheaper, and tastier meals and snacks that are also more digestible.

Here are some examples:

• Energy bars: Banana Raisin Carrot Protein Bites, Tasty Chocolate Super Bites, Pecan Vanilla Orange Bites
• Soups: Caroline's Zucchini Soup, Basic Vegetable Soup, Spicy Root Vegetable Soup, Black Bean & Spinach Soup
• Veggie Burgers: Savory Cannellini Cilantro Burger, Pinto Oregano Burger, Black Bean Cumin Burger
• Fruit Preserves: Strawberry Icebox Jam, Apple Pie Filling Jam, Prune Butter, Grape Apple Jam
• Bread: Whole Wheat Oat & Honey Loaf

More items in the works, of course!

Apple Pie without Guilt

When I was in college, I could finish off an Entenmann's apple pie in a day . . . or less. Never even sliced it into civilized pieces -- or "slivers", as we innocently request in my family. Just opened the pie box, took out a forkful every time I passed by the refrigerator, and, surprise! no more pie by dinner time.

I don't do that anymore, but I still LOVE PIE. What to do?

Here's a continuation of the last post about icebox jam. This time we'll call it "apple compote", as my grandmother used to say.

It turns out, you can enjoy the best part of pie -- the FILLING -- without adding all the fat, salt, sugar and processed flour if actual pie to your hips. 

How? By simply stewing the apple pie filling ingredients as follows:

• Cut up some apples, and put them into a pan.
• Throw in some raisins.
• Add a few squirts of honey.
• Add a couple of shakes of cinnamon
• Add a pinch of allspice.
• Add water to cover.
• Stew at low/medium heat until most of the liquid is absorbed.
• Once it cools a bit, mash gently with a potato masher.
• Keep refrigerated.

Eat it by the spoonful, or garnish it wish granola, or serve it over a dollop of plain yogurt, or spread it over nut butter on a nice slice of whole grain bread.

There you have it, Apple Pie without Guilt.

Fresh Fruit into Icebox Jam

I love slathering nut butter onto a cracker or slice of bread and layering on a juicy topping of fruit preserves. Kind of like the familiar "P,B&J" of our childhoods. However, store-bought jam -- even the "only fruit" variety -- usually gives me a hot flash, which means to me that it has an inflammatory effect on my system. I love my fruits, but want an anti-inflammatory effect these days. What to do?

I discovered "Icebox Jam" at craft shows in NJ this Fall. It's made using refrigeration, rather than the complicated boiling and canning technique that some of us can remember our grandparents or parents using. The flavor is fresh and light, more reminiscent of the actual flavor of the fruit itself. And, for me it had the bonus of no-hot-flash.

Strawberry icebox jam

Last week, I experimented at home with simply stewing fresh strawberries in water with a little bit of honey to make Strawberry Icebox Jam. Instead of cooking them until all the liquid was absorbed, as soon as the fruit was mushy to the touch, I strained the liquid into a jar, mashed the solids with a fork and poured them into another jar.

The solids make a delicious jam, and I use the liquid in salad dressing or mixed into plain yogurt as a "lassi" drink. Yum, yum, and yum.

As I tried the same process this morning with some leftover frozen blueberries, it reminded me of all the jars of stewed prunes that my dad canned over the years. He used the traditional mason-jars-in-boiling-water technique, adding a touch of lemon juice and a couple of cloves into the mix. And he stewed tomatoes the same way -- tomatoes, of course, harvested at their juicy peak from his backyard New Jersey garden.

If you want to sample really interesting icebox jam flavor combinations, check out the wonderful offerings at IceBoxJam.com. Whenever I see those folks at a show, I make sure to buy a few jars. 

Meanwhile, at home in my more basic and lazy kitchen, I'm looking around for some more fruit to turn into jam.

TIP: Since strawberries are pricey, you can "stretch" this jam recipe by combining the strawberries with chopped apples and cooking them together to make Strawberry Apple Jam.