Berry banana yogurt chia pudding

A friend visiting me today mentioned that she would like to give up dairy and sugar someday, and I said I know how hard that is, but I'm making this great fruit mix that tastes like dessert to me, and I gave her some and she agreed.  It reminds me of this dessert we used to have when we were kids with vanilla wafers and pudding and bananas and whipped cream, remember that?   Right now, the berries from California are good, and when the bananas are good too (ripe), I mix together sliced bananas, berries, 1-2 tsp chia seeds (depending on the amount of fruit), and 1 serving of soy yogurt.  I do that in the morning, and then by lunch and dinner, the chia seeds have expanded and gelled with the bananas and that's why it reminds me of pudding.  So that's my dessert for lunch and dinner.   It's also good without the bananas but not as sweet.

And since people also often ask me about how to make soy yogurt, here's a reminder of that.  I use this yogurt maker and this yogurt starter, and a quart of unsweetened soy milk.  I open the soy milk container (keep it at room temperature), pour in a bowl, add 1/8 tsp of the yogurt starter, and stir with a whisker.  Then add the milk to each of the jars, put them in the yogurt maker without their lids, turn on the machine, wait 12 hours, and then it's done. 

Put the lids on and refrigerate.  This is the best non-dairy yogurt I have ever eaten.  It's a good sour cream substitute so good with veggies, in mushroom stroganoff, on tacos and other Mexican-style foods.  It's probably good in potato salad.  And of course it's great with fruit. 

freezing fruit

I don't know why I never thought of this before.  It's only for a short time of the year when we get a lot of fresh local fruit in Wisconsin.  Today the farmer's market had watermelon (seedless yellow dal), cantaloupe, blueberries and peaches.  And they were all as good as it gets.   Tonight I was concerned that I would either have to eat a lot of fruit the next 2 days or it would go bad.  Then I realized I could freeze it.  So I cut it up into a big bowl.  There was a lot of liquid so I realized freezing it into one big bag would make it hard to chop off an individual serving so I dished it out into single serving bowls.   I'll put these in my morning cereal every morning!   My morning cereal has been buckwheat lately.  I'm thinking of trying oat bran and corn grits this week.

Dessert

So what does a girl who doesn't eat wheat or processed sweeteners, and is lazy, do for dessert?   This is a good one:

That's frozen fruit and soy yogurt.  The fruit is what I use for housemate's smoothie.  So it's in the freezer, ready to go.  It's a mixture of berries and some sweeter fruit like bananas and pineapple.

My current breakfast

I've blogged about a similar breakfast before, but since then I've tried other breakfasts and I think this is still my favorite:

It's rice, fruit and soy milk.  The rice is half brown, half forbidden rice.  I cook up a large batch every few days.  The fruit I buy fresh and freeze in a big bag:

I buy whatever looks good.  Lately it's been strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and bananas.  The soy milk is organic unsweetened non-GMO, e.g.,

A serving for me is about 1/2 cup rice, 1 cup fruit, 1/2 cup soy milk.  It's more on days when I think I need more, and less on days when I think I need less (depends on what follows breakfast).   

I tried oatmeal with fruit and didn't like it as much as this.  This is my version of cereal and milk I guess.   I like the chewy of the rice and the moisture of the milk and all the flavors.  Maybe I'm Chinese and just never knew it until now. :)