Oikos Greek Yogurt Week #2 - Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt

This is my second week working with the Oikos Greek Yogurt and I made Food Network's Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt. This almost-famous frozen yogurt is a copycat recipe for the famous and yummy Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Pinkberry is located in New York, California, and Texas and is becoming really popular as a healthy treat. Check out the Pinkberry website here. They have many toppings for their frozen yogurt, such as lychee, mango, fruity pebbles, granola, honey, and many others. I chose to top my frozen yogurt with fresh raspberries.

Food Network features a brand new almost-famous recipe in each issue of their magazine. These are my favorites recipes in the magazine. So far, I have made every one of them and have yet to be disappointed. This recipe is marvelous! I feel like it is a healthy treat that is very satisfying. I found the end product to be creamy and tangy with lots of possibilities. I would love to add mix-ins to the yogurt and also make a frozen yogurt parfait.

Food Network recommends using Greek yogurt when making this frozen yogurt. I made this recipe both ways and found that when using Greek yogurt the end product was much creamier. This is one delicious recipe that you will love and feel good about serving to your family. You can even set up a frozen yogurt bar with all different kinds of toppings!!

Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt - adapted from Food Network Magazine
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
2 cups plain nonfat or reduced fat Greek yogurt **Greek yogurt is much creamier**
1/2 cup superfine sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
fresh fruit or other toppings

Whisk both yogurts, the sugar and corn syrup in a bowl until combined. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

For a soft consistency, serve right out of the ice cream maker. For a firmer texture, transfer the frozen yogurt to a covered container and freeze for up to 2 hours. Serve with assorted toppings.

This recipe takes only 10 minutes and makes 1 quart of frozen yogurt. The kids and I really enjoyed making this and we feel even better about eating it. We had some leftovers that we stored in a reusable Tupperware container with great results.

We loved this recipe so much that we are thinking about experimenting with the other flavors of Greek yogurt at the market. I used plain in this recipe, but I am tempted to try both the honey and the strawberry!! This recipe was delicious.

rw lazer cuts

This week I got to play with this cute little enchanted tree over at rwlazercuts. I inked the leaves and trunk with fluid chalk ink from colour box, then I sprinkled on some lime green glitter from Alison Elis. Then I attached some cute cherry brads from doodlebug and tied a ribbon for effect. I layed the tree on top of a Jenni Bowlin bingo card with foam tape.

If your local scrapbook shop doesnt stock them hassle them to , their range is so much fun.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend till next time happy scrapping book

kim

Paula Deen's Blueberry Cream Pie

My Dad, along with his wife and her sister, came to visit us this week. My Dad's wife, Lesley, has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years, but she is originally from Scotland. Her sister, Eileen, still lives in Scotland but comes to visit often during the summertime. We were so happy to have them all. It was a real treat!!Eileen loves to cook and I showed her my blog. We talked all about different kinds of recipes and I gave her some recipes before they left. We had so much fun talking about all kinds of recipes. Eileen mentioned that she had bought cups and tablespoons so she could follow American recipes at home.

My Dad's birthday was the very first week of August so I made him Paula's Blueberry Cream Pie. Ever since I can remember, both me and my Dad have loved blueberry pie. There is a little diner in my hometown that has the best blueberry pie and we both would order it every time it was on the menu. Although we always have traditional blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream, I thought I would try something new.

Paula's recipe is very fun and simple. Let's face it.....how bad can blueberry cream pie actually be? This pie is served cold and the filling is not baked at all. The final product was light and fluffy. Some were skeptical at first, mainly because they didn't love blueberry pie the traditional way. They enjoyed this pie because it was not overwhelming in the blueberry department. At first, I thought the pie was a bit too mild. I guess what I mean by that is simply that it didn't have a lot of flavor. However, the next day, the pie was better. Maybe it needed extra time in the refrigerator. The next day, the flavors seemed to blend a little better and my Dad and I finished it off : ) I thought the cream portion of the pie might taste somewhat like cheesecake, but it didn't. It almost tasted a bit like a cream cheese frosting, if that makes any sense. In the end, I think I prefer traditional blueberry pie a la mode, but this was fun and enjoyed by all. I'm glad that I made it at least once to test it out. If you need a quick dessert, don't be ashamed to throw this together!!

Blueberry Cream Pie- adapted from The Lady & Sons by Paula Deen
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I used pecans)
One 9-inch deep-dish pie crust (thawed if frozen)
Two 3-ounce packages cream cheese, room temp
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
One 21-ounce can blueberry pie filing

Press the chopped nuts into the bottom of the pie crust. Bake as directed on the package and let cool. Beat the cream cheese with the confectioners sugar. Beat the heavy cream with the granulated sugar until it forms soft peaks. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Spoon this mixture into the cooled pie shell and top with blueberry pie filling. Refrigerate until well chilled.

On a fun note, I received a shipment of cookbooks yesterday from The Good Cook. I started wondering how many other food bloggers belong to their cookbook club. When I arrived home to see the box on my mailbox I was SO excited. I just couldn't wait to tear into the package. I have been wanting some of these cookbooks for months and I finally ordered them. I received Carmine's Family-Style Cookbook, Taste of Home's Winning Recipes Cookbook, and also a fun book all about Halloween called Matthew mead's Monster Book of Halloween. All of these books are great, but the Taste of Home Winning Recipes is an ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE FOR EVERY FOOD LOVER!! I'm not kidding when I say that you simply have to have this book. It contains 645 recipes from National Cooking Contests and I have bookmarked over 150 recipes to try. Everything sounds delicious. In fact, I'm going to post about this book soon. If you don't have this book, you need to seriously think about getting it. If you do have this book, I'm curious what some of your favorites are. I don't know where to start : )

Happy Dance

Doing the happy dance here, I have been asked to join the DT over at readysetscrap am blown away, there is so much talent over there, come and join in on a challenge or 2, the forum is fun the girls are so welcoming and there is so much eye candy in the gallery, hope to see you there.

Creative Thursdays: Poached Eggs on Black Bean Cakes with Salsa

I love breakfast foods! I absolute love going out to eat for breakfast and making it at home. I think it has to do with the sheer variety of foods that one can eat for breakfast. When I think of all those possibilities, it just makes me hungry! How can you decide between the egg platter or the pancake platter? What about the stuffed french toast, crepes, fruit platters, biscuits, rolls, bagels, hashbrowns.....not to mention all those pastries.........what's a girl to do??

Well, I have a great breakfast recipe that is one of my favorites to cook at home. It is a little fancier than most at-home breakfasts, pretty healthy, and can be made with pantry ingredients. Plus, it uses this week's featured ingredient.....beans!!

This is really quite a healthy breakfast. This recipe makes 6 black bean cakes. I halved the recipe because I had only one can of beans and I ended up with 3 black bean cakes. Each serving has 13g of protein and about 7-9 g of fiber, almost your daily allowance! In addition, this recipe is low in fat, low in carbs and just plain delicious.

I've made this recipe several times and I can tell you that it is much, much easier if you use store-bought salsa over the Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce. The red bell pepper sauce adds quite a bit more time and a whole lot of dirty dishes. On the flip side, it was tasty, and might be worthwhile to you if you love peppers. I didn't have any red bell pepper this morning, so I opted for the store-bought salsa.

Poached Eggs on Black Bean Cakes with Salsa - adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt
8 saltines, broken up (I used Ritz crackers)
2 cans (15 oz. each) black beans, drained and rinsed
6 green onions, including some tender green tops, cut into pieces
2 garlic cloves, cut into pieces
2 sprigs cilantro or parsley, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salsa or Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce
6 poached eggs
cilantro sprigs for garnish

Place saltines in a food processor and process until crushed. Add beans, green onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste and process until chuncky. Form into 6 cakes. (Mixture will be sticky). Place cornmeal in a flat dish or on waxed paper. Add cakes and turn to coat.
In a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, warm 2 tablespoons oil. Fry cakes until crisp, about 5 minutes on each side. Add more oil, if needed.
If serving with bell pepper sauce, have the sauce warmed and ready. If serving with salsa, warm the salsa.
To assemble, top each cake with a poached egg and a spoonful of Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce/Salsa. Garnish each with a sprig of cilantro and serve immediately.

Note: The black bean cakes make great vegetarian burgers.

Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon a/p flour
1/2 cup milk
1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and cut-up
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
*Makes about a cup of sauce*

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add onion and garlic and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Add flour and stir until bubbly. Stir in milk and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Sauce will be thick.
Place roasted bell pepper in food processor or blender and puree. Add onion mixture and process until smooth. Return to pan and add paprika, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
Note: To roast the pepper, preheat the broiler. Cut pepper in half lengthwise and remove seeds and ribs. Make several 1-inch slashes around the edge of each pepper half. Place skin-side up on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Press peppers down with the palm of your hand to flatten them. Broil until skin is charred, about 10 minutes. Remove from broiler, fold foil tightly over peppers, and let them steam for 10 minutes. Unwrap peppers and peel off skin.

As mentioned above, these are great alone or as a veggie burger. Head on over to these sites to find other delicious recipes using beans:

Reeni of Cinnamon & Spice has compiled a whole folder of recipes using black beans. Click here to check them out, every one of them looks excellent!!

Joanne of Eats Well With Others, made these delicious Louisiana Red Beans, found here.

Deb of Kahakai Kitchen made these tasty-looking Pinto Bean Patties that she learned from a vegetarian cooking class, here.

Or, how about adding your black beans to a quesadilla, like Kevin at Closet Cooking. Head over to check out his recipe for Corn and Black Bean Quesadillas, found here.

Well, I hope there are some tasty bean recipes that you will enjoy here. I'm off to wash an entire sink full of dishes only to dirty them all up again. The hubby invited two of his co-workers over for dinner and I'll be a busy girl today!!

I completed my first challenge over at readysetscrap its a fun and friendly challenge blog and forum , I feel very welcome there, we had to complete a layout using the word journey, have a sub title and a metal embellishment, I used a filagree pin, this amazing photo of Addison was taken by my friend taryn thanks for the great inspiration girl.

Ans a close up of the journalling.
cheers have a great day
Kim

favourite layouts

I was asked by an old scrapping buddy who I havent seen in a while to show some of my favourite layouts, I apologise to those who have seen them, but here they are.

Hope that is ok Denise, till next time

Kim