short stack yogurt

pita and greens benedict with feta cream

in , ,

Not to talk about the weather but because a dramatic shift in weather also means an actual dramatic shift in our life as farm humans: it is spring!! The snow has melted, the birds are chirping, the heat has been turned off, I’m deep in #VestLife, and the chickens are sooooo happy that they have more sunlight and grass to waddle around in. Last week, Eggboy put his farm hat on for the first time this year which means that spring planting is near and he’ll soon start coming in later and later at night smelling like sweat and dirt. The fields are bare right now but in a few weeks they’ll have little sprouts popping out all over and soon we’ll have a garden!!!! And I’ll no longer have to spend $5 on 15 leaves of basil at the Hugo’s on 32nd. 

Since I’m not the one who tends to the fields, the arrival of spring for me pretty much just means that I work slightly longer hours in the kitchen since supper time is way later, and I go to the gym at night by myself. Usually by the time I get back from the gym, Eggboy’s in and it’s Westworld o’clock, even though the sun doesn’t go down until really late but maybe that’s a good thing because Westworld is creepy.

It’s usually in these warmer months when I start taking on bigger kitchen projects, like learning buttercream flowers or bagels, and I think that this is the year I’d like to finally keep a sourdough starter alive and learn to make good crusty bread.

Ok let’s talk bout this recipeep! 

A solid 70% of the time, my mom and I have the same exact brunch order: eggs benedict hold the hollandaise. Just like pork and creamed soups, hollandaise sauce was one of those things growing up that *other people ate*. Who, really, I can’t be sure, but no one in our family. And I think it was simply because hollandaise sauce is heavy and unhealthy, and, to be frank, completely unnecessary. Or, maybe it’s necessary on other things, but a well-salted and adequately Tabasco’d perfectly poached yolky egg on thick Canadian bacon (I know! Pork! Somehow bacon never counted as real pork in our house!) and a toasty English muffin is nary in need of more. Hollandaise actually kind of hardcore effs it up because it takes a relatively healthyish breakfast option to bellyache status and, honestly, I wouldn’t miss hollandaise if it ceased to exist. Oops, this got dark! But the more I think of it the more I really want to just go back in time and convince the eggs benedict inventor to stop after the egg. 

Here’s a version of eggs benedict that does have a sauce but it’s a better sauce than hollandaise, for it is feta yogurt. It’s a light flavorful deal that adds loads of brightness and I realize I just shat all over the very idea of a sauce on a benedict but in my opinion it makes more sense here. All it does is tie together some great garlicky kale, a poached egg, and a fluffy homemade pita, almost more like a dressing than a sauce. And with this vegetarian version, the feta yogurt fills in for the ham in the protein department. This eggs benedict is salty, creamy, garlicky, and green. It’s one that doesn’t require you to order it without the sauce and a colorful main for your next brunch party. 

And you know what’s cool?? You can poach eggs in advance: Simply transfer freshly poached eggs to an ice bath and refrigerate them in a container of water for a day or two until serving time. When it’s time to serve, reheat them by submerging them in hot water until warm. (more details here!)

As for the thick pitas you see: I made one batch of dough (recipe here) into 16 pitas and rolled them out just lightly, molding them more into slightly flat bread rolls as opposed to a flatbread, so they could be thick enough to get sliced in half. 

Pita and Greens Benedict with Feta Cream

Makes 4

Ingredients

2 oz feta, crumbled

1/2 c (113g) whole milk greek yogurt

1/2 tsp aleppo pepper or paprika, plus more for sprinkling

black pepper

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic, sliced

6 oz kale, thinly sliced

Kosher salt 

2 tb water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

4 large eggs

2 thick puffy pitas, halved

Clues

In a high speed blender, combine the feta, yogurt, aleppo or paprika, a few turns of pepper, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and blend until very smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings if desired. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (this can be made a day or two in advance). 

In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the kale, a few pinches of salt, and the water, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and wilted. You may need to add the kale in batches if it’s too much to fit in all at once. Season with pepper and squeeze with lemon. Turn heat down to low just to keep this warm while you poach the eggs.

To poach the eggs, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Crack the eggs one or two at a time into a fine mesh sieve and let any loose bits of egg whites seep out (this step isn’t totally necessary but it will decrease the amount of wild rogue egg white bits) and transfer to a bowl. Carefully lower them into the boiling water. Cook until the whites are firm but the yolks are still runny, 2-3 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove to a paper towel or clean kitchen towel to dry off any excess moisture. 

Toast or grill the pitas. Drizzle with a little olive oil and top with the kale and eggs. Spoon on the feta cream and sprinkle with fresh black pepper and a pinch of aleppo or paprika. Enjoy!

p.s. Enrich and Endure makes Crossback aprons now! Omg, I am obsessed. Keep an eye on Instagram, I’ll be doing a giveaway with them in the coming weeks!!

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

short stack yogurt is out!

in ,

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!

in

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!!