Building a Yogurt Bowl

How we build a yogurt bowl. Do you have a yogurt story? For me, mine started young, and now I’ve passed it to my children. As a siggi’s partner, I am happy to share #mydailysiggis. Opinions and words are mine and mine alone.

I’m six. My sister and I are in the kitchen in our nightshirts, bare feet sticky against the brown linoleum. We open the fridge, pulling it open slowly so condiments don’t clink against one another in the door. There on the top shelf, the containers of yogurt smile back at us.

Carefully we select our favorite flavor, turning the labels to see the names. Cups in hand, we grab spoons and head to the couch. Saturday morning cartoons greet us from the television, Voltron and He-Man and X-Men, crayon-colored heroes living out imaginary lives in a small box.

We pull screen-printed shirts over our knees and slowly peel back the foil to reveal the surface of the yogurt. The first bite is always the best, the spoon breaking the smooth top, the way it comes out in a perfect dome resting on a silver surface.

I turn it upside down and let it rest against my tongue, holding it there to let the tangy sweetness spread across my tongue, savoring it.

My children this summer are the childhood me. Their mornings are punctuated with a trip to the fridge in search of their favorite flavor. We often eat our yogurt straight from the carton with a spoon, but my yogurt repertoire has increased substantially from my cartoon-watching days. On lazier mornings, we scoop them into bowls, topped with granola, fruit, nuts, seeds, drizzled with honey. We freeze spoonfuls into popsicle molds with fresh fruit, a dessert on a stick. It is stirred into curry, scooped on top of chili, turned into a dip for garden vegetables.

A few months ago my sister complained about missing the yogurt of our childhood. In a veritable sea of options, there are few that live up to those memories. Too gritty, too runny, too thick, too sweet, too fake. I make a suggestion, pulling a container from my refrigerator and offering it up to try.

Simple ingredients, not a lot of sugar, and milk from grass-fed cows make siggi’s our choice, as much as consistency and taste. Founded by Siggi Hilmarsson, siggi’s yogurt is Icelandic skyr, which is a strained yogurt similar in consistency to Greek with a higher protein content than traditional yogurt. A way to use the milk leftover from making butter, traditional skyr is naturally a fat free product. However, siggi’s also has a whole milk line dedicated to many who enjoy skyr with a splash of cream and a topping of brown sugar and berries. These richer yogurts are our favorite, an treat with only 8 grams of sugar per cup. It’s a simple, straightforward product.

Recently, my sister called from the store, excitedly relaying the new variety of flavors available there. It seems skyr is catching on.

Building a Breakfast Yogurt Bowl

Since yogurt is a complete protein on its own, the sky is really the limit when looking to build your ideal bowl. I like offering a fruit and crunch combination, personally, utilizing whatever fruit is in season or frozen fruit when it’s not and plenty of seeds and nuts or homemade granola for the crunch.

A few ideas to get you inspired:
:: pumpkin seeds
:: hulled hemp seeds (so creamy)
:: chia seeds
:: wheat germ
:: bee pollen
:: matcha powder
:: nut butter
:: sumac
:: honey
:: molasses
:: maple syrup
:: extra virgin olive oil
:: nut or avocado oils
:: nuts of all varieties
:: buckwheat granola
:: flaked cereals
:: fresh fruit
:: roasted rhubarb
:: roasted winter squash
:: dried fruit
:: canned fruit
:: fruit preserves

Do you have a favorite way to eat yogurt? We tend to opt for sweet, but have you gone savory?

Thanks to siggi’s for including me in their #mydailysiggis promotion.

Pottery by my hands. Many thanks to Jason from Pig’s Eye Pottery @ Caufield Clay for the class and glazing.