Road Food: Trail Mix

As a food-conscious (ethics, food-as-fuel) gluten-free vegetarian, road travel can be a bit of a pain especially if the trip is long enough that I'll want food more than once. I've learned not to rely on the usual roadside places to stop for something resembling a meal. There are a few exceptions I've come across over the years, including SeQuential, Tally's Silver Spoon (a restaurant), Planet Ozone and others depending on where I'm driving and how long I'm mentally allowing for stops, detours, and anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

I've learned to pack trail mixes (often hand-mixed) and fresh fruits and veggies (as long as I'm not driving into California, where I have to prove my produce's citizenship). I've learned to buy tofu jerky (I need to try making this still) if I think I'm going to be short on protein and want something besides nuts. A friend of mine packs hard-boiled eggs -- I might do this if I didn't hate how eggs make me feel. Another friend swears by peanut butter, on pretty much anything. These are all good solutions, and if there's space, I'm in favor of packing yogurt in a cooler for stomach-calming calcium and plenty of protein.

But back to trail mixes: I like to select trail mixes for road trips because I don't buy them on a regular basis. They feel special. I can include chocolate if I want (always a nice treat, and quick sugar), dried fruits, nuts & seeds, or a variety of other options. They can -- and probably should -- consist of complex & simple carbs, plus protein and fats. GORP is a nice standby, except I haven't been buying peanuts recently because I'm tired of them. Instead, I've been using sunflower seeds or soynuts -- salted varieties of both, if you were wondering.

For an upcoming road trip, I decided to indulge in a trail mix with a variety of dried fruits (but primarily cranberries & raisins) and almonds. I'm going to throw in a handful of chocolate and call it good, then pack a couple of grown in the USA apples with stickers attached, corn tortillas + nut butter, and a couple of small containers of yogurt. And then  I'm going to hope that's enough food for a several-day-total trip to a nearbyish city that will involve a lot of hiking and time outdoors. It's not as though I can't also opt into buying food there -- I'm sure I will, in fact (an avocado, some carrots)  -- but in case that doesn't make sense for my schedule I want a back-up.

Marionberry-Cranberry Smoothie

One of the lovely things about the PNW is that we've got a ready supply of marionberries -- at this time of year, in the freezer section of my local grocer. I love marionberries, which are a hybrid berry developed by Oregon State University between two berries I'd never heard of (and which are already crosses of other berries). If you're not familiar with it, the link above is to Wikipedia (and if you're like me, you can get lost for ages strolling through links and learning fun facts) -- but basically it's blackberry-like in shape and taste.

This smoothie recipe was inspired by a "Oh god, I've been writing too long and it's time to go to work!" moment the other morning. As always, measurements are approximate, so adjust as you see fit. I like this smoothie because it's sweeter than the spinach-mint smoothie I posted the other day without having to add additional sugars. However, if you like your smoothies sweeter, definitely add a bit of sweetener of your choice.

Notice this smoothie contains protein powder (because I have some I'd like to use up, rather than just toss since I never use it), but I don't think that's a requirement. If you want to increase the protein, use a tablespoon or two of nut/seed butter, or a spoonful of Greek yogurt.

Marionberry-Cranberry Smoothie

This has cranberries because I always have them around (or at least 6 months+ a year -- I stocked up when they were in the grocery store -- I finally, thankfully, live in a place where they're not in the freezer section year round and then threw them in my freezer). If you don't have cranberries lying around (and why would you at this time of year??) toss in a handful of blueberries or extra marionberries. The result will be a little sweeter, and a little purpler.

Confession: I always make too much smoothie. For this recipe, I essentially filled two 16-ounce glass jars with smoothie (whew, because I wound up writing too long the next morning also. That and feeling upset by police brutality--at what point does force become brutality?--in Occupy Homes MN -- watch a video here). Anyway, I stuck the extra jar (sealed of course!) in my refrigerator and grabbed it when I headed out the door the next morning. It worked out beautifully and there was only a little bit of separation -- a problem easily solved by a quick shake.

Marionberry-Cranberry Smoothie
1/2 cup frozen cranberries
1/2 cup frozen marionberries (or fresh, if you have them)
1 large banana, frozen (and half thawed, if your don't have one of the fancy blenders)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup almond milk, or milk of your choice
2 tablespoons vanilla protein powder, optional (I used soy)

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Serve chilled.

Green Smoothie - Spinach-Mint

It's summertime (well, in just under a month) and I've been craving the fresh fruits and veggies that come with summer for quite a while now. Fortunately, my farmers market is already up and running and the local produce is coming in at the co-op and my favorite grocery store.

But beginning during the winter, when E and I were swimming several nights a week, I started making green smoothies. They were the perfect end to a workout, especially since we got home late and I didn't really want to eat dinner beforehand. The nice thing about green smoothies like the the one here is that some greens really start coming in over fall & winter -- and if you're on top of your game, you can get these greens fresh, cook them up and then freeze them in little smoothie-portioned chunks. If you're not on top of your game (and I wasn't this year, since I moved), you can also just buy frozen greens. Or, if you've got a better blender than mine, use fresh greens.

The mint extract in this smoothie helps tone down any bitter qualities of the greens, and the banana makes it smooth. Normally, as regular readers of my posts know, I'm not a fan of using bananas. Even when I buy them organic/fair-trade they're not the best environmental decision. Other options for making it smooth include: nut butters, yogurt, or (possibly) oats (my friend Marissa, over at We*Meat*Again just wrote about this possibility). 

If you have it on hand (which I do now--pineapple mint, if you're curious), you can also use fresh mint -- but it takes a lot more! The portions suggested below are just suggestions. If you think it needs to be sweeter (this may depend on the ripeness of your banana as well as your personal tastes), add some agave, honey, or other natural sweetener of your choice. Sometimes my smoothie comes out a little thick -- if this happens, just add a little water or more milk and that should solve the problem beautifully

Spinach-Mint Smoothie

1 cup almond milk (or other milk of your choice)

1/2 cup frozen spinach

1 large frozen banana, slightly thawed (again, unless you have a super-awesome blender -- which I don't)

4-5 drops mint extract or 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, packed

1/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Add all ingredients to a blender, and blend until smooth. If you don't plan to drink it right away, store in a container that you can shake up later (in case of separation) and store in refrigerator.

Green Smoothie in a peanut butter jar

Rachael's Happy Curry

This recipe makes a ton of servings, or at least 8-10. My friend Rachael recently made it for me while she was in town. The original recipe comes from Simply in Season and Rachael made a few adjustments to the original recipe, which I tried my best to capture in the recipe below. It's a lovely meal for a cold autumn day. The day we ate it, we'd gone on a long hike in the mountains and for a while we hiked in snow--the first snow of the season, in this part of the country, which felt magical. As Rachael put it at one point when she tried taking a picture of me, "It's okay though, because it's like you're in a fairy tale."

And the entire weekend was like a fairy tale. We saw snow and a bit of a bus, or some other yellow piece of metal deep in the woods. We traipsed through clouds. We hiked through snow that was up to our hips. We scrambled up rocks and back down them. We went to Goodwill and the grocery store and drank local Viongier and local, organic chocolate vodka. We hiked daily, we baked and cooked, we had long conversations. We wandered through the First Friday art walk and looked at beautiful things we (for the most part) knew we couldn't afford. We went on a mini road trip. We talked about how we were both living lifestyles most people we know don't really understand and how small moments, like watching a video a friend of Rachael's made about Holden Village, make us feel like we're making the right decision for us, at this point in our lives.

While Rachael was here, we listened to Iron & Wine while making dinner, to a song, "The Perfect Space" by the Avett Brothers, that made us think of our friend Brenna while we drove on our mini road trip. We listened to Cat Stevens and The Beatles and a short story ("Paper Lantern") by Stuart Dybek, as read by ZZ Packer.

We talked about how we liked working outdoors--though Rachael works outside more than I do and I'm a bit jealous of it--and environmental education. We talked about how much we liked being able to go hiking or kayaking after work and how the best conversations either of us have occur while we're moving around. I felt more grounded, less like I was just existing, in a somewhat grounded way, in this liminal spot. But I also realized I was going to feel sad when Rachael left. I want her to live near me. I only feel that way, at this point, about a couple of people--though there are a lot of people I'd love to see more often. Rachael's a lovely, kind woman and I'm glad she's been such a constant force in my life over the past three and a half years, and especially during the last year as so many other things in my life have felt in transition.

It felt, to me, like having family around and helped me feel more like I belonged in the place I'm in, because Rachael and I were equally interested in having quiet adventures together--not the type that involve going out to the bar, necessarily, or constant entertainment in the traditional sense, but in ways that allowed us to interact with the places near here, with the place I live, with the food we were eating--which was almost entirely local and organic. Her visit made me feel less homesick--and simultaneously more because I knew I'd miss her when she leaved. It made me feel more like an adult. Rachael's someone I don't have to work to be around, which is sometimes the most comforting thing--which I needed more than I expected.

One of the best things about making this curry: that we worked on it together. I baked brown rice, sliced (the recipe calls for minced) garlic and ginger, and found things in my kitchen for Rachael. She worked on the rest and we talked about the things in our life that felt the most immediate, and also listened to a Day of the Dead mix full of wonderful songs. After we'd both had our fill of food, there was plenty of curry left over, so I could think of her as I ate some of the leftovers and send her back on the road with some of it, perfect for eating on the road, presumably while sitting in her distinctive car on her at a lovely vista.

Curry

Rachael's Happy Curry
1 large onion, chopped
1 tableespoon ghee, coconut butter, or olive oil

1 tablespoon garlic, sliced
2 tablespoons ginger, chopped
2 serrano chile peppers, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon each: turmeric, ground cumin, black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2-3 bay leaves

14 ounces coconut milk
1/4 cup tamari (we actually used some marmite and extra water)
3 large tomatoes, diced

1 1/2 cups dried red lentils
5 cups water

1 medium head cauliflower (cut into 1 1/2 inch florets)
1 large sweet potato
1/4 head cabbage (we didn't use this, but I will next time I make it)
1-2 cups peas (again, we didn't use this but next time I will)

Salt

In large saucepan or soup pot over medium-high heat, saute onion in coconut butter or oil, until transparent but not brown. Add garlic through bay leaves and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook and stir constantly for 3 minutes. Do not let spices, garlic, and onion brown. Add the coconut milk, tamari, and tomatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring often.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, bring lentils to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Add, with liquid to soup pot.

Add the cauliflower, sweet potato, and cabbage to the soup pot and cook until just tender, about 5-10 minutes. If using peas, add at the end of the cooking time. Taste and add salt, if necessary.

Serve hot, over brown rice with toppings (optional) such as: Indian chutneys & pickles, fresh diced pears, roasted sunflower seeds, plain yogurt, or a squeeze of lemon.

Homemade Crockpot Yogurt

My friend Marissa, over at We*Meat*Again recently suggested I should post about making yogurt. I've been making yogurt pretty regularly for about 18 months now--when I'm in a good habit of it, I make it once a week, every week. But since moving, I've fallen back out of the habit until recently.

Needless to say, at this point I've probably made 40+ batches of yogurt, just under 2 quarts at a time. And it's always come out well, except once when it turned into buttermilk and this past time, when I oops left my crockpot on too long after adding the starter cultures (procured from the last batch of homemade yogurt--but originally just from "live, active culture" yogurt). By too long, I mean overnight. On low. I came downstairs in the morning and had a brown, gloopy, bubbling mess.

Well shoot. Good thing I inherited the milk I'd used from a friend, I guess. It was going sour anyway, which made it pretty ideal for yogurt-making. It wasn't bad yet, but another 24-36 hours and it would've been. It felt less like a loss that way. And thankfully, since the way I make yogurt is pretty low maintenance, but does take a few days, I have a good supply of too-many-additives yogurt.

Marissa wanted me to create a blog post about making yogurt after she realized everything her yogurt had in it--a commercial brand I'll allow to remain nameless. Corn syrup, gelatin, starch, and food dye, among other things. A mutual friend told her she should make yogurt, like I do, in a crockpot. Other friends mentioned brands that are less processed.

To be fair, after making my own yogurt for the past 18 months, I do realize why food companies use some of these thing. I have yet to figure out a really effective way of getting thick yogurt without straining it (this is how Greek yogurt is made--at least if you're making it at home). Fermentation time is a major part of this process though--if yogurt ferments quickly, then it's less likely to hold its whey. More bacteria generally = a faster fermentation time (but this is also dependent on the number of active bacteria) and potentially more runny yogurt. Fewer bacteria = slower fermentation and a thicker yogurt. I've added things like powdered milk (which thickens it some, but also sometimes leaves clumps if I don't get it dissolved enough), but that only somewhat works. Food starch (often wheat-based if it doesn't specify) and gelatin both allow yogurt to come out the way we, as Americans, expect it to be. Thick. And well, gelatinous.

Each batch of yogurt you make will have a little different flavor, based on time, bacteria, and even the milk! That's one of the things I like about making yogurt (and even just buying yogurt, for that matter).

Other things I like about making yogurt:

• I know exactly what goes into my yogurt.
• It's easy & straightforward to make in a crockpot.
• It can use milk that is about to sour, but it's better to use super-fresh milk. 
• It's about the same cost of buying yogurt where I live now, but everywhere else I've lived it's been significantly cheaper to make yogurt than buy it. Even here, it's still a little cheaper.

Heidi, over at 101 Cookbooks wrote a great post about making yogurt back in 2005 and this was the recipe I started with when I started making yogurt. I've never had my yogurt thicken as quickly as she indicates her yogurt fermented (4-5 hours) and re-reading that post so that I wouldn't repeat too much of her information here, it made me a little jealous. But only a little, because honestly since this is crockpot yogurt, I don't exactly invest a lot of time and effort into yogurt-making. Heidi recommends using a yogurt-maker if you plan to make your own yogurt often. I, however, haven't been able to make myself invest in this. Yet. 

Milking Shorthorn in Iowa

The main thing about making yogurt is to keep it at the right temperature while the culture multiplies. This is about 85 degrees. You can wrap a heavy towel around your unplugged crockpot to help keep it at this temperature in most places, most of the year. When I lived in the (very cold) Midwest, I got in the habit of turning it to "warm" or "low" for a few minutes (where I screwed up this time!) a couple of times during the culturing period during the winter because my apartment was too cold for proper culturing--even with the towel (or, a towel and a jacket, even). The other thing to make sure of is that you heat the milk enough to begin with--various sites will tell you between 170 and 185 degrees. Try to avoid letting it boil (but, if it does, you'll probably wind up with a lightly caramelly flavor in your yogurt), though the milk should look frothy.

After your yogurt has cultured, you can move into a new container and store it in the fridge. The recipe below assumes you have a crockpot that can hold about one-half gallon of milk.

Crockpot Yogurt

3 1/2 cups organic milk

1/2 cup organic yogurt with active cultures (your starter--I've used Stonyfield, Nancy's, Mountain High, and others that are locally available)

Heat your milk in your very clean crockpot on high for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn off & unplug the crockpot and leave covered until the milk cools to about 100 degrees. Depending on the time of year and the heat of your house, this will probably take about 2-3 hours.

Meanwhile, bring your starter yogurt to room temperature (this helps it mix better into the warm milk). When you do this, make sure that your starter yogurt is in a clean, covered container.

Stir your starter yogurt into your cooled milk, then wrap your crockpot in a heavy towel. Let sit 4-8 hours. If your home is particularly cold, you should probably turn the crockpot to warm or low for 3-5 minutes about halfway through the culturing process. Check your yogurt. If it looks thick* (be careful not to jiggle or stir it at this point--this might result in stringy yogurt) then it's done. If not, heat the crockpot just a little (another 3-5 minutes on low or warm and then unplug the crockpot again and re-wrap it) and leave up to another 8 hours.

Transfer the crockpot to the refrigerator to allow the yogurt to fully set** and then transfer yogurt into a container for storage.

*I can usually tell by the drops of moisture from the crockpot lid that drip when I lift it up.

**I've only done this a couple of times and it results in a slightly thicker, creamier yogurt, but I haven't experimented with this often enough to know if it's a thing that always happens, or if it's dependent on the type of culture I'd created those times. Usually I just transfer it straight into the container meant for permanent storage. If you experiment with this, please let me know your results!

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Okay, so the name is a bit deceptive. Maybe more than a bit. The only thing that's pumpkin about this cake is the color and (kinda) the shape. E's boyfriend asked for a "very moist" chocolate cake for his birthday and he wanted it pumpkin-themed. The cake, not the birthday (though a pumpkin-themed birthday would be pretty sweet--coming from someone who loves carrot cake and pumpkin bread).

Those were his requirements. When E shared this, I immediately started looking up recipes for moist chocolate cake. But I'm skeptical of any recipe that informs me that it's moist. If you need to advertise it, usually I think you're lying. Or at least not being fully honest. Eventually, I fell back to a recipe I've used (and made gluten-free) several times, the vegan chocolate avocado cake on Joy the Baker's website. If you're interested in the gluten-free version, please take a moment to look at those modifications.


At first E seemed skeptical. "Avocado?" she asked from the other end of our dining room table. 


I nodded and she wrote it on her shopping list.


We only made the cake part of Joy the Baker's vegan chocolate avocado cake, and then added (non-vegan) orange frosting to the outside. The orange frosting came from a bag (which was a total revelation to me--I didn't know you could buy frosting mix--and now, after watching E put it together, I'm not sure why you would. To me, it seemed like selling really expensive confectioners sugar and vanilla since we still had to add milk and butter to the mix. The frosting turned out super-thick and in an attempt to make it just a little thinner E added too much milk and made it a bit runny--which was fine, since we had extra confectioners sugar and could thicken it back up some.). We added orange (well, yellow and red) coloring after making up the frosting.


We did decide to make this a layered cake, so I also made a chocolate frosting from cocoa powder, butter, sugar, and non-fat yogurt. I didn't measure ingredients there, so the recipe is approximate and you'll probably have to play with it or wait for me to have another occasion to make chocolate cake and try that recipe again (and this time measure).


To achieve the pumpkin shape, we used a bundt cake pan and, because we only had one pan, baked the two parts of the cake one after the other. If I were to do this again, I probably wouldn't want to do it two batches, but instead make one larger (taller) cake that was less round, but probably equally pumpkin-shaped. For the cocoa, we used Dagoba unsweetened cocoa powder, but any unsweetened dark cocoa will do.


Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
6 Tablespoons unsweetened organic cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil (we used olive oil)
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Buttercream frosting (see note about this above)
Chocolate wafer cookies

Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar.  Set that aside too. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two 8 or 9-inch bundt pans.  Set aside. 

Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the super mashed avocado. 

Add sugar into the wet mix and stir. 

Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk (by hand) until smooth. 

Pour batter into a greased cake tins. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Let cakes cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.

Cake with Chocolate Yogurtcream Frosting

Chocolate Yogurtcream Frosting

(Strange, but it works! Remember, these proportions are approximate--but if I make it again (when I make it again) I will post updates about quantities.)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1/4 cup Dagoba chocolate powder

1 Tablespoon plain, nonfat yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream together the sugar, butter, and cocoa powder . Add the yogurt and vanilla and mix until creamy. If it's too thick, add a touch more yogurt. If it's too thin, add more confectioners sugar.

To assemble the cake:

Once both cakes have cooled, you'll want to have them both with bundt-cake top (the part that was nearer to the rack as it baked) down on the cooling rack. Spread the chocolate yogurtcream frosting on one of the cakes (you probably won't use it all, but maybe it's really thick and you really like chocoalte). Flip the other cake on top, making sure the bundt-cake edges align.

Aim for something more or less like this

Carefully spread on the (orange) buttercream frosting. 

E Spreading frosting

It's best if this is thicker than the pictures show so you can smooth it into the contoured shape of the cakes. 

Our frosting is a bit runny, but so tasty (and super sweet!)

Once you've frosted the cake, carefully insert the chocolate wafer cookies (if you can get a green wafer, more power to you) to create a stem-effect.

Our first attempt at pumpkin shaped cake is complete!

Snake Melon & Heirloom Tomato Salad

A friend recently gifted me a snake melon aka an Armenian cucumber. I looked at it, long and thin with pale green, ribbed skin, and said thanks and then wondered "what the hell do I do with this??" But, I like cucumber, which is what this (botanically speaking) melon tastes like and so I was pretty sure I could come up with something. I stuck it in my fridge and forgot about it for approximately a week.

Then I saw it again the other evening. It lay, accusingly it seemed, in my crisper (still crisp, by the way) and so I pulled it out. I'd picked up cheap, organic, heirloom cherry tomatoes from a local farmers market the day before and I resolved I'd put the cuke and the tomatoes together and come up with something to dress them up a bit.

Armenian Cuke aka Snake Melon

Armenian cucumbers, as I said before, are actually melons--muskmelons, to be exact, which puts them as a close relative to what Americans call cantaloupe. The Armenian cucumber is reputed to get a good slicing cuke (whatever that means--I don't think I've had an experience I would call "bad" slicing cucumber) and came from Armenia to Italy in the 15th century, at least according to one of the website I found online while researching this post. It's gaining popularity as an heirloom crop and supposedly grows well both on the ground and from trellises. All of this is wonderful, but there are almost no recipes for it online.

Here, I must admit I like Greek food. A lot. And although I only live a few blocks from a Greek restaurant, I don't think eating-out Greek food is in my near future. So, I poked through my spices and dried herbs, and as I already knew, I didn't have dill weed. Okay, new plan. Kinda. I wasn't ready to give up on my plans for Greeking-up my Armenian cucumber.

So, I chopped the Armenian cucumber and halved the tomatoes, then topped them with a locally-made European style yogurt, then gave it just a sprinkle of onion powder and black pepper. Greek? No. Delicious. I think so. I'm going to see if my friend has more of these cucumbers she'd be willing to part with -- something tells me, the way cucumbers grow (all ready all at the same time) she probably does.

Snake Melon (Armenian Cucumber) & Heirloom Tomato Salad
1 snake melon, approximately 24" long, quartered & chopped
15-20 heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup plain European-style yogurt (this is a thin, runny yogurt), or to taste
Onion powder
Ground black pepper

Put the chopped snake melon and cherries in a bowl, then drizzle the yogurt on top. Sprinkle a dash of onion powder and a dash of black pepper, then toss gently and serve.

Serves 1-2.

Time for Summer Salads!

With all of the fresh produce at the farmers market and at my local favorite grocery store for produce (most of it local, all very fresh, all reasonably priced), I find myself eating at least one salad a day during the summer. Fruit salads, green salads, orange jello "fluff" salads (a bit of an indulgence)...there's a long list.

Green salads call out for some sort of dressing. If you disagree, you're not listening closely enough. Even if it's just some oil and vinegar--or even just vinegar. Another time I'll post a different non-fat, vinegar based dressing I like to make for cabbage salads (they are not coleslaw).

Dad makes a really fantastic flexitarian Caesar dressing (it uses fish sauce). It's light and lemony and you don't feel like you're overindulging if you spoon on a little extra because compared to normal Caesar dressing, you really aren't. However, you just can't make that every time and not get tired of it. I recently added this dressing to my repertoire. The roasted garlic is a lot less...pungent than regular garlic. As I've said before, in the summer I tend to have roasted garlic around. Not only is it easy to throw on the grill if I'm grilling already, but it's also great smeared on bread and mixed into things like yogurt-tahini sauce for falafel.

You could make this salad dressing vegan if you substituted just a few things (namely the yogurt for a non-dairy yogurt, the Worcestershire sauce for vegetarian Worcestershire--regular Worcestershire contains anchovies--or liquid smoke, and used golden syrup instead of honey).

You might be tempted not to add the oil. I certainly was when I first tried this. In fact, I was pretty determined not to add oil. But, it wasn't going to happen. Without the oil, the flavor is sharper (but not in a pleasant way) and the foam just won't go away.

French Dressing

1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4-5 dashes Worestershire sauce

3 dashes Tabasco

2 large cloves roasted garlic

2 tablespoons honey or golden syrup

Large pinch of salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all ingredients except olive oil in a small blender and blend well. The mixture will look a bit frothy. Taste for salt and pepper, adjust. While blender is running drizzle in 1 ½ - 2 tablespoons of olive oil to create an emulsion.