1. The time when my little brother got scared by a possum on the porch and had my dad shoot it in the balls with a BB gun.
2. The time my sister threw all of her ex-husband’s belongings off the balcony and locked him out of the house.
3. The time when my Nana and great-uncle Lowell were forced to eat rhubarb pie at the Cabot family home when she was a little girl.

So you are probably humming to yourself ♫One of these things is not like the other♫. While the first two stories evoke a certain, ahem, Texas-ness, the story of my grandmother dining with the Boston Brahmins though different in local color still enjoys at least one revival a year. In a nutshell, my great-grandmother, who worked for the Cabots, was invited to an employee lunch at their home. My Nana and great-uncle were under strict orders to eat every bite of every dish they put on their plates, or else. So of course when they saw the lovely pink rhubarb pie they each got a huge slice and dug in, only to be assaulted by a bitter, sour goop that they had to choke down until it was gone, lest the incite my great-grandma’s ire. You should see my Nana’s face when she tells this story, it’s like she’s still trying to swallow it. This story has been told so many times and with such theatrics that it has left an indelible mark on my culinary sensibilities: rhubarb is the most vile thing you could put in a pie crust.

Pretty in Pink

Rhubarb has made several recent appearances at the farmers market and realizing that there must be some redeeming quality to it, I decided to give it a try. Further encouragement arrived in the June Food411 newsletter “Romancing Rhubarb“. While I’m only interested in friendship [giggles nervously], this article is a great intro for those of us who have never cooked with the vegetable before.

The easiest thing you can do with rhubarb is make a compote, which is basically simmering it in sweet liquid until it breaks down to the consistency you desire. Rhubarb is fantastic for compote because it takes about 10-15 minutes to render a chunky compote, and roughly 30 minutes to get a smooth applesauce texture. BTW, check out cookthink.com if you fancy yourself a food nerd. I ♥ it.

The basic recipe for compote is simple enough: chopped rhubarb, water, sugar. I wanted to make it a little more special so added an herb that has been finding its way into many of my dishes lately: tarragon. You have to go easy with the T, man, or it will kick your dishes’ ass. But when done with subtlety it lends a sweet anise flavor that is hard to match with any other herb. Of course you could leave it out of this recipe altogether and it would still be delicious.

You read that correctly, it said “DELICIOUS”. Mixed with some greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey, this rhubarb compote makes an elegant and refreshing dessert perfect for completing a summertime meal. I feel that I have vindicated this vegetable to my family…if only I can undo the years of conditioning and get them to try this recipe.

This recipe really couldn’t be easier. I even hesitate to call it a recipe.

Quinoa Qurispies

Adapted (barely) from this recipe
Makes 4 servings
Cost: pennies per serving
Total time: 10 minutes tops

1 cup uncooked quinoa (find it in the bulk bins at Whole Foods or boxed in the health food or pasta aisle)
1 Tablespoon agave nectar, syrup or honey
1 Tablespoon canola or vegetable oil

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and spread the mixture on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5 minutes, or until the quinoa starts to turn golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Store in an airtight container.
3. Add the qurispies to your morning cereal or yogurt. I especially love the extra crunch and sweetness they give to yogurt.

I may experiment with the sweetener and use molasses for an even bigger dose of iron. I told y’all, I’m not messin’ around.

Photo Credit SweetBeetAndGreenBean

When I first started shooting pro, I was told “get down close and shoot it like porn”…and natural light is best.

Check out Laura’s tasty food photos here.

She was right. Is this too much? It is, isn’t it.

Figs are said to be an aphrodisiac

Fig and Chile Pasta

Adapted from this recipe on Culinate.com. You should check out Culinate, it’s all about being healthy and conscientious while not totally depriving yourself.

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

12 dried figs
2 lemons
1- 6 oz container plain fat-free yogurt
12 oz whole-wheat fettuccine
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 fresh chile, seeded and finely chopped (don’t do what I did and dose yourself with too much chile. Ouch!)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Put a large pot of salted water on to boil.
2. Cut figs in halves or quarters and place cut-side up on a plate. I chose to use dried figs because the fresh ones at Whole Foods looked manky that day.
3. Grate the zest from the lemons and squeeze the juice of one lemon into the yogurt. Stir in the lemon zest.
4. Once you have achieved a righteous boil on the water, add the pasta and cook according to the package.
5. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. I cut the amount from the original recipe in half, just cuz. Add the figs and chile and cook for a couple of minutes. When the mixture looks softened remove it from the heat.
6. Drain the fettuccine, return it to the pot and stir in the lemon yogurt, the Parmesan and the fig and chile mixture. Serve immediately.

Plain yogurt makes a quick and healthy pasta sauce a la alfredo…stop laughing. OK, it’s not exactly alfredo, but it IS tasty. Is there anything yogurt can’t do? The final product is pictured below, next to the Heirloom Tomato Salad I wrote about on Houstonist.

I read somewhere recently that yogurt was the first ever health food. I feel totally vindicated. So what if you are not a huge fan of dairy, or if you’re vegan or you have an allergy? You can still eat yogurt, as there are plenty of non-dairy options. I rounded up the most popular brands to give you the low down on plant-based yogurts. Since by now I’m sure you’re eating it every day because I told you to (ha!), it will be fun to mix it up a bit even if you don’t have anything against dairy.

SO Delicious Cultured Coconut Milk Blueberry Yogurt

Hello! I saw this and could hardly contain my excitement. I friggin’ love coconut, so I’m thinking this stuff would be the marriage of two things that make me happy. I was willing to neglect that one 6 oz container contains 6 grams of fat just for the novelty. I’m sad to report that at least the blueberry flavor of SO Delicious was SO underwhelming. The consistency was runny, it was way too sweet, and it just didn’t have that coconut milk richness I was hoping for. One positive was the live and active cultures, so if that’s what you’re looking for then give it a shot. At $1.50 a pop, I think I’ll give this a pass next time.

Whole Soy & Co. Blueberry Soy Yogurt

I know what you’re thinking. This sounds about as appetizing as soy cheese. You should give it a chance, because this stuff is delicious. I was expecting more runny blandness, but Whole Soy makes a creamy and rich yogurt that isn’t too sweet and doesn’t have that soy taste I’m not terribly fond of. It’s a nutrition boon at 30% of the recommended daily value for calcium, and only contains 150 calories and 3.5 grams of fat per 6 oz cup. It’s also casein, whey and gluten free (Hey Lauran! I found you a yogurt!). For $1.19 a pop, I think I will be seeing more of this brand in my morning yogurt rotation.

Silk Live! Bluberry Soy Yogurt

With my mind open to soy yogurt, I happily picked up the Silk brand at $0.99 for a 6 ounce cup. They claim 6 live active cultures in their brand, something that wasn’t apparent on the Whole Soy & Co. label. The yogurt was little runnier and tasted like soy to me, but it did have huge whole blueberries mixed in. At 150 calories and only 2 grams of fat the Silk brand weighs in the skinniest so far, which explains why it seemed a little runnier. It’s cheap and not terrible, so I may buy it again.

Yes, that's a stack of work behind the cup

Ricera Blueberry Rice Yogurt

I saw this rice yogurt at Hubbell and Hudson, so for the sake of research I dropped the $1.69 for the 6 ounce cup. Ricera is enriched with vitamins A and D and has only 1 gram of fat in the 180 calorie serving. It also tastes like blueberry flavored Elmer’s glue. This stuff practically coated my tongue and is overly sweetened, probably to cover up the funky chemical taste. I couldn’t even finish the container, it was that nasty. No one should ever, ever eat this stuff, especially because it costs so much.

While most nutritionists say whole grains are best, it’s just not practical for us busybodies to sit down with a bowl of cereal before we race out the door. My favorite get-in-my-belly-quick breakfast snack is yogurt, which I’m sure comes as a huge shock to you. I can slurp it down in a minute or eat spoonfuls while I’m doing some other task (usually my makeup). I have a pretty gnarly commute, so if I don’t eat my yogurt by the time I get to my desk I’m ready to bite into my own hand. If you don’t like yogurt, no problem. A hard boiled egg, whole grain toast, even one of those cereal bars is better than nothing. Just go easy on the pastries and donuts.

I want to be clear, I’m not advocating that you ONLY eat a container of yogurt for breakfast. Once you get settled into work you should try to eat another small meal, or “second breakfast” as the Hobbits like to call it. After about an hour of email and the usual morning catch up, I heat up some oatmeal or some other more substantial breakfast treat. This is the part of the day that I shoot for a FIBER BLAST. Oatmeal, flax seeds and prunes are a favorite combo of mine. Let’s just say it keeps things moving.

TMI?

Just to prove to you that you can start eating breakfast, even if you ONLY eat a container of yogurt, I do something kind of gross in the video below. I’m no video expert, so I apologize for the half-assed, half-headed offering. In the interest of not making myself puke, I only had one shot at this today.

My challenge to you is this: if your habit is skipping breakfast, start with a small snack every morning for a week. See how it affects your routine, and better yet, how it makes you feel.

You will need:

A fine mesh strainer
coffee filters
a bowl
a big ol’ container of your favorite yogurt
a rubber spatula

Step 1: Set the strainer over the bowl and line with a coffee filter

Step 2: Scrape the yogurt into the filter and place the whole thing in the fridge.

Step 3: After about 15 minutes lift up the strainer. See all that liquid? That’s the whey from the yogurt, the stuff you are straining out to get the yogurt all thick and Greeky. Dump the whey out of the bowl, place the strainer back on the bowl, and gently stir the yogurt with a rubber spatula, careful not to rip the coffee filter. Put back in the fridge for another 15-30 minutes.

Step 4: Repeat the whey dumping process a few times until it gets to the consistency you like. It usually takes me about 4 times. Once it’s thick enough the yogurt will pretty much just slide off the filter into whatever storage container you choose. I then divide the yogurt up into these cute half cup tupperware containers, et voila! I have my own super cheap stash of 4 single serving portions of Greek yogurt. My favorite every day yogurt is Stonyfield Farms Organic lowfat vanilla flavor. It’s neither overly tangy nor saccharine sweet and you can get a 32 ounce bucket of it for about $3. If you divvy it up into four servings then you’ve just saved about 3 bucks, and you don’t create all the waste from the little cups of single serving yogurt. Bonus to the earth.

It does take a little more time and some planning ahead, but it tastes just like the more expensive single serving Greek style yogurts, at least to me it does. Plus you can add your own mix-ins like local honey or fresh fruit. Try it and let me know if you like it in the comments.

Stonyfield Farm Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt Honey on the Bottom

I’m a big fan of Stoneyfield Farm’s regular old non-Greek yogurt, so I had high hopes for this brand. Sticking to Greek yogurt rule #1, I didn’t stir the honey on the bottom into the yogurt. Instead I gently folded it in so as to preserve the consistency that everyone raves about. Oikos has a smooth and creamy texture less dense than Fage, and the taste was a bit sharper. That’s probably because the Fage yogurt I sampled in the last post was full fat (doh!), while the Oikos is non-fat. I’m OK with that, because while the full fat yogurt was decadent and cheesecakey, the Oikos was light and refreshing. That’s more my pace for my morning yogurt fix. At about $1.25, 120 calories, and 0 grams of fat for 5.3 ounces, it’s easy on the handbag and the saddlebags.

Chobani Non-fat Vanilla Greek Yogurt

I couldn’t find a honey flavor in Chobani, so I opted for vanilla. The texture was more like full fat Fage, but the flavor was too, uh, vanilla. It tasted more like plain yogurt to me. That’s not what I’m looking for in a yogurt, so I drizzled about a tablespoon of local honey on top. Bingo! Chobani is also 120 calories and 0 grams of fat, but that’s for 6 ounces compared to 5.3 ounces of Oikos. You’ll pay about $1.69 for it, and if you add the tablespoon of honey like me you’ll also pay with 64 more calories.

Siggi’s Icelandic Style Skyr Strained Non-fat Yogurt in Orange and Ginger

Even though it’s not labeled Greek yogurt, which is essentially strained yogurt, I threw in Siggi’s for fun and because it’s made from the milk of grass-fed cows. Also, they use agave nectar as the sole sweetener. I’m a sucker for that neo-hippie crap, so I was geeking out about this one. Siggi’s has a the expected thickness for strained yogurt and this flavor contains little bits of candied ginger, but I found it too tart for my taste. I didn’t enjoy eating it and thought about dumping honey on it like the Chobani…then I remembered that this a health blog and that would make me a total windbag. The nutritional stats were the same as the other yogurts, though at $2.69 for 6 ounces it was the most expensive. Some folks may like the mouth-puckering effect of this stuff. ‘Tis not for me.

Voskos Non-fat Blended Greek Yogurt in Honey

Touted as the #1 selling Greek style yogurt, Voskos was well-represented in the Whole Foods dairy case. Unlike Oikos, the honey in Voskos is blended into the yogurt. I liked that I didn’t have to fold or stir it, yet the consistency was a little thinner than the competition. Also, the sweetness of Voskos was too intense. I thought surely this would correlate with a huge calorie jump, but no, for 5.3 ounces it weighs in at 130 calories and no fat. The price is comparable to Oikos, about a buck fiddy, so if you have the palate of a sugar ant then Voskos is your yogurt.

My favorite of the lot was Oikos. It’s cheap, neither too sweet nor too tart, low cal, low fat and will add some variety to my daily yogurt habit.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Greek yogurt, how it’s decadent texture belies it’s low fat content. I’m always looking for a “cheat”, so I thought I’d test out a few brands and see if the hype is warranted.

Fage All Natural Greek Strained Yogurt (with honey)

This stuff looks like the real deal, because the packaging has a decidedly foreign look to it. I mean, there’s only one exclamation point on the entire thing (pronounced Fa-yeh!). It comes in this odd segregated container which I think you mix like this:

I even took a picture of the nutrition label, which I totally ignored

I followed the destructions on the package and didn’t stir it. I dug my spoon into what felt like the consistency of cream cheese and oh mah gah, my eyes rolled back into my head and I did a happy dance! It tasted like cheese cake! Holy shit, I can’t believe this is yogurt! I shoveled the entire container into my mouth before I took note of the nutrition label.

Damnit!

This stuff is NOT low fat. A whopping 250 calories, 110 of which come from fat, for a 5.3 oz container! Crap in a crap basket, I had no intention of consuming 45% of my daily value of saturated fat in a few minutes.

The verdict: Fage is hella delicious, and with that much fat it better be. I hear there is a 0% fat version, but this full fat one will definitely not become my daily yogurt fix. I may occasionally indulge in it for dessert. As far as desserts go, I could do worse.

Up next, Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt with Honey. I will check the label before I inhale this one.