Summer Food

It’s here – the heat and humidity has begun.  On the upside it makes my hair look nice and curly, on the downside I get so sticky I can’t stand to wear it in anything but a ponytail.

Like most Americans the hot weather makes me want ice cream.  Awhile back, one of my friends recommended I try something called Arctic Zero.  It took me awhile to track it down but I finally found it at Whole foods.  It looks like so:

It is not, in fact, ice cream.  It contains no dairy products, no fat, and very little sugar.  In fact the entire ingredients list is: purified water, whey protein, organic cane sugar, chicory root, dutch cocoa powder, guar gum, xantham gum, natural flavors, sea salt and organic monk fruit.  Plus some secret voodoo magicalness that was able to trick my brain into THINKING its ice cream.

To be clear, it’s not nearly as sweet as ice cream due to the very low sugar factor.  But the cocoa powder and mint give it a lot of flavor to make up for that, and it has a wonderful, fatty, creamy consistency.  Also it’s been filled with so much fiber that even though you can eat the whole pint if you want to (only 150 calories) I found that I didn’t need to.  I was satisfied after about a third of it, so roughly 50 calories worth did the trick.  I’m certain in a few weeks when PMS hits I will be devouring a whole pint in one go, and I’m not gonna feel bad about it either.

On an unrelated note, here is a recipe for chilled summer asparagus that I invented this evening.  Yummy!

1) Steam big bunch of asparagus very lightly, just until it turns bright green and retains its crunch.

2) Chill asparagus thoroughly in fridge.

3) Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon or two of lemon juice.

4) Chop a handful of fresh dill and add along with salt and pepper to taste.

Toss, and enjoy!  Very bright flavored and refreshing for a summer dinner when I didn’t want a lot of hot food.

By the way, if anybody needs dill it's growing rampant in my backyard at the moment.  Who knew the thing could grow up to my SHOULDER.  Sheesh...