Healthy New Year’s Day Desserts

Posted on January 2, 2007

I love dessert.

But I am working on the healthier lifestyle thing, so dessert means healthier alternatives. That’s why I turned to Low-Fat Vegetarian Cooking by Jenny Stacy for our New Year’s Day dessert. It’s a handy book with quite a few excellent recipes. I definitely recommend checking it out.

I wanted the desserts to be light and refreshing since the dinner was filet mignon and potatoes – a heavy combination. Making something thick and rick wouldn’t compliment the meal at all, and that’s a meal that deserves to be complimented. I also wanted to provide several complimentary tastes.

The first thing that popped to mind was the vanilla mousse that I first made last year. When I last made it, it was good but it did have a strong yogurt taste (and I had used cheapo yogurt that time). This time, I used a much better quality yogurt (vanilla variety) and low-fat cream cheese. Substituting vanilla non-fat yogurt also seems to make up for not using vanilla sugar, I think. In any case, the result was superb. The mousse is airy and light and the fruit sauce is a great accompaniment. The combination drew raves.

But being that I have a lot of yogurt, I wanted to make use of it so I decided to try a second dessert that sounded like it too would be light and airy. I figured the Strawberry Fool would be a good compliment to the mousse. It’s the first time I’ve made it, but I will definitely be making it again. The sweet but light fool was excellent and the hit of the dessert course. I served it in large burgundy balloon glasses with a mint leaf for garnish.

Strawberry Fool
Serves 4-6

10 oz strawberries, hulled (I used fresh frozen – unsweetened, of course – ones since they are out of season)
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/4 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt (use a good quality yogurt – it’s worth it) 2 egg whites
strawberries and/or mint for garnish

Combine strawberries and sugar in a food processor and blend until smooth – about 30 seconds.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine strawberry mixture and yogurt.

In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks (using a stand mixer or handheld speeds this process way up).

Fold egg whites into the strawberry/yogurt mixture. Stir until smooth (using a wire whisk can help).

Spoon into serving glasses and chill for at least one hour before serving. Garnish just before serving.

Read the full post at Cucina Bella, a family cooking blog.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Healthy New Year’s Day Desserts”

  1. Nicole on January 2nd, 2007 11:16 pm

    Beautiful desserts!

  2. sher on January 3rd, 2007 12:15 am

    OK, that makes “healthy dessert” look very, very good!

  3. Sarah Caron on January 3rd, 2007 2:34 am

    Thanks Nicole and Sher!

    Sher, these are so good…who knew? I can’t believe I only started using the dessert section of this book recently – I could have been enjoying good indulgences like this for YEARS!!!

  4. A Healthy Treat: Strawberry Kiwi Fool « Sarah’s Cucina Bella on January 8th, 2008 9:42 pm

    [...] about this recipe. This is a variation on the Strawberry Fool that I wrote about last year. The fool is a light and airy dessert that should be made and consumed [...]

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