french onion yogurt

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Is French Onion Dip Actually French is what I just googled and it turns out that it was invented in California! So that’s a fact that you can rattle off if ever you’re standing near the dips and need something to talk about that’s not the weather. This here is a French Onion dip that is made with—wait for it—yogurt. Predictable! I know. But I just wanted to put this somewhere since it was cut from Short Stack Yogurt and I love it so much. In the first draft of my manuscript, it was paired with butternut squash tots which were tasty! But I never wanted to make them. I dreaded having to test them because that meant peeling a big dumb squash, shredding a big dumb squash, molding like a hundred dumb tots, and frying them. And for what? So I could slow down the acquisition of my bikini bod??

I liked the sound of the words “Squash Tots with French Onion Yogurt” all strung together, but if I was dreading making them then chances were that you would too. So it fell to the cutting room floor and unfortunately dragged this great dip along with it. Oops! It’s ok now though because here it is, and I’ve served it here with sweet potato fries but it is good with anything fried because fried things and yogurt go together like peanut butter and jelly. The fried thing provides the oomph, the crunchy satisfaction, the bulk of the dish, while the yogurt cools it down, offers a bit of creaminess, and takes some weight off of an otherwise heavy bite. It’s a perfect partnership, and pretty much whenever I fry up a vegetable or fritter, my first instinct is to grab some dollops of yogurt out of the fridge.

This sweet onion yogurt dip bursts with a nostalgic flavor that will take you straight back to junior high basement parties. It's very simple to make and cooking it will make your house smell ~amazing~. 

French Onion Yogurt

Ingredients

2 tb unsalted butter

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1/2 tsp kosher salt, divided

1/2 tsp sugar

1/4 c white wine

3/4 c (170g) whole milk greek yogurt

1/2 tsp onion powder

Black pepper

Chives, for topping

Clues

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium and add the onion, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and sugar. Cook, stirring, until golden brown and caramelized, about 30-40 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the wine: add it to the pan, scrape off any bits that have stuck to the pan and continue to cook until the wine is mostly reduced. Let cool and then stir with the yogurt, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, onion powder, and a few turns of black pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped fresh chives. 

I’d also like to include some shoutouts to friends who have blogged about Short Stack Yogurt and posted recipes!! Thank you sooo much, sweet friends!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ (If you’ve blogged about Short Stack Yogurt, let me know in the comments or by tagging #shortstackyogurt on social!!) 

challah french toast with sumac yogurt and pickled onions on kale + caramel

pita on rose water and orange blossoms

lazy b mac and cheese on chatelaine

Pistachio Rosewater Cake With Labneh Frosting on buzzfeed

yogurt-marinated ras el hanout chicken skewers on a cozy kitchen

yogurt ranch salad pizza on a couple cooks

pita on fig and bleu

yogurt cookies with strawberry and thyme on oh curious rose

yogurt pita and baked chicken shawarma on joy the baker

dulcey yogurt pretzels on hummingbird high

Yogurt_cover.jpg

short stack yogurt, is out now!

pistachio latte

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A few months ago, Jessica posted a preview of her new book, The Pretty Dish, and I caught a glimpse of two of the most beautiful words strung together, pistachio latte. You can have your golden milk lattes and oat milk lattes, this pistachio latte was made for me!! Jessica and I share a deep love for pistachios-- remember this pistachio cake from her first book?? So insanely good. And green, the best color! It comes as no surprise to me that her new book is filled with so many things that i want to eat immediately, including but not limited to miniature margarita pizzas that are built on deep fried disks of dough, yes, basically pizza donuts. I screamed. There are also beauty product recipes for things like macaroon lip balm and birthday cake body scrub (!!!), I just generally feel understood by this book.

Admittedly, with this whole new one cup of coffee limit in my life, I didn't go through the pistachio milk and syrup as quickly as I thought I would until I made a really kickass discovery: oatmeal cooked in pistachio milk and sweetened with pistachio syrup is insane. 12/10 would recommend. But of course the latte is insane too, it's pistachio-y, almond-y, creamy, and perfect.

Pistachio Latte

from Jessica Merchant's The Pretty Dish

makes 1 serving (easily multiplied)

ingredients

for the pistachio syrup

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c water

1/3 c chopped pistachios

1/4 tsp almond extract

 

for the latte

2 shots espresso

2-3 tb pistachio syrup

6 oz steamed milk (cow's or pistachio)

chopped pistachios (optional)

 

clues

to make the pistachio syrup

in a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the sugar, water, and pistachios. whisk until the sugar dissolves. bring the mixture to a simmer, and cook for 2 minutes, turn off the heat and set the saucepan aside until the mixture has cooled completely. strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the pistachios. stir in the almond extract. you can keep the syrup in a sealed container in the fridge for about a week. the recipe with make 1/2 cup of syrup.

to make the latte

in a mug, combine the espresso and syrup and stir together. pour in the steamed milk. sprinkle with chopped pistachios, if desired. serve immediately! 

Pistachio Milk

from Jessica Merchant's The Pretty Dish

ingredients

1 c shelled, roasted pistachios (or raw if you can find them!)

4 1/2 c filtred water

1/2 tsp almond extract

2 tb honey (optional)

clues

place the pistachios in a bowl and cover them with water. soak overnight or for at least 6 hours. drain.

in a blender, combine the soaked pistachios, filtered water, and almond extract. blend until smooth and creamy. taste the milk and, if desired, add the honey and blend again. store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

-yeh!

short stack yogurt is out!

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She’s here!! My new little yogurty child is officially out in the world and I can’t wait for you to meet her!! I’m so excited I could cannon ball into a pool of yogurt. Well, maybe actually more like a hot tub of yogurt soup because it’s still a little cold outside.

And with this book you can make yogurt soup! And yogurt pita to dunk in it! And yogurt soda to wash it all down! Basically just a lot of yogurty things that *might* not employ the most obvious uses for yogurt because showcasing these uses was a huge priority in writing this book. I mean, you all know how to put yogurt in a smoothie or layer it in a parfait, but maybe you’ve never put it on a pizza or in a chipwich or used it in its powder form before, and I hope this book encourages you to do all of those! The name of the game here is trying new things while having fun (and maybe also regulating your digestive system in the process).

If you haven’t ordered your copy yet, you can order it here!

Because there are no photos in the book, Chantell and Brett, Lauren, and I shot a bunch of the dishes to share here, and I’ve also been sharing a lot on Instagram with #shortstackyogurt. The dishes above are (in order): olive oil grapefruit poppy seed loaves with yogurt glaze, homemade yogurt pretzels, yogurt ranch salad pizza, harissa braised chickpeas with grilled lemon and feta, scallion marinated labneh balls, wild rice chicken soup with yogurt and saffron, mujadara with spicy yogurty lava, whipped cheesecake chipwiches with cookie dough and sprinkles, soft yogurt cookies with raspberry glaze, a kale, za’atar, and white cheddar frittata, and yogurt egg creams. Below you'll see some ~lazy b mac and cheese~. Some of my other favorite recipes from the book that aren’t pictured are: blueberry labneh scones, challah french toast with pickled onions and sumac yogurt, labneh grilled cheese with tomato thyme jam, and pistachio rosewater cake with labneh frosting.

🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️🥛❤️

I am forever grateful to everyone at Short Stack Editions for allowing me to write about one of the best dang ingredients on the planet (buy all of their editions!), and also to all of you for letting me talk about yogurt until the cows come home. I cannot wait to hear what you guys think of these recipes. Tag your posts with #shortstackyogurt so that I can see them and also use the yogurt emoji liberally, please. 🥛🥛🥛🥛!!!

And! If you’re local, come celebrate this week at one of three launch events!! Thursday (3/15, 5-7pm) at Kittsona Lifestyle in Grand Forks and Saturday (3/17, 3-5pm) at Kittsona in Fargo will both be free, open to the public, and filled with yogurt cake. And on Saturday morning, Randi and I are hosting our Yoga + Yogurt event at her studio and I think it’s jussst about sold out but there might be one or two more spots left, so get to it.

Hooray!!! Enjoy Short Stack Yogurt, everybody!! 

-yeh!

Egg cream and mac and cheese photos by Lauren V Allen, Yogurt cookies photo by me, all others by Chantell and Brett!

P.S. Want to win a copy of both Short Stack Yogurt and Molly on the Range?? Leave a comment here! 

~yogurt book outtakes~

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!!