Cranberry Sauce Fall Yogurt Parfait: Thanksgiving Leftovers

Cranberry Sauce Fall Yogurt Parfait with persimmon, pomegranates, and muesli

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm heading over to my folk's house to hang with them, my brother, and my fun niece and two nephews. I'm thankful for my family and friends. I'm also very thankful for you! I've had a great time seeing all the Bundts you made for National Bundt Day and your comments are so sweet. Even though you think I'm a bit crazy, you are so nice about it. :) I'm working on the round up and hope to have it done before the end of this long weekend.

In the meantime, here is something you can make with your leftover cranberry sauce. It's pretty healthy with non-fat dairy and plenty of fiber in the fruit and muesli...so if you stuffed yourself on Thanksgiving, you can try this. Or, you can just have this with another piece of Thanksgiving pie. ;)

I'm averaging two persimmons a day during persimmon season. You need to use FUYU persimmons, not hachiya persimmons. Hachiya's need to be fully soft and gooey before eating, but you can eat the Fuyu persimmon hard like a apple. My parents have a Fuyu persimmon tree - I'm so lucky!

My bowl was kinda big so I did one round of yogurt, cranberry sauce, muesli, yogurt and fruit. Of course, depending on the size of your bowl/cup/glass, you can layer it as many times as you want.

I like to make extra cranberry sauce during Thanksgiving...so I have some for the rest of the week and put it on practically everything. Sometimes, I'll just grab a spoon and eat some too!

May you have a lovely Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and family!

Cranberry Sauce Fall Yogurt Parfait with persimmon, pomegranates, and muesli

Ingredients:

Greek Yogurt (I use 0% Fage plain yogurt)

Cranberry Sauce

Fuyu persimmon, diced small (don't use hachiya persimmons)

Pomegranate seeds

Muesli (I make my own - recipe coming soon, but Bob's Red Mill Muesli is great too)

Layer ingredients to your liking...can do several layers for something fancy!

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The Food Librarian Loves... Siggi's Icelandic Style Skyr Yogurt

Siggi's Yogurt
Icelandic style skyr strained non-fat yogurt

Just a quick post to tell you about my new favorite yogurt/dessert. Yes, this stuff is instant dessert.

Siggi's Icelandic style Skyr yogurt is delicious! It is a non-fat super thick yogurt. I mean super duper thick. Not too sweet and very smooth.

I've had the Orange & Ginger, Pomegranate & Passion Fruit, and Grapefruit yogurts. Because I'm a gingerphile, I love the orange & ginger flavor...this is the ingredient list: Skim Milk, Agave Nectar, Candied Ginger Orange Extract, Live Active Cultures, Vegetable Rennet; things you can actually pronounce! :) Here is the nutritional information.

This stuff ain't cheap. This isn't your Yoplait 10 for $5 yogurt...and luckily, it doesn't have all the junk that Yoplait has. I've purchased it for $2.39 at Whole Foods, and they were having a sale recently: 2 for $4.

But it is delicious. I often have it for dessert at the end of the day. Click here to find places that sell this New York product.

From their website:
Skyr is the traditional yogurt of Iceland. It is made by incubating skim milk with live active cultures. The whey, the water naturally found in milk, is then strained away to make for a much thicker, creamier, concentrated yogurt. So to make just one cup of skyr, with all that water going out, you need 3 - 4 times the amount of milk required to make a regular cup of yogurt. As a result of this process skyr comes out with 2-3 times the protein count of standard yogurt.

Please note: I am not being compensated in any way by Siggi's Skyr Yogurt. Heck, they have no idea who I am. I'm just a fan and I want to give them a shout out. In these tough economic times, supporting small businesses with awesome products is important...if we want them there tomorrow. So, here is my little Saturday shout out for Siggi's. I'm off to enjoy some now... :)
- mary the food librarian

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Saucepan Fudge Drop Cookies

Brownies in Cookie form

So, I've been trying to get up 10 minutes earlier every day this week in anticipation of the daylight saving time change. As I'm getting older, Springing Forward has been kicking my butt. The week following the change, I feel like I'm in a jet lag haze. So, I keep moving my clock up each night and have made a big effort to go to bed early (thank you DVR for helping me time shift!). Next week, I'll let you know if it works.

This morning, since I was up early, I decided to make a quick batch of cookies, and remember seeing these on Tracey's Culinary Adventures blog. Tracey is a blogger friend who has great recipes and photos, and is always making something mouth watering!

This recipe was adapted from the book Bittersweet by Alice Medrich. Oh, it looks so good. Yet another book on my wish list!! The original recipe calls for a sprinkling of powdered sugar before baking, but we all skipped that.

Ok. I gotta run. I have to GO TO BED soon! I am totally looking forward to the time change though..."playing in the street" after work or heading to the beach for a sunset walk. Awesome.

I hope you make these lovely cookies...seriously, you can get them done in 30 minutes, including washing the dishes while they are baking. Thanks Blue Ridge Baker and Tracey for introducing these gems to me! Good night and enjoy!

Saucepan Fudge Drops
Adapted from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich (as seen on Blue Ridge Baker and Tracey's Culinary Adventures)

See if your library has the book Bittersweet: recipes and tales from a life in chocolate by clicking here.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I used natural cocoa powder, not Dutch)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
1/3 cup yogurt (I used whole milk Greek yogurt, but I think all plain yogurts will work)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

As Tracey says, you need to work fast with the batter. I suggest having all your ingredients ready to go so you can assemble and dish it out in just a few minutes. These cookies take no time at all!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl, and set aside. Place the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat and melt. Once the butter is melted, remove from heat and whisk in cocoa until smooth. Switch to a wooden spoon, and add both sugars and stir until blended - the mixture will be stiff and sandy at this point. Stir in yogurt and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined. Don't go crazy and overmix.

Immediately scoop dough onto baking sheets. I used a cookie scoop/disher and got a total of 22 cookies. I must have made 'em big...Bittersweet's recipe says you should get about 32 cookies!

Bake the cookies until they look dry on top and are cracked all over, but are still slightly soft when pressed, about 10-12 minutes. Mine were done in 11 minutes. Rotate baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back about half way through to ensure even baking. Slide the parchment, cookies and all onto racks to cool.

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