So, lately I’ve been into eating healthier, shopping at farmers markets, growing veggies and herbs on my balcony, trying things from my Moosewood cookbook … so I want to make my first post here about dessert. 
So here are two fairly easy and (maybe) not-as-unhealthy-as-they-could-be desserts..
The first is for a strawberry shake (from the “Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home” cookbook):
Ingredients:
- 1 pint fresh strawberries (cleaned and stemmed)
- 1 cup plain, vanilla or lemon nonfat yogurt (I’ve used vanilla each time I’ve made this)
- 3-4 tablespoons of orange juice, apple juice or apple-strawberry juice
- 2-3 tablespoons of maple syrup
Put it all in a blender until smooth. I’d recommend chilling it a little bit before serving so it’s nice and cold, but it still tastes good right out of the blender.
Second recipe is for egg-free chocolate chip cookies (from allrecipes.com). They may be just as bad (calorie wise) as other cookies, but for some reason using yogurt makes them seem healthier to me.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar (you can reduce the amount of sugar a little bit and it will still taste plenty sweet)
- 1/4 cup margarine or butter
- 1/4 cup shortening (I actually just used a little bit more butter instead of shortening)
- 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugars, butter and shortening until light and fluffy. Stir in yogurt and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture, then mix in chocolate chips. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. (Recipe, in theory, makes 36 cookies)
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Cool for a minute on the cookie sheets before moving to wire racks to cool completely.
When I made these cookies, the consistency was more muffin-like than cookie-like, but they still tasted delicious. I think next time I am going to divide the batch in half – one half of the dough for making cookies and the other half for eating raw. That’s one of the major perks of cookie dough without raw eggs!