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Ok, I’d like to see a show of hands:

How many of you have procrastinated on something this week? Spill! :)

If you can only see me now, my hands and arms couldn’t be any higher! In August, my brain slows down, my discipline goes on vacation and I am stuck with a mid-summer love affair with someone called Procrastination or Cunctation. I call him CunkyPunky. (See? This is beginning to sound more fun than it really is.) I just have to accept that August is CunkyPunky time and I should just breathe and relax. Aside from procrastinating with CP, I’m also trying to balance bank accounts and to keep sane in the midst of paying even more taxes. I don’t even want to think about it, because aside from my already-planned trip to Blogher Food, there’s another event that I would love to attend: Foodbuzz in November. (I call it an injustice that they are both held in San Francisco! Woe is me, who lives across the north border.) Just when I need to “kick ass” in the making-money department, all CP wants to do is drag me to graze in the grass like spoiled cows living in a luscious Hawaiian ranch–that kind of downtime. I have to remind him that traveling involves money, which involves doing something.

Ayayay.

This super simple breakfast post was supposed to be up last week, but CP and I had a week-long rendezvous. I’m sorry. But I hope you’ll forgive me. It is very easy to do anyway:

Just cook berries in simple syrup of 1 sugar :1 water proportion, wait for it to thicken, then set it aside to cool down. Serve generously on top of your favorite yogurt.

In my case, it’s the Fage 2% greek yogurt. That’s it. No theatrics, just plain and simple food. I eat this for breakfast, as a dessert or as a snack. It’s a great way to save berries that might otherwise go bad this summer, especially if you happen to haul big boxes of them from the farmer’s market.

I’m still rallying to have Fage here in Vancouver. I have never seen it here. Hello– Fage?!?!?!

In case you were wondering– No, Fage isn’t a sponsor of this blog. I just happen to love it so much that I milk my parents, who cross the border several times a month, to bring me Fage. It’s that good.

Can you say that in one go? It refers to this mouthful of flavor-packed and devilishly smooth sensation of strawberry and honey brought to you in a creamy yogurt base, and you won’t even know that last part if nobody told you. It’s even better than our previous frozen creations — whether yogurt- or cream-based — better in flavor and texture. It’s definitely up there in the hankering-meter for both Dan and I.

We like getting feedback and ideas from all of you — it encourages us to experiment and tell you the delicious incarnations we’ve discovered. This is how this honey-strawberry variation came about. When Jen, an old pal from way back, asked about using honey with our recipe here, I just had to try it and find out the results firsthand. Or first spoonful, I guess, because that set off a multiple series of others. It was simply delectable. I fully blame the honey and the full-fat Greek yogurt that I accidentally bought. I previously used Fage Total 0% [PRONOUNCED Fa'-yeh] and had stellar results, so I didn’t think I was missing out on anything. Clearly, as Dan pointed out to me several times over the course of finishing this batch, that accidental mistake was a a great thing. Given my track record, my mistakes often end up as acts of genius in the kitchen, and elsewhere — the cosmos has a way of straightening me out. This time, I’d lightly pat myself on the back for giving this a try. [Note: I checked the Fage website and the Fage Total classic I used here was made from milk and cream.]

One snag in this honey-strawberry experiment was, and I think your inner honey-minions should take note of, the change in color color…to dirty pink. It’s easily remedied with a drop of red liquid food coloring.

Hmm…all this talk of frozen yogurt doesn’t seem right at the moment because my toes are cold from winter-like conditions here in AZ. We had a weather hiccup, and temperatures dropped from 110ºF to the 50º’s. Yes, you read that right. However, I thought it best to still post this for those of you suffering sweltering heat.

I hope you try it! Include it in your Memorial Day menu, if you like. This could very well be the reason you purchase that Cuisinart frozen yogurt/ice cream maker you’ve been eyeing. ;-) Here’s the recipe:

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** May 14, ERRATUM [Or where I say -- I'm so sorry!]: There was an error with the recipe I posted yesterday. The sugar and the water were lumped together under the list of ingredients. It’s supposed to be 1 cup sugar, then 5/8 cup water I’ve updated the PDF recipe as well.

In other parts of North America, it’s starting to warm up. Here in Arizona, the summer weather has already crashed the spring party with a blazing 100ºF (or 37ºC). I grew up in a tropical country (Philippines) but even this temperature is taking its toll on this South Eastern gal — super dry skin, lovely migraines, and it makes me feel super lazy (less movement = less heat). Ack. To combat this overall feeling of ick, I whipped out the ice cream maker and got this going last night:

Churning inside is a mixture of Greek yoghurt, a teensy bit of real milk (I always tease Dan about him buying skim milk, which I don’t fancy at all), pureed fresh strawberries, simple syrup, a touch of lemon and vanilla.

We don’t usually make yoghurt ice cream. However, I was inspired by Veg SF’s recipe based on David Lebovitz’s and her better-than-Pinkberry results with Greek yoghurt. I’ve never tasted Pinkberry, but with the news out there that this too-good-to-be-true source of the West Coast’s oooh’s and ahhhh’s is actually not that natural, I’d rather make my own and know everything that goes in it.

When we started making ice cream last year, we followed the instructions on the Cuisinart booklet — down to the high fructose corn syrup. If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, you cringe as much as I do hearing/reading those four words. I stayed away from that and opted to make a thick simple syrup instead. Everything (except for the sugar) in this smooth frozen goodness is both natural and organic:

For those non-plussed about yoghurt, let me just say that Dan (the resident yoghurt-eww-er in the household) loved it. So did I.

I guess that’s what’s good about living with someone picky about food. It challenges me to stretch boundaries and look for alternatives which end up being better than if I just followed the straight and oft-taken path. Instead of just using yoghurt and sugar, I added milk and made simple syrup to add creaminess, smoothness and an even sweet taste.

You can also drizzle it with melted chocolate to satisfy the chocoholic in you:

And now for the recipe:

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