Tag: breakfast

Yogurt… Have it Your Way

If you’ve been reading the labels on the yogurt options at the grocery store, you might be as frustrated as me. It seems impossible to find yogurt without tons of added sugar! It hard to even find yogurt that has more protein than sugar, and even harder to find any options in full fat yogurt. I’m pregnant and feeding…

If you’ve been reading the labels on the yogurt options at the grocery store, you might be as frustrated as me. It seems impossible to find yogurt without tons of added sugar! It hard to even find yogurt that has more protein than sugar, and even harder to find any options in full fat yogurt. I’m pregnant and feeding a toddler, so if we’re going to do yogurt, full fat is a priority for me… and we avoid refined sugar like the plague.  My son is 19 months and yogurt is his first real exposure to dairy products. We first started thinking we might give it a whirl after reading about the impact of probiotics on eczema. We like the idea of him getting some of those live cultures regularly, but could do without the sugar… and I’m not up for “making” my own yogurt. Not yet at least!




 

Here’s what we’ve tried: We’ve been buying the best plain, full fat yogurt we can find and flavoring it ourselves. We experimented with adding raw fruit first, and found that the sour flavor of the plain yogurt was still too overpowering. Next, we tried topping the yogurt with a fruit reduction. We just simmered some sweet fruits with a little water on the stove and mashed them up a bit. Once cool, we topped our baby food jars that were 2/3 full of plain yogurt. This looked beautiful- like a fancy parfait! What we discovered though… was that it was hard to mix up in the jar when we were ready to serve it, so while my little guy liked the fruity bites, he made the fish face pucker for a whole bunch of plain bites in between. Last week, I think I found the best solution so far. I reduced a medley of fruits on the stove- just adding a little water. I mashed it up a bit and let it cool, leaving some chunky bits of pineapple and mango for texture. Next, I poured the whole 32 ounce container of plain yogurt into a big mixing bowl and added the fruit. I mixed it together with a rubber spatula until all of the yogurt had changed color and seemed to be blended evenly. Then, I poured and stored the new mix- and saw no fish face puckers when serving it! We’ve also introduced this crispy cereal as an occasional topping, which my little guy LOVES! He points to the cabinet we keep it in and signs, “more more” whenever we serve him something that he thinks needs some crunch these days…  

For this mixture, I reduced about a cup and a half of frozen fruit from the giant Dole Fruit Medley bag that we keep on hand for smoothies and added a handful of frozen raspberries. I was able to pour and store 18 individual servings of the yogurt mixture in my Kiddo Feedo freezer containers.
For this mixture, I reduced about a cup and a half of frozen fruit from the giant Dole Fruit Medley bag that we keep on hand for smoothies and added a handful of frozen raspberries. I was able to pour and store 18 individual servings of the yogurt mixture in my Kiddo Feedo freezer containers.