Chocolate Raspberry Pistachio Dessert (adaptable!)

 

Okay y'all, I was not going to post this recipe because it was a spur of the moment "What do we have on hand?" thing that I jotted down and then we tried it. 

But! It's so very, very good. 

We know that fruit/pistachio cream and chocolate work well together and I love cheesecake flavors. 

I don't know what to call this, PLEASE leave suggestions. 

You will need: 

• 2 cups of plain Greek yogurt + 1/2 cup water (what I used) 
• OR 2 1/2 cups of regular plain yogurt 
• 1 box instant pudding mix- sugar free is fine. I used Jell-o Chocolate Fudge
• 3 Tbsp black raspberry powder* 
• 1 jar prepared pistachio cream
• whipped cream
• vanilla wafer cookies

Mix yogurt, pudding, and raspberry powder well. Portion into dessert dishes or tins.

Add a couple spoons of pistachio cream on top. 

Chill until set. 

Serve with whipped cream and vanilla wafers. 

Just THAT easy- but also pretty adaptable. 

The yogurt gives it a cheesecake flavor, tangy and good, and because it's so thick, it sets up a lot firmer than pudding would. More like cheesecake filling. 

If you don't have powdered fruits of any sort in your kitchen or easily available, there are substitutions available. 

You can use a 1/2 cup of fruit juice instead of water with Greek yogurt, OR you can use a packet or two of unsweetened Kool-aid. 

For that matter, you can also use this basic formula for non-bake desserts. I'd suggest using cupcake wrappers in a muffin tin, put a cookie in the bottom of each one, then use yogurt+juice with a good pudding flavor. 

I also think the color of the pudding and black raspberry powder inspires a graveyard dessert for Halloween, use dried devil's food cake crumbs or Oreo crumbs to make it more like dirt, cut out rectangles from paper and lay them across the top, sprinkle with a green sanding sugar for grass, remove the rectangles, and now you have freshly dug graves. Make cookie gravestones. 

Yogurt and the Pretty Green Jar

I rigged up a white background to show off the green!

If you've liked Ball® Canning and Recipes on Facebook (and you should!)- then you've seen the announcement that while the limited run of blue jars is ending, they are starting to make GREEN jars. Even better? These come in both pint and quart sizes and really are just that pretty. They are Heritage Collection jars, and inspired by the Ball Perfection Jars. The are manufactured to the normal high quality of Ball jars and absolutely gorgeous. The color is fantastic, the lid sizes are also standard so the rings, plastic caps and accessories you have will work with these jars.
Pre-order Spring Green Jars
I love the Heritage Blue jars and blue is my daughter's favorite color. Green is my favorite color, so I'm just thrilled with the new release. If you really love the blue, you have a limited window to buy more before they are gone.

The jars shown are the quart sized Heritage Collection green jar and the Ball Collection Elite half-pint. The yogurt shown is Viili.

Viili is:
mesophilic- which means that it sets at room temperature, no heat necessary
heirloom- which means that the culture itself can be reused and shared indefinitely.

Ball® pint and quart jars are perfect for making yogurt using heirloom cultures. Why? Because it makes it even easier. My son uses a Heritage blue pint jar for his yogurt. He makes a batch, puts it in a bowl, washes the jar, then puts back in two spoonfuls of yogurt. He tops that with milk and then puts a plastic cap on it to shake it up and mix in the yogurt. Takes off the cap and puts a coffee filter on top of the jar, and then adds a canning band to hold that in place. Sets it out on his counter top until it's set and fixes two 1 cup servings of yogurt for himself. He uses the yogurt both sweet with fruit or extracts, or adds savory spices to use it as a dip or topping.

Using the quart jar, you'd put in a 1/2 cup of your finished yogurt to start your next batch. When it gets low, I measure what's left in a measuring cup, wash the jar and start the next batch. I like plastic caps for jars after they are opened. It saves wear and tear on rings to store them properly, and the caps are inexpensive, washable and reusable.

There are a few kinds of mesophilic cultures, so it's about finding the one you like best. Piima is lovely in smoothies and has a cream cheese flavor that works well with cream added to the milk. Matsoni/Caspian Sea yogurt is very tart, Viili is mild with a neat ropey/jelly like texture, Filmjolk is the yogurt I recommend to people who don't really like yogurt. It's very mild, and excellent for desserts.
The piima works so well for smoothies that I've never tried thickening it, but for the rest, adding in some cream and some instant dry milk with the milk/starter mix makes a thicker yogurt without having to add anything that's not milk.

For flavoring- my family uses all sorts of stuff. Homemade jellies and jams, frozen fruit, sugar, maple syrup, homemade caramel sauce, cocoa powder- the important thing to remember is that you need to keep some yogurt completely plain to culture your next batch. We've found the easiest is just to have all the yogurt plain in the fridge then flavor individual servings.

Ball® sent me the green jars for review purposes. The Elite jar is from my personal collection and my personal choice for packed lunches and yogurt servings because of the shape of the jar and the wide mouth.

An easier, less expensive way to make yogurt

So lately, in between drawing lots of what are hopefully very groovy mandalas (another preview at the end of this)- I've been thinking of my hippie mom a lot and started making yogurt again.

Now I've always made yogurt just like she did. A bit of plain yogurt with live cultures from the grocery store or a freeze dried culture. But this time I decided to try something new (old!) for me- mesophilic heirloom cultures.

So why? Heirloom cultures can be used over and over again as long as you keep them happy and fed. They last indefinitely and have all sorts of interesting flavor and texture profiles. Why mesophilic? The cultures I've used before are all thermophilic- which means they needed steady heat to work. Mesophilic cultures work at room temperature. No more messing with a cooler and hot tap water, or filling one side of my sink with hot tap water and keeping track of the temperature over the course of the day. No thinking "It's time to break down and buy a yogurt maker". None of that. For mesophilic cultures- all I need are clean jars, coffee filters, rubber bands and lids.

I got a set of 4 mesophilic yogurt cultures and a live buttermilk culture from Wells of Health on Etsy - no affiliation, just a happy customer. You can also get them from Cultures for Health. I chose the seller I did based on a combination of factors- they had a ropey viili was one, another was shipping cost.

The cultures arrived- about a tablespoon of each one to mix with a cup of plain milk to make a mother culture from. So I set them all up and out by putting them in mason jars with a coffee filter rubber banded over the top. I placed them all over the house so the cultures wouldn't cross each other and would stay pure. Several feet apart is sufficient, but it also gave me a chance to figure out where the best place to culture was going to be. (turned out not to be the kitchen but in my laundry room!)

The next day, my daughter and I tried teaspoons of each culture. The flavors were fantastic and different. We put the lids on them, and put them on the fridge. To make yogurt- you mix 1 part yogurt culture with 8 parts milk or milk and cream mixed, then cover with something permeable like fabric or coffee filters and set out for 8-16 hours until set. You can tell it's set by tipping the jar and seeing if the yogurt moves like a liquid, or if it moves as a mass. If it moves as a mass, it's set and ready to be properly capped and put in the fridge. Reserve some of that batch to make your next, and flavor and eat the rest!

The viili is wonderful. The consistency is about like that of thinned glue or honey. It forms gorgeous long ropes off the spoon and it's entirely too much fun to play with- the flavor is pretty mild.
My personal favorite for flavor is the matsoni- it's a tart flavor that is going to be just grand frozen or with sweet berries and honey or dates added for sweetness
The piima is the perfect smoothie yogurt, and I think with the viili will be good as a frozen yogurt with a more ice cream type flavor profile. It's a bit like a drinkable cream cheese and another possible use is cheesecake flavored smoothies adding a bit of the matsoni. Will try later.
Fil mjolk seems to be the best bet for ice cream type froyo and it's the yogurt I'd suggest for people who don't much like yogurt. It's extremely mild and it's my personal choice for trying whipped first. I think it would be a good topping.

I use a little bit of cream when culturing, and also thicken the milk a bit with powdered milk for everything but the piima. The viili was William's favorite just because it's fun. My second culture of that turned out very ropey and reminded me of hot cheese on a pizza except that it was cold and yogurt-y! The Amazing Turnip Girl loved the Matsoni/Caspian Sea yogurt. But thinks the viili is good mixed with a bit of her homemade jam. She also agreed the texture made it a really fun yogurt. I plan to try that one with matcha to make a green Nickelodeon-like slime yogurt! But just a bit of vanilla and raw sugar tastes good mixed into the finished yogurts too.

I'm sold. I love these yogurts so much. It's so easy to make and share. I'm giving some of it with instructions for making to a friend of my mom's- so if anything does happen to my cultures, she'll have a backup for me!

I also talked to my favorite local potter about making yogurt cups. She's going to make me a set of 4 10-12 oz cups with lids that I can keep in the fridge, so my morning yogurt will be in something pretty. It deserves to be. Hopefully it's going to be a family heirloom.

As promised- another sneak preview of what I'm working on for the coloring book.

Yogurt

Mattel has announced they will be releasing a bald Barbie. At this point, the plans are to donate dolls exclusively to hospitals and the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. MGA Entertainment also said they will be creating Bratz with no hair to sell at ToysRUs, with 1 dollar from every purchase going to cancer research.

I got kind of weepy happy about it.

Chobani posts this photo on their FB page-

It's a wonderfully green idea for lunches! Buying larger containers of yogurt is less waste. You could use berries from your garden, and homemade granola.

I prefer making yogurt from scratch. Some times I use packaged cultures, other times, plain organic yogurt from the grocery store. One small container will inoculate two batches of yogurt. Kefir is essentially reusable for  forever. Yogurt isn't, after the 3rd or 4th generation, it gets pretty icky.

This is the method I use with a popular brand of  freeze dried cultures that's fairly widely available.

Yogurt using Yo'gourmet Freeze Dried Starter
7-8 cups of 1% milk
1/2 cup instant powdered milk
2 5 gm packets of the starter

Dissolve the powdered milk into the milk, and bring to a light boil, turn down heat and keep at a simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool to lukewarm. Pour a little bit of the lukewarm milk into a non-reactive container (glass or ceramic), I use a white ceramic casserole pan I can cover with a plate. Mix the starter into it and stir to get the lumps out and make sure it's dissolved. Pour in the rest of the milk and stir it up well. 
While you're doing that, stop your sink and run very warm water in it. Just about "Nice hot shower" temp does nicely. When it's about 2 inches deep, turn off the water and put the yogurt container into it covered with a plate or lid if your container as a lid. Every so often during the day, stop and check your water temperature, if it's cool, take out the yogurt container without peeking or stirring, and refill the sink up to 2 inches with more warm water,then replace the yogurt container. After about 8 hours, check it by tilting the dish and seeing if it's runny or firm set. Firm set, it won't move but may have some whey on top. That can be poured off or stirred back in. Put it in the fridge.

The warm temperature encourages the cultures to work and multiply. The reason I use the powdered milk is as a natural thickener. 

My son loves homemade vanilla yogurt. I use vanilla extract and honey to sweeten. 

If your yogurt doesn't set as well as you would like, you can use it in smoothies. My mom, who was a yogurt making hippy used pour improperly set yogurt into jam jars with just a bit of jam left in and stir it up really well. Then she would put the mix into ice pop molds and freeze it for a great summer treat. 

The yogurt instructions were previously posted here with more nutritional information.

On the subject of yogurt

 I posted instructions here for making yogurt from a starter.
Usually I make my yogurt using commercial yogurt as a starter. I'll do two batches. One from the original starter and when that's down to a half cup of plain yogurt, I start a second batch. Going too many generations can lead to a manky taste in yogurt. Look for plain yogurt that's milk and cultures only. I get a larger thing of it and package it up into half cup size portions I keep in my freezer for the next batch so out of one thing of yogurt I can culture an awful lot of fresh plain yogurt. I put it reusable containers and always flavor some, we use it in smoothies and make savory yogurts that can be strained to make labneh which is just marvelous as a sandwich spread. In the summer I puree it with fruit and a bit of honey and pop it in frozen pop molds to make frozen pops for my children. Just like my mom used to do for me!  You'd use a half cup of commercial plain yogurt in place of the starter, and increase the powdered milk to 3/4 c. because otherwise it won't get quite as thick. Runny yogurt works well in biscuits, smoothies and bread. If you don't want to buy half cup containers to freeze the starter, just put it in an ice cube tray and after it's frozen put the yogurt cubes in a bag in the freezer, then pull out 2 or 3 to use as a starter. That's how mom did it!
My children are wild for vanilla yogurt sweetened with maple sugar or honey.
If you have a dehydrator, you can make your own yogurt covered raisins. Flavor and sweeten your yogurt then strain it as for labneh which mean line a strainer with a coffee filter or cheese cloth and put in the yogurt. Put that over a bowl and cover it up with a plate and put it some place cool (fridge works) for 24 hours. A lot of the liquid comes out of it making a gorgeous thick cheese. Coat your raisins with that and put them in the dehydrator for a few hours. You'll want to keep these in the fridge because they aren't shelf stable but they do just fine in lunch/bento boxes, snack boxes for long car trips. The store bought kind have waxes and such in them, these taste a whole lot better and are probably better for you.

But you know? I still hate carob.

Making yogurt using a freeze dried starter culture

Well, it's been about 8 hours. The package said it would be set in 4, but I had my doubts and it wasn't. That's fine, generally working from plain yogurt for the culturing it can take 8-12 hours to set.
It's set up nicely, and it smells wonderful. I didn't follow the package instructions exactly because well.. generally I won't. So here's how I did it.

Yogurt using Yo'gourmet Freeze Dried Starter
7-8 cups of 1% milk
1/2 cup instant powdered milk
2 5 gm packets of the starter

Dissolve the powdered milk into the milk, and bring to a light boil, turn down heat and keep at a simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool to lukewarm. Pour a little bit of the lukewarm milk into a non-reactive container (glass or ceramic), I use a white ceramic casserole pan I can cover with a plate. Mix the starter into it and stir to get the lumps out and make sure it's dissolved. Pour in the rest of the milk and stir it up well.
While you're doing that, stop your sink and run very warm water in it. Just about "Nice hot shower" temp does nicely. When it's about 2 inches deep, turn off the water and put the yogurt container into it covered with a plate or lid if your container as a lid. Every so often during the day, stop and check your water temperature, if it's cool, take out the yogurt container without peeking or stirring, and refill the sink up to 2 inches with more warm water,then replace the yogurt container. After about 8 hours, check it by tilting the dish and seeing if it's runny or firm set. Firm set, it won't move but may have some whey on top. That can be poured off or stirred back in. Put it in the fridge.

I'm actually not sure how much milk I used. I just saw how much was left in the gallon in the fridge, and asked E if I should just use the rest. I used a measuring cup after to measure how much water to make it up to the milk line in the pan. 7 cups is a safe bet, it may be 8. I've used organic milk in the past, but it's one of those choice things, you know, those awful choices that people trying to buy ethically have to make? The local dairy gets most of their milk from local farmers, farmers who were about to go out of business when the last dairy closed. They are making a conscious effort to use a much higher amount of local milk then the last company did. Some of those farmers are certainly organic, some aren't. The focus they make is *local* and with our population base, there just isn't enough demand for a local produced organic milk for it to pay the farmers to switch. So.. we had to choose. Organic milk shipped in across nearly a country and a half or locally produced milk that wasn't completely organic and comes in plastic containers. We decided on supporting our local farmers. Which is more information then you needed, but there it is.
The freeze dried starter isn't pure cultures, it's cultures, vitamin C, skim milk powder and sucrose which is a simple sugar.
Going off the nutritional information on the packages and guesstimating because I didn't measure stuff out, you're looking at probably about 2 gms of sugar per 1 cup serving and somewhere around 125 calories. Which makes it a really healthy food since it will have calcium, vitamin D, C and A. If you use non-fat milk, it will have 20 calories less per serving.
We are going to flavor some chocolate and mix it with a blackberry puree and put it in ice pop molds as a summer treat for the kids. Some will wind up in smoothies which is the big reason I have to make a lot of yogurt, and I'm going to mix some with butter and see if I can come up with a buttery spread that will come out of the fridge soft enough to spread but have less fat and still taste good to my family.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the freeze dried culture, and it's minimal packaging. I do recommend getting it from the net though for the best pricing.