Homemade Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt

We don't have Pinkberry here in Houston. We've got our share of knockoff joints, of course, but I get tired of wading through the sea of inferior frozen yogurts looking for the one true cup of creamy, tart goodness. And as much as I love Pinkberry I'm not driving up to Dallas for yogurt.

So imagine how delighted I was to discover you can make your own Pinkberry at home! And it's super easy! Here's what you need:

3 cups plain Greek yogurt
3/4 cup sugar
An ice cream maker

No, really, that's it.

Now, people will tell you that you can make your own Greek-style yogurt by straining a container of plain old Dannon (or whatever) over cheesecloth. I don't believe them. I've done it, and it may have the right texture, but it just doesn't have the same flavor as authentic Greek yogurt. Plus, you really need whole-milk yogurt to enjoy a truly delicious and decadent cup of frozen yogurt. Low-fat schmo-fat, I say! Go out and get yourself the real thing if you can find it. You won't be sorry.


Once you've got your yogurt, mix it together with the sugar. I used an electric mixer to make sure the sugar was completely dissolved. Then just freeze it in your ice cream maker according to your machine's instructions. Twenty minutes later (for my handy little Cuisinart) you've got your very own Pinkberry that you can top with whatever fruits, nuts or sweet treats you've got on hand.

If you like flavored yogurt you can add a little vanilla or coconut extract to taste. Or chocolate syrup. Or fruit juice. Improvise! Go crazy!

Quiche Lorraine

When I was a kid one of my all-time favorite foods that my mom used to make was Quiche Lorraine. I used to beg her to make it all the time, and she would demure, telling me that it was a lot of work and only for special occasions. So imagine my surprise when, as an adult, I decided to make try making it for myself, only to discover that quiche is one of the easiest dishes to make like, ever. Assuming, of course, you use refrigerated pie crusts. If you wanna be all ambitious and make the crust yourself then it starts to qualify as a lot of work, and honestly those refrigerated crusts are almost as good as homemade anyway.

I suspect now that my mom's reasons for not making it more often had far more to do with how fattening it is than how much work. And it is fattening. But oh, so delicious. And for some reason I always get a hankering for quiche in the summertime. Maybe because a little goes a long way and when it's 105 in the shade I'm not in the mood for a lot of food. Or maybe because the leftovers taste so good cold. It's possible that sometimes I even eat them right out of the pan while standing at the fridge with the door open. Don't tell my mama, though.

I don't have my mom's old Quiche Lorraine recipe, so I have to make due with someone else's. I usually go with the old standby Betty Crocker recipe, because there's a pretty good chance that's what my mom was using. Only my mom always used Canadian bacon instead of regular bacon, so that's what I do, too. It tastes a little more like dinner food that way.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

When we lived on the west side of Houston we used to go to this German restaurant called Rudi Lechner's. It wasn't the best German food ever, but it was in the neighborhood and had a warmly retro atmosphere that we enjoyed (and not intentionally retro, but retro in a your-grandparents-actually-used-to eat-here kind of way). Plus, the kid liked it, which is not to be taken for granted. Her favorite things were the spaetzle and the warm zucchini bread they brought out before the meal. Unfortunately, after a very bad customer service experience one night when we'd gone there to celebrate hubby's birthday, we swore never to darken their door again. And we haven't.

As it turns out you can buy spaetzle at H-E-B that, while not quite as good as Rudi's, is more than good enough to satisfy the kid. But she's been on me to make zucchini bread and finally, after several years, I have gotten around to it. I don't know why I never did it before. I make loads of pumpkin bread every fall and banana bread several times a year, and zucchini bread is basically the same thing. Well today I had a couple of zucchinis (zucchini? zucchinae?) in the fridge starting to go soft and it occurred to me that I should make bread. Duh!

Of course, I knew that just any old recipe wouldn't do, or else I'd have to listen to the kid tell me how mine wasn't as good as Rudi's. I needed a ringer. And what better way to guarantee a win than chocolate? So chocolate zucchini bread it was. The recipe I finally settled on was Paula Deen's.

I didn't have any oranges on hand for the zest, so I left it out and I'll tell you that I didn't even miss it. Then again, I'm generally opposed to extraneous citrus in my recipes--unless there's an honest to god Alton Brown-y, chemistry-related reason for it to be there, just don't do it. I have eaten far too many cheesecakes, buttermilk pies and blintzes ruined by unnecessary lemon flavor. If I'd wanted a lemon-flavored dessert, I'd have ordered one with lemon in the name!

But I digress.

The verdict on Paula's chocolate zucchini bread is A+. It was sweet, but not too sweet, the zucchini was detectable, but not overpowering, and most importantly, the kid loved it. She declared mine even better that Rudi's because "it's got CHOCOLATE!" Proof that everything is improved by chocolate, even vegetables.

TIP: If you don't want your chocolate chips all falling to the bottom, dust them with a light sprinkling of flour before adding them to the batter. Works like a charm!