apricot yogurt swirl

Well, we had another food success last night - Picky tried and loved the turkey bolognese with spaghetti that I made! This is one of daddy's favorite dishes, and I make it mostly for him, as Picky hasn't tried it up to this point - I was thrilled to see her enjoy it! I will post a recipe as soon as I figure out exactly what I put in it - I'm thinking of adding in some kidney beans and see how that goes over as well. Anyway, I'm glad that I have the memory of Picky slurping up pasta last night (she usually only eats Asian style noodles, very rarely the Italian kind...) because this morning she was back to her usual antics. Picky wanted some iced tea with breakfast, which is fine. She wanted sugar, and so I got out a little container with simple syrup in it, which is a sugar and water mixture that we use to sweeten iced drinks, so that they won't be grainy. I explained this to her as I scooped a bit into her cup. Somehow she decided that the simple syrup made her tea "taste funny", and she wanted "regular sugar". Taste funny? It's the same thing!! It's even made from the same sugar!! Of course, explaining this does no good, so I let her put "regular sugar" into her cup instead. After all this tea business, she decided she was now no longer hungry for the cheese omelet that I made...sigh. Well, maybe it's the heat - it is quite hot already today, and promising to be sweltering. It's so hard to eat, or cook, in this heat. So here's an idea for something that requires little heat to make and is soothing and cool to eat - apricot puree swirled into yogurt!
I like to make my own yogurt - I have a large maker from yogourmet, and we go through the yogurt within a week or two. Home-made yogurt is, like most things home-made, better than store bought. For one thing, you can control the tang and the consistency. I like tangy yogurt, but Picky likes it a bit sweeter, so I usually make it somewhere in between. I also like quite thick yogurt, so I add a bit of nonfat milk powder into the milk when I make it, and that thickens it up a bit. All of this yogurt doesn't mean that I never buy those little tubes of pre-sweetened yogurt for Picky - although I have managed to convince her so far that these are a treat! I found this apricot yogurt swirl recipe in Kids' Fun & Healthy Cookbook, and since Picky has been on a bit of an apricot kick, I decided to give it a try. Ok, I admit, she tried but then ultimately rejected it based on texture (it wasn't smooth enough). I, however, thought it was lovely, and so I have it here anyway - I have a feeling that Picky will come around eventually:




3/4 cup chopped dried apricots (I prefer Turkish)
1 cup water
3 Tbsp fresh apple juice

Put the apricots and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes, until soft. Let the apricots cool for about 30 minutes, then stir in the apple juice. Blend the mixture in a blender or in the pan with an immersion blender (my preferred method). Now you can put this in the fridge, and it's ready to stir into yogurt - I also enjoy a little sprinkling of granola on top (home-made, of course - I'll post the recipe eventually...)