Oikos Greek yogurt… oh, Lordie.

I bought two little tubs of Oikos Greek yogurt a week or so back so I could make my own yogurt at home. I intended to use it as starter, but when I got to Kroger and saw both vanilla and honey (apparently a new product), I decided I’d get both. If nothing else, I’d eat one and use the other for starter. I’d never eaten Greek yogurt (to my knowledge, though there’s no telling what Mom fed me as a child), and I was curious about this stuff that people were suddenly so excited about.

It sat in the fridge for a while. A week, probably. I never got around to making yogurt (maybe this weekend, I hope), but I did take the honey yogurt with me to work one day so I could have a snack before martial arts. I finally ate it this afternoon, since I had a relatively small lunch.

Oh my other side, this stuff is so good!

I’ll admit, I was not initially encouraged. ‘Fat-free’ and ‘plain’ are not yogurt buzz words that ordinarily lift my spirits. The packaging was really cute, of course, and different from most yogurt packs, so marketing bonus for them. But still… the healthy buzz words were my buzz kill.

When I peeled away the foil, it looked like the yogurt had seperated. It did not appetizing in the least – kind of runny, clumpy in places… I dove in anyway, and I was so glad I did. The first spoonful took me by surprise – smooth-textured and a little tangy, with the sweetness of the mild honey in the background. It coated my tongue and my pallete. It was rich and delicious. I ate the whole thing without pause. It was a revelation and I’m so glad I had it.

As with many things labeled ‘organic,’ it can be a little pricey, but there’s a bonus side for it. Stonyfield is partnered with Euphrates Inc. to make Oikos; if you go to the Oikos website, there’s a section for coupons in the header. Click on that, enter your email address and print coupons (good for ten days after printing) for quite a few of their products. Try it – you won’t be disappointed.

My first award!

It’s 0800 on a Thursday. I don’t have to leave for another two hours to go to work. I haven’t done any of my homework and I need to, and I didn’t bake any cupcakes for the dojo family last night. But I’m okay with being a slacker – I needed the sleep. I’m about to attempt vanilla and devil’s food cupcakes in a moment but first – Cat at The Cat’s Pajamas awarded me with the Kreativ Blogger award and tagged me in the meme. It’s my first award (thank you, Cat!) and my first meme in the foodie world. Let’s see what I can come up with, eh?

7 Things I’ve Done Before

1. Caught cattle from 0400 one morning until 0200 the next. They were boogers, too.
2. Been mother to a baby that wasn’t mine (my little sister, Grace, who will be four in December).
3. Raised colts from foals to yearlings and worked them into decent broke horses.
4. Been the only female on the skeet range, and consistently outshot every man there (good thing we were all friends!)
5. Learned Spanish as a first language, before I learned English – and I was living in the hills of Kentucky in the 80’s, not a particularly Spanish-speaking mecca (we could barely speak decent English).
6. Scared the living tar out of my mother when I was about 3 when I walked out of the side porch to one of the barn lots where we had one of our pulling horse pairs. She walked outside and found me standing under Toby (literally – my head didn’t touch his chest), petting his leg. Toby and Momma were both scared still; I just wanted to pet Toby.
7. Hunted deer, pheasant, quail, turkey, dove and chuckar – and they were all tasty.

7 Things I Do Now

1. Care for 26 boarded horses at the barn where I live – feed, water, blanket, turn in, turn out and generally watch out for.
2. Raise and school two young dogs, my precious boys, daily.
3. Pray daily that I will finally graduate in December, and thus, learn enough managerial accounting to pass my final before semester’s end.
4. Keep an eye on local, national and world events, even though I’m frightened of the way things appear to be going in our nation and our world.
5. Try desperately (sometimes in vain) to keep my apartment squared away. I’m not a tidy person to begin with, but when you generally only get spare time to sleep and do homework… it doesn’t lend well to housekeeping.
6. Read all the updated blogs on my Reader as soon as I can get to them. There are a LOT. But those blogs are what keep me down on the ground most days.
7. Practice martial arts whenever I can. I love it!

7 Things I Want to Do

1. Relearn Mandarin, bone up on my Spanish and learn German and/or Portuguese.
2. Get my black belt in Goshin karate, then move on to jiujitsu and krav maga.
3. Learn to be organized, so I’m not always searching in a mess of mildly controlled chaos for things I need.
4. Be a good Marine wife, when I get to that point, and have a happy, comfortable home – with a well-stocked kitchen.
5. Train K9s and police horses at some point in my life.
6. Get back home and have a small homestead, complete with chickenhouse, Jersey milk cow, a few feeder steers, a couple of horses and a garden or two. Maybe I’ll get to do it before I get too old to remember how to do it all.
7. Write a book.

7 Things That Attract Me About the Opposite Sex

1. Good hands and strong arms.
2. Well-rounded intelligence.
3. Eyes – pretty eyes get me every time.
4. Can’t be afraid to get dirty now and then – a rural background helps.
5. Flexibility – I want to be able to do anything with him around.
6. A willingness to learn and adapt.
7. Security in all senses – financial, marital, whatever, but most of all, for me.

7 Favorite Foods

1. A good filet, spiced properly and medium-rare. Oh, my other side.
2. Cottage cheese and pears.
3. Ancestral pound cake.
4. Turkey sandwich with provolone on Italian or foccacia.
5. Beer cheese.
6. Fettucine alla carbonara.
7. My stepmother’s fruit salad.

7 Things I Say Most Often

1. Dude.
2. Son of a…!
3. Oorah!
4. Goosfraba/Woosah…
5. Oh, my other side!
6. Ooh-wee!
7. Hey – they can’t eat me.

And now, to spread the love!

1. Kim at A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen – Kim has always been kind to me, and her recipes are to die for. Check her out!
2. Susan at She’s Becoming DoughMessTic – Susan began Operation Baking GALS, so she has a special place in my heart for that, but also because she has food that makes my mouth water.
3. Jayne at The Barefoot Kitchen Witch – The pictures of her kids and kittens make me giggle every single day.
4. Drew at How to Cook Like Your Grandmother – His writing style tickles me, but I also like the way he sets up his entries and makes every recipe easy to follow.
5. Julie at Peanut Butter and Julie – Julie is probably the reason I got into food blogging in the first place. I don’t remember how, but it has something to do with her granola. Everything else I’ve ever seen in her blog has been delicious, too.