Evolve kefir drinks are the latter—which makes it very easy to consume vast quantities of beneficial probiotic bacteria. Probiotics help to promote digestive health and enhance the immune system; while smoothies help to soothe the soul.

Learn all about kefir in our review of Evolve Kefir. The line is so delicious, we’ve given up milkshakes and malteds to focus on its delicious fruit flavors. The products are certified OU(D) kosher.

By the way:

• Many lactose intolerant people can enjoy kefir, as long as it is raw and not cooked. Cooking destroys the enzymes that make the product so digestible.

• Kefir is not “drinkable yogurt.” Although it is a cultured milk product like yogurt, with a similar tanginess, the “recipe” is different. Yogurt can be made with as few as two bacteria cultures and probiotic yogurt with another two probiotic cultures. Kefir is a complex colony of many more cultures, as you’ll learn in the review.

See our favorite yogurt products, plus recipes, in our Yogurt Section.

Plain kefir garnished with strawberries and
mint. Photo by Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

Yogurt parfait with summer fruits. Photo
EatCaliforniaFruit.com.

Celebrate summer by switching to summer fruits: delicious peaches, plums and nectarines from California—available for the next three-to-four months.

You can enjoy this recipe in a bowl or other vessel, but a parfait glass or glass mug makes it look even yummier.

Ingredients Per Serving
• 1 cup fresh California peaches, plums or nectarines, sliced
• 1/2 cup of your favorite low-fat or fat-free yogurt (we like Greek yogurt)
• 1/2 cup granola or 1 ounce coarsely-chopped nuts

Preparation
1. Place half of the fruit in the bottom of a parfait glass or other dish.
2. Top with half of the yogurt and half of the granola. Repeat.
3. Serve immediately.

Check out our favorite yogurt brands.

If you’re Bethenny Frankel, one of the Real Housewives Of New York (and a natural foods chef), you formulate a lower-calorie Margarita in an episode of your reality series. Then, when the most-asked quesiton on the entire Bravo website is “How to make a Skinny Girl Margarita,” you bottle it and sell it (find locations).

The open-and-serve bottled Margarita is all natural, made of 100% blue agave tequila, flavored with lime juice and sweetened with lower-glycemic agave syrup.

While some “slenderized foods” can pass for almost the real thing (SkimPlus milk, nonfat Greek yogurt and sugar-free ice cream are examples), here you know you’re drinking a Margarita Lite.

Nevertheless, many dieters will enjoy saving 75% of the calories, and Ms. Frankel is to be congratulated for providing a lower-calorie alternative to America’s most popular cocktail.

While we don’t like sugary-sweet drinks, to us, Skinnygirl Margarita is missing a bit of sweetness (although the more we drank it and became accustomed to it, the more we enjoyed it).

So we experimented and found ways to improve it!

Save 75% of Margarita calories. Photo
courtesy SkinnyGirlCocktails.com.

• Next we tried adding more agave syrup. Ms. Frankel might have done the same, but for the desire to keep the cocktail to 100 calories/serving. Agave is a great, low-glycemic sweetener (it has an average glycemic index of 32, half that of sugar). While agave has the same calories as sugar (about 17 calories/teaspoon), it is 1.5 times sweeter—so your calories buy you more. You can spare it: Add another teaspoon of agave to Skinnygirl.

• Finally, we rimmed the glass with sea salt (kosher salt is fine, too). Bingo!

Feel free to add a lime wedge or lime wheel as a garnish. It’s not typical with Margaritas (the salt rim is); but we like it as a virtually calorie-free “extra” to chew on.

Have fun making whoopie pies at home.
Photo courtesy SurLaTable.com.

The baking specialist has created a whoopie pie pan that makes it easy to get perfect cake “sandwich” halves. Otherwise, you have to drop batter with a cookie scoop onto a baking sheet, and pray that they’ll spread to even sizes. (Perhaps there’s so much filling in a whoopie pie to distract from the uneven cake layers.)

The nonstick pan is currently an exclusive at Sur La Table for $12.95. It makes 12 tops/bottoms, enough to make just 6 whoopie pies. That’s not a lot of output for all that effort of mixing, baking and cleanup: You’ll have to make a few batches to meet what will no doubt be great demand.

Find more of our favorite cookies and recipes in our Gourmet Cookies & Brownies section.

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons peach purée (made from ripe peaches)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 4 raspberries
• Lemon wedge for garnish
• Optional garnish: fresh mint sprig
• Ice

Preparation
1. Muddle lemons, peach purée, raspberries and lemon juice in a water glass or collins glass.
2. Add ice and fill the glass with cold water. Mix well. Sweeten to taste (but don’t overdo the sweetener—the goal is to taste the peaches and raspberries).
3. Serve with a lemon wedge and a straw.

To make a whole pitcher, multiply the ingredients by the number of people you want to serve, muddle in the pitcher, add ice and water and stir vigorously.

You can garnish lemonade glasses with
sanding sugar—or, for the Margarita crowd,
salt! Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market.