Oven Roasted Beet Chips with Cumin Yogurt Dip

I bought the most amazing striped beets at the farmer’s market last week but had a horrible time trying to decide what to do with them. I wanted to be sure to preserve the beautiful pattern, so boiling or pureeing the beets was out of the question, but I also didn’t want to eat them raw in a salad. Eventually, I decided the best option would be to make them into a chip that I could serve with a simple dipping sauce.

Obviously, the best way to make a crispy chip from a vegetable is to fry it in oil, but I was looking for a healthier option so I oven-roasted the beets instead. But of course this lead to a debate over the best way to roast beet slices. I tried many methods including boiling the beets with the skin on before slicing, peeling and roasting raw, roasting at 350°F, and roasting at a very low 225°F. However, I found the best results were to roast the beets raw at a moderate 325°F.

It turned out that boiling the beets, then peeling, slicing and roasting them didn’t do anything to speed up the cooking time and the colors bled a bit more. As for cooking temperatures, 350°F was a bit too high and caused some of the beet edges to char while the centers were still soft, and roasting at 225°F for a long period resulted in a chewy, dried-fruit consistency. Roasting at 325°F made for a perfectly crispy and crunchy chip that was cooked evenly.

Then, to serve the chips I whipped up a simple cumin yogurt dipping sauce using fat-free Greek yogurt, dried cumin, honey, lemon juice and a sprinkle of powdered sumac. In the end, my little experiment turned into a healthy and refreshing snack.

Oven Roasted Beet Chips with Cumin Yogurt Dip

But did I mention that the beets brought a “friend” home with them? Uh, yeah. This little slug hid in the beets and somehow survived my refrigerator for more than a week. He was a hearty little bugger. Oh well, that’s the price you sometimes pay for buying local and organic, but produce of this quality is worth a little extra “protein” once in a while.

Here’s the recipe:

Read more of this >>

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal. Check. Yogurt. Check.

Sounds pretty healthy, right? There’s something about putting the word “oatmeal” in front of “cookie” that makes me think I’m getting a healthy treat. Sort of like how “apple pie” sounds healthier than “chocolate mousse pie.” While I won’t go so far as to call these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies healthy, they are darn tasty with a phenomenal texture and have less fat than traditional recipes.

The key is to use nonfat Greek yogurt in place of some of the butter. This tenderizes the cookies and adds a very subtle tang. But be sure to use Greek yogurt which is thicker than regular yogurt.

This recipe makes five dozen cookies that are best eaten the same day or frozen. In fact, I really like them just out of the freezer – cold, chewy and oddly refreshing.

The best part: you can eat oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for breakfast! Okay, maybe that’s just me but they are that good.

Read more of this >>

Mint Pea Soup with Greek Yogurt

Peas. Mint. Yogurt.

I couldn’t get those three ingredients out of my head all weekend. I didn’t know how they got in there to begin with, all I knew was that I wanted – no NEEDED – to make something with them

Sure, I could have prepared some interesting pesto-type sauce or a dip, but I wanted something a bit simpler that wouldn’t require extra ingredients to enjoy my concoction. The result: Mint Pea Soup with Greek Yogurt.

Essentially a simple puree of peas (either fresh or frozen work; I used a combination of both because that’s what I had) with mint and aromatics (yellow onion, garlic and ginger), this was a clean and refreshing soup finished nicely with a dollop of tangy Greek yogurt.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s bright green? No? Sorry about that, it should have been the first thing I said because I think the color makes the soup kind of fun.

Here’s the recipe:

Read more of this >>

Lemon-Lavender Frozen Yogurt

The sun peaked out a bit and the temperature neared 70°F (gasp) today signaling that it was time for me to break out the ice cream maker. The poor thing has been patiently waiting in the freezer since last October.

By now it’s well-known that I have dairy issues and try to stay away from dairy-laden recipes (see Mint Chocolate Chip Soy Ice Cream). But every once in a while I throw caution to the wind, pop a few Lactaid, and live on the edge.

That brings us to today’s successful (and Friday’s failed) experiment of making a refreshingly tart frozen yogurt. My goal was to create a very simple recipe where you wouldn’t need to cook, puree, infuse, strain or chill anything.

Well, let’s just say I came close and the cooking, straining and chilling are optional. Basically, I just couldn’t get the idea of light and refreshing lemon-lavender frozen yogurt out of my head.

I first tried making this with fat-free yogurt into which I mixed in mint extract, lemon juice, minced dried lavender and honey. It was a big fat failure. The mint overpowered all other flavors and the texture of the dried lavender was awful.

Today’s attempt was much better and still very simple. If you want to avoid those few extra steps then simply omit the lavender, but I think it adds a nice, fragrant touch and makes this frozen yogurt a bit more special.

Also don’t be afraid to play with the flavors and sweeteners to fit your mood. Amounts don’t have to be exact either so long as you’re careful not to add too much liquid. Taste the mixture before pouring it into the ice cream maker and adjust the seasonings, just remember that cold subdues flavor so make the batter a bit stronger than you’d ideally like.

Here’s the recipe:

Read more of this >>

For most of us it seems as though April 15th, AKA tax day, is approaching too fast. But for my sister, Marci, and other family members it couldn’t come soon enough. Pretty much all of them are CPAs (yes, I’m the culinary rebel of the family) and have been working crazy hours since February.

With long days that don’t allow them any actual sunlight, I doubt my sister and her coworkers are eating anything homemade right now, and they truly seem to appreciate any gesture in that direction: two weeks ago I sent Marci to work with cake balls and she and her coworkers are still raving about them!

So, to help make this last week of tax season a bit easier to swallow, I made them a lemon yogurt cake. This brightly-flavored treat has a moist crumb but is light in texture so as not to bog them down, plus there’s just enough sugar to help them get through the day.

Of course, I had to try one small piece just to make sure it was edible – and trust me it was! Oh, how I hated to part with the rest of that cake, but certainly this was a worthy cause.

Read more of this >>