Probiotic Coleslaw

Including probiotic foods such as fermented pickles and yogurt is essential to healthy digestion and great for all around good health. We have yogurt for breakfast every morning with chia seeds, banana, and soon bee pollen. The protein really keeps us going strong all day without the drowsy effects that eating wheat has. Try having toast before you hit the gym and then have yogurt the next day instead: i'll bet you'll be jumping higher on the yogurt day! I make our yogurt every two weeks. We get raw milk and I always save enough yogurt from the previous batch to make the next week's new batch of yogurt. It's the most delicious yogurt either my husband or i have ever tasted, and the cost is ridiculously frugal: a quart of White Mountain yogurt will set you back over $5. I turn one gallon of milk into about 5 quarts of yogurt for about $7. It's very easy, doesn't require any special skills or tools, and has increased our health by leaps and bounds. Immune systems, check! Healther skin and hair, check! Increased energy levels, double check!

Yogurt for breakfast is great. Yogurt in baking is really great, but i really don't need to be eating more baked goods. So, how can one use yogurt for dinner recipes? Yogurt is great added to a curry or cream sauce. Yogurt can be used as a sauce or dip, and can be incorporated into just about any recipe that would normally use cream, milk, or sour cream. Get creative! You get the most health benefits by not cooking out the good bacterias, so always add the yogurt at the last minute and don't let it boil.

A recent favorite in our kitchen has been a yogurt sauce/dip. We used it on our nachos on game day, and it's really, really delicious on fried fish or in fish tacos in place of ranch dressing. Use whatever herb you have growing seasonally, we've been using cilantro:

• Plain Yogurt (whole milk yogurt will make a thicker dip, skim is saucier)
• Pinch herbs (cilantro, dill, basil, mint, you name it)
• 3 garlic cloves
• Pinch cumin
• Salt to taste

Blend this up until the garlic cloves are completely chopped. The fresh garlic, and herbs along with the probiotic rich yogurt is a real immunity booster, and super delicious. This sauce is so versatile and can even be added to some shredded cabbage to make the most delicious coleslaw with no fat needed.

Do you make your own yogurt? What are your favorite yogurt based recipes?
This post can also be found at the blog hop: Simple Lives Thursday