french yogurt "malabi"

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Happy Friday everyone!!!!! Are you on your way to recovering from post-Olympic blues? We put in a great effort this week by taking up a Westworld habit and partying for Purim! I thought we’d be partying just the two of us but then we last minute found out about a little Purim party with a rabbi from Fargo and it was so fun! I dressed up as a hot dog and brought a weenie whistle for my noisemaker but then I dropped it on the ground and didn’t want to get cooties so I chickened out. I was also just way too sheepish to take out a weenie whistle in front of people I’d never met before. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Next year, with a weenie whistle!

Now I’m making bagels and getting ready for Mackenzie’s baby shower, but they’re cooling now so I thought I would bop in and post another quick little yogurt recipe! 

This is another recipe that was cut from Short Stack Yogurt. It is *so* simple, (and follows a similar format as another recipe in the book, which is why I think we ultimately decided to cut it) but the flavors aren’t anything you’d find in a typical yogurt section. At least not in America. It’s a recipe inspired by Malabi, the Middle Eastern milk custard that is commonly topped with rose syrup, crushed pistachios or other nuts, and shredded coconut. (I’ve got a version in Molly on the Range!) It’s refreshing and fruity and floral and also so pretty!! Pistachio + rose is easily one of my favorite combos ever, for looks and taste.

With this version, I’ve put these same flavors onto my new obsession, French style yogurt. French style yogurt is that yogurt that comes in the cute glass or ceramic jars. It’s not that way just for show, it’s actually cultured within those individual jars, as opposed to other styles of yogurt which are cultured in big batches and then portioned out. French yogurt is so rich and custardy and not at all tangy, so if you’ve been avoiding Greek yogurt because you don’t like its sourness then this is 4 u. (Yoplait’s French yogurt, Oui, came out recently which meant that I could suddenly for the first time buy French yogurt in Grand Forks and my life has been better ever since. But St. Benoit is another brand that I’ve had in California that is really good, and I’m sure if you live in New York or another big city you can find some various brands pretty easily.)

This is a healthyish dessert but also a passable breakfast I think because not only do you get yogurty probiotics, but you can also assemble it in a rush because it takes all of six seconds. Just make your syrup on a day when you have a little time and then keep it in your fridge to use throughout the week. And it comes together directly in your yogurt jar! How easy is that. Fit for a morning when your dumb alarm clock didn’t go off.

French Yogurt "Malabi"

makes 1 serving; easily scaleable

ingredients

1 tb Pomegranate Rose Syrup (recipe follows)

1 jar (~5 oz) plain French yogurt*

2 tsp shredded unsweetened coconut

2 tsp toasted pistachios, almonds, or another nut, coarsely chopped

2 tsp pomegranate seeds

A small pinch of cinnamon

A large pinch of lemon zest, optional but recommended

*I use plain yogurt here since the syrup is quite sweet, but vanilla or coconut flavored yogurt could certainly also work. 

clues

Spoon 1 tablespoon syrup over the yogurt and top with shredded coconut, crushed nuts, pomegranate seeds, a small pinch of cinnamon and a bit of lemon zest, if using, and serve. 

Pomegranate Rose Syrup

Makes about ½ cup

Ingredients

1 c pomegranate juice 

¼ c (50g) sugar

1 tb fresh lemon juice

2 tsp rosewater

clues

In a small saucepan, bring the pomegranate juice and sugar to a simmer over medium high heat and cook until reduced by half and syrupy, about 25 to 30 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and rosewater and let cool (this can be made up to a couple of days in advance and kept in the fridge). 

 

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett!

Short Stack Yogurt, available here! 

salt & vinegar knishentaschen

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It’s like the last day of camp, I can’t believe that the Olympics are over :( It’s so sad. I made a list of things to look forward to now so I wouldn’t be tempted to just be a sad couch blob who does nothing but eat dry granola and watch slow motion replays of Jocelyne Lamoureux’s game winning goal over and over while I get nostalgic and cry. (But seriously, if you have the NBC Sports app, go look up their epic slow motion videos, they’re so cool.) Ok, here’s my list of things to look forward to:

Mackenzie’s Baby Shower! Emily and I are throwing Mackenzie a brunchy baby shower next weekend and there’s gonna be so much cute shit like fruit skewers and tiny smoothies and Eggboy’s building a bagel wall for it. You know, like a donut wall, but it will hold bagels.

Eggboy’s Trombone Concert! He’s playing in the town trombone choir for the premiere of a piece by Eric Ewazen, who was both of our music theory teachers at one point. IDK if he’ll remember us but we definitely remember him and his Jell-O impressions. I wanted to make him a Jell-O salad but Eggboy said no because Eggboy is no fun. 

~Whistler~ I’m busily getting all of my ducks in a row for my Passover cooking demos at Pesach on the Mountain, and also trying to put together some fun skiing lewks so that when I suck at skiing, I’ll at least look stylish. 

World Ice Skating Championships! Haha! You didn’t think that ice skating was over for the season right???? I’m looking forward to a Nathan Chen short program repeat of his Skate America magic, and just being able to watch Papadakis and Cizeron again. 

Yogurt Book Launch! In the last week we’ve gone from planning one local event to three! Two of them are in Fargo, one is yoga related (because who else occasionally calls yoga “yogurt?”) and all three are going to be so much fun. Keep an eye out on my events page for details.

Purim!!! I love a good Purim celebration and also I love Hamantaschen because they are like dumpling cookies and just so darn pretty. And I love seeing all of your sprinkletaschen this year!!! Keep the pics coming, please.

This year I have gone savory!!! And combined my Hamantaschen with a Knish to make a Knishentaschen. I mainly just wanted an excuse to make knishes because it’s been too long since I strolled the Upper West Side eating a Zabar’s sweet potato knish and I couldn’t stop looking at these Zak the Baker beauties on Instagram. And with both a knish and a hamantasch being filled baked goodies, the combination of the two was inevitable, right??

In my knish dough research, I came across a super easy dough in The Gefilte Manifesto, originally from Mrs. Stahl’s knishery in Brooklyn. Flour, oil, salt, water, essentially the same as the simple and satisfying Amy Thielen-inspired cracker crust pizza dough that we make all the time for Friday pizza. So guess what I did? I doubled the dough, made knishes for lunch and pizza for dinner. 2 in 1 dough, what more could you ask for?

The filling here is salt and vinegar potatoes for an acidic twist on your basic potato knish. Love an acidic twist. If salt and vinegar is not your flavor, first of all, gtfo, but also know that you can forego the vinegar here and still get a mighty tasty mashed potato knish. A heavy pile of parmesan rounds all of this out, but you can definitely switch up the cheese or omit it for a dairy-free option. If you omit, sprinkle some flaky salt or other herbs and seasonings (everything bagel seasoning???) on the outside to give it an extra somethin. The bottom line is, these aren’t rocket science and you can play with these fillings as you see fit, you can even add spinach. In the end you will have a hearty, carby handful of delight with soft potato innards and a chewy satisfying crust. 

And I like these with ketchup. Obviously. 

salt & vinegar knishentaschen

makes 12

dough adapted from mrs. stahl's knishery, by way of the gefilte manifesto

potatoes adapted from epicurious

ingredients

for the dough:

1 3/4 c (224g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

1/4 c (50g) vegetable oil

1/2 c (118g) water

 

for the filling:

1 1/2 lb (680g) russet potatoes, diced (3/4”)

1 c + 2 tb distilled white vinegar

Kosher salt

2 tb (28g) butter or olive oil or vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

Black pepper

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 oz (113g) shredded parmesan

Fresh chopped chives, for topping

Ketchup, optional, for serving

clues

Preheat the oven to 400º. Line two baking sheets with parchment and set them aside.

To make the dough, combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the oil and water and stir to combine. Turn onto a work surface and knead for 5-7 minutes, dusting with flour as needed, until smooth and slightly sticky. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rest at room temp while you prepare the filling. 

To make the filling, place the potatoes in a large pot with 1 cup of the vinegar and 1 tablespoon salt. Add enough water to cover the potatoes by an inch. Bring to a boil and cook for 30-40 minutes, or until very soft. Drain and pat dry. Meanwhile heat the butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat, add onion and a good pinch of salt, and cook, stirring, until softened and browned. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, onions, additional salt to taste, a bunch of black pepper, and remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar in a bowl and mash coarsely.

On a work surface, divide the dough into 12 balls. Roll them out into 4" circles and brush them with a thin layer of egg. Top with a pile of cheese (leaving some to go on top of the knishes) and a big scoop of potato filling. Fold the edges up and over the filling to form a triangle shape, overlapping the corners and pinching them to seal. Transfer to the baking sheets an inch or so apart, brush the outsides with egg wash, sprinkle with remaining cheese, more black pepper, and a few chives, and bake until lightly golden; begin checking for doneness at 20 minutes.

Let cool slightly and enjoy with ketchup, if desired. Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for a few days and then reheated in the microwave or oven.

-yeh!

P.S.

 

Have you pre-ordered Short Stack Yogurt yet?? Get to it! 

socca with yogurt and garlic broccolini + short stack yogurt is available for pre-order!

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Hahaha I definitely spoke too soon about avoiding jet lag, I feel like I have a Teletubby suit on that is filled with sand, that’s how much effort it’s taken to roll out of bed and lift up any of my limbs these past few days. I am Laa Laa (the second A’s are silent?!). And it’s probably not helping that I’ve fallen into a routine of not only staying up past my bedtime and hyperventilating at the figure skating and then giving my undivided attention to the post-show with Charlie White and Kristi Yamaguchi and Ben Agosto, but also allowing time to come down off of all of the excitement and cleansing my palate before bed by watching something fictional on Netflix. It’s this whole routine and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better because tonight is the ladies’ short program obviously, tomorrow is the ladies’ hockey final, and on Thursday I’m going to be teaching a class at Plum’s in South Dakota during the ladies’ long program and then watching it on DVR afterward. If you @ me with any spoilers that night before I watch it, I am blocking you at once. 

Ok, a quick warm take on last night’s ice dance: HOLY GUACAMOLE, I am moved. I couldn’t even stay in my seat or breathe regularly for the last group, it was all so much. I love that Virtue and Moir won. They skated their butts off and deserved that ending to their career (and prelude to their marriage?!?1!!), and I’ll be binging their reality show once the Olympics are over. But. What I love just as much as their winning, is the fact that we are going to get to see Papadakis and Cizeron perform again and again for years to come. Like, we should have been in a dark theater watching that program unfold on a well-lit stage, and it sucks that they couldn’t have tied with the Canadians and also won gold but the fact that we even got to watch them perform how they did was a prize for us all. My pizza analogy is that Virtue/Moir are Chicago pizza: their extremely extra performance was amazing and delicious and something I can commit to being wowed by once a while, while Cizeron/Papadakis are New York pizza, I could watch them every single day. I LOVE THEM BOTH. 

Shib Sibs were obviously awesome/clean/powerful/great, but I find myself wanting them to go way further in the realm of sibling storytelling. Romantical storylines are obviously all over ice dancing, so it’s easy to feel like that might put the Shib Sibs at a disadvantage, but I feel like that should only open up the opportunity to surprise us with something different. I keep thinking about what Justin Peck did in “The Times Are Racing” with his gender neutral roles, and how that went against the norm in ballet and came out as powerfully as it did. Or like how Eleven and Hopper stole all of our hearts with zero romance. I’m Monday-morning-quarterbacking here since, seriously, I know nothing except for my emotions, but I just found myself wanting their insane athleticism to be matched by an equally compelling story.

In other news, while we were in Korea, my second book became available for pre-order! Short Stack Yogurt can be ordered here, and it will be out on March 13th! *Throws blue and red Tide Pod shaped confetti in the air* (We are having a party at Kittsona in Grand Forks to celebrate and I’ll share details for that in a bit.) I had the greatest time putting together this collection of recipes since the possibilities with yogurt are endless and very tasty. I stuffed yogurt into every type of dish I could think of, from beverages to bread to soup to cookies, and I didn’t even get sick of it. After about six months of testing, I narrowed my selection down to 27 recipes, but that was too many so we had to cut a good handful and that was like trying to pick a favorite Macaroni but I’ll be able to post the recipes that were cut here and on IG. I’m just so excited to share this little book with you and I hope it gets you all *jazz hands* about yogurt!! (And FYI, all of the recipes in the book are vegetarian except for two 🥦🥕🍳🍅)

Here is one of the outtakes! I hated cutting this one because it’s become one of our favorite go-to easy dinners. It’s a filling chickpea pancake topped with creamy Greek yogurt, a pile of the garlickiest lemoniest broccolini, and a shower of parmesan. It maxes out on flavor, simplicity, and unfussiness, so it’s just perfect for a Tuesday. Or a Monday or a Wednesday. (May be a little too healthy for Thursday-Sunday though. 😜) 

Worth mentioning: the broccolini scenario here (that is, everything except for the socca/yogurt/parm) is one of my favorite go-to vegetable sides. It comes together in 10 minutes and makes me love broccolini. 

socca with yogurt and garlic broccolini

serves 2-3

ingredients

for the socca

1 c (120g) chickpea flour

1 c water

2 tb olive oil, plus more for pan

1/2 tsp kosher salt

Black pepper

 

for the Broccolini

2 tb olive oil

4 cloves garlic, sliced

8 oz broccolini, chopped into 3/4” pieces

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 tsp kosher salt

Black pepper

 

for the Topping

1 c (225g) whole milk greek yogurt

Crushed red pepper

Kosher salt

Black pepper

1/2 c shredded parmesan, or to taste

clues

To prep the socca, whisk together the chickpea flour, water, olive oil, salt, and a few turns of pepper. Let it sit for a bit while you cook the broccolini (no need to worry about covering it). To cook the broccolini, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the broccolini and cook, stirring, until crisp tender, about 7 minutes. Toss with the lemon juice and season with salt and a bunch of turns of black pepper. Set it aside, either on a plate or in a skillet over very low temp just to keep it warm.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add a layer of olive oil and then pour 1/4 of the socca batter into the skillet. Cook on both sides until set. Repeat with remaining batter to make 4 large pancakes. Spread each pancake with 1/4 cup yogurt and top with broccolini. Sprinkle with crushed red pepper, another pinch of salt, a turn of black pepper, and a heavy sprinkle of parmesan, 

Photos by chantell and brett! And this cool quilted garment I am wearing is made by carleen!! 

olympics trip recap!!!

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Ok!! I am back from the Olympics, and holy buckets, this has been the craziest wildest ride. I am so excited to tell you all about it!!! First I’m going to reel in the exclamation points because I’ve officially used up my allotted amount for the year but just know that literally every sentence here is said with 12 imaginary exclamation points. 

Prologue, four days before we left Grand Forks: I had just found out from the Olympic Channel that they were looking to have me do a few arts and culture segments in Korea but I had also just found out that my passport was going to be missing the expiration deadline by two weeks! It needs to be valid for six months after traveling from the United States to Korea and mine would have been valid for five months and two weeks. Oy vey! So I immediately flew down to Minneapolis to go to their passport office, crossing my fingers and toes that I’d be able to get a new passport in time, and also carrying Passport shaped cookies to hand out to the office. Duh. That all went swimmingly! Everybody at the office was so gosh darn pleasant, especially in explaining to me that they weren’t actually allowed to accept my cookies, and I was in and out of there with a new passport in an hour. It made me love Minnesota even more.

So then! We quickly figured out all of our details with the Olympic Channel which was bonkers with the 15 hours time difference between Grand Forks and PyeongChang, but we got it done and by Tuesday night we had confirmed flights. Seven hours later, we were on our way to the airport! 

We saw our friend Ben on the plane and I gave him a passport cookie. 

It was a 14 hour flight and my dad advised me to absolutely, under no circumstances, sleep on that plane so that when we arrived at night in Korea, we could just have a good night sleep on their local time and then ideally avoid bad jet lag. It took one movie for me to pass out for half the flight. But we still had time to watch Three Billboards (dark), Ingrid Goes West (also dark), and When Harry Met Sally (classic!), and then also eat bibimbap and a little ice cream sundae and quiche. We arrived just as the sun was setting in Seoul and then drove east across the country, through the mountains, to PyeongChang. 

When we rolled into town, we saw the opening/closing ceremony stadium, the ski jump thing, and a bunch of ski slopes all lit up. Our hotel was in a cute Alps-inspired area at the bottom of a ski hill, right next to the big luge slide. 

Day 1: In the morning we drove the hour or so over to Gangneung, where all of the ice rinks are (figure skating, curling, speed skating, and hockey each have their own arena there). It was the men’s short program for the team figure skating event, AKA NATHAN CHEN LIVE. From the moment he walked into the arena, I couldn’t stop omg-ing, I couldn't believe I was seeing him irl. Even just watching him warm up and skate in circles around the ice was magical and beautiful. Like, imagine Yo-Yo Ma playing scales, even the simplest things were incredible. 

We spent the rest of our day seeing the huge broadcasting center where the TV stations have offices, having our first sit down meal (an amazing sweet beef stew at a little restaurant near our hotel), and then going to the Opening Ceremony. 

My favorite parts about the Opening Ceremony were: the food (spicy rice cakes! chicken skewers! sweet yeasted pancakes!), the drummers, and then screaming my head off when Team USA walked in. “Gangnam Style” was perfectly timed for their entrance. Ooh and then we all lost our minds when the shirtless oily Tongan flag bearer walked in.

Day 2: I interviewed Tara and Johnny!!!!!! We talked all about food and you can see that video here. They were so sweet and I just couldn’t stop smiling the biggest smile. After that, Eggboy and I explored the Gangneung Olympic Park. We ate lunch in the spectator’s cafeteria, where I was really hankering for some bibimbap but it was sold out so I got the lasagna which was fine because it’s the year of lasagna 🤷🏻‍♀️. And then we traded some of our Olympic Channel pins for some gems from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics: funeral potatoes and bologna sandwiches. These pins were made for me. For dinner, we ventured outside of the Olympic park and found an adorable family owned BBQ restaurant where we communicated to the owner via a translation app that you speak into and the lady in the phone translates it and spits it back out. The owner’s mother grew all of the vegetables used in the side dishes and everything was delicious. 

That night we had our very first short track speed skating experience and it was mind blowing. Have you ever seen it?! I thought we were in the future. Or in space. Or in another galaxy. Starlight Express! Their speed and smooth movements were completely superhuman. And what made it even more exciting was that speed skating is huge in Korea, so the place was packed and loud and everyone was going nuts and the South Korean president was there. So were the North Korean cheerleaders. There was so much energy in that building.

Day 3: Sunday broke down into two parts, part 1: watch figure skating, part 2: eat everything at the food market. I can’t possibly imagine a better way to spend a day, can you?? The skating included seeing Bradie’s clean Olympic debut, the Shib Sibs in the sparkliest sparkle outfits I’ve ever seen, and the Knierims’ beautiful long program. I couldn’t stop bouncing up and down, being in shouting distance of these skaters and seeing a lot of the things that you can’t see on TV, like their talks with their coaches, the reactions of their team members as they’re skating, and all of the warmups were so cool. And I got to meet Ashley Wagner, who was so sweet, and explained to me that, yes, all of her super awesome Nike warmup outfits are available to the public.

Even though we were trying to save room for the food market, we got so hungry during the skating and needed a snack, which, at the ice arena concession stand, meant our options were Pringles or bunless hot dogs. Lol. We ate so many bunless hot dogs throughout the various skating events that I'll probably associate live figure skating with bunless hot dogs for a really long time.

After the skaters crushed it, we went to the Gangneung Central Food Market and ate a bunch of tasties!! Olympic Channel posted a facebook live of their editor Marc and me eating some of the most popular things there. Check it out here.

On Sunday night, my friend from college June visited!! It’s been at least like six years since we’ve seen each other, way way too long. June is the best! <3 <3 

Day 4: More skating!! And I really shouldn’t have worn mascara because between Mirai nailing her long program and Adam being his stunning self, I was so weepy. It was amazing. The Shib Sibs, of course, were totally great and clean, and then what happened at the end was that I was completely won over by Virtue and Moir, from Canada. I mean, I’ve always known they were good, but usually when they’ve been on TV in the past, I’d be busy tweeting about the Shib Sibs or, before that, Meryl and Charlie. But seeing them live, they had this globe of energy around them that radiated throughout the arena. They didn’t just compete, they performed, and I couldn’t not fall in love with them right then and there. (And like, they’re definitely in love irl, right?? right?!!!)

In the afternoon, we went to the Olympic Village to interview Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureaux who are on the Team USA hockey team and from Grand Forks!!! I’d heard their voices on the local radio station tons of times but never actually met them so I was soo excited to meet them. They were so nice and cool and they also love cheesy pickles :) Watch the full interview here. 

I tried so hard to sneak into the dining hall when I was in the Village, I desperately wanted to see what the athletes were eating and show all of you but only the athletes were allowed in and I’m really awful at trying to sneak into things. But I was able to see the Village snack shop where I found coleslaw flavored popcorn, chocolate bamba-y things, Emmental cookies, and things called “mayo shower potato sticks.” Obviously I bought them all and so far I’ve only tried the mayo shower potato sticks, which were light crunchy salty sticks that tasted like mayonnaise and onion, I loved them.

That night we ate BBQ with Ben and Josh in Gangneung. We talked about all of our hot takes on the ice skating and ate spicy crab and bulgogi.

Day 5: On Tuesday we explored Yongpyong, another area in the mountains, where the alpine skiing takes place. The Swiss hospitality house is there, which is set up like a little Alpine village where you can eat Rösti and Raclette and shop for Swatches. And the Swedish hospitality house has a Swedish meatball stand set up outside, it's so cute. The Team USA house is there too but we weren’t allowed in because we weren’t athletes and finally that was our cue to start brainstorming sports that we could try to qualify for in the next Olympics in. Do you think that Pita from Tonga would want to be on a Curling team with us?

I made a new friend, Rosie, who is competing in the cross country 30k on the last day!! She told us to go to the cross country sprint that night so we put on all of our layers of clothes (it was so windy!) and made our way to the other side of the mountain that was right outside of our hotel window, which required a whole lot of schlepping against the wind. We thought, “ok, we’ll cheer on the Americans for a few events and then we’ll go warm up and get bbq in town” but then when we arrived, it was like we had found the best party in PyeongChang and we never wanted to leave. The K-pop was blasting, the Norwegian fans were decked out in Viking outfits and being rowdy, everybody was drinking, and we found pork buns at the concession stand!! It was totally insane. And I suddenly felt really short because the place was packed with really tall Scandinavians. Eggboy, who is half Norwegian, blended right in and we cheered for the American and the Norwegian skiers. It was so fun, it made me want to go to Norway and also learn how to cross country ski.

We ate late night dumplings that night, it was the best Valentine’s day eve ever.

Day 6: We visited our new friend Brett, who is a nutritionist for the ski team and their chef, Adam. We learned about how the skiers eat (lots of good fat and protein!) and what they have on their birthdays (healthier cupcakes). And Adam told me about a corn dog casserole that he made a few Olympics ago for one of the athletes. I’m going to make it.

Then we ate bulgogi pizza and booked it to the airport! I slept almost the entire way back and now we’re home. We avoided norovirus, which I attribute to excessive usage of hand sanitizer and A+ hydration, and terrible jet lag, which I attribute to limiting my coffee intake (sounds counterintuitive, but my quality of sleep and ability to fall asleep when it was night time in Korea was suddenly remarkable).

And there it is! I truly didn’t think it’d be possible for my excitement for the Olympics to grow, and yet here we are. It’s so cool watching the broadcasts now from home and being able to spot the seats that we sat in, and of course our new bffs Tara and Johnny hehe. 

For more of my photos and vids, check out the Olympics highlights stories on my Instagram. And of course, I cannot thank the Olympic Channel enough for this insanely awesome opportunity!!! Check out their site for tons more Olympic vids and pics :) 

-Yeh!!