Good and Healthy: Easy Summer Dessert in Three Parts

Meal Monday

In the constant struggle to serve healthy food that we actually want to eat, well-prepared food whose preparation doesn't chain us to the kitchen for too long and meals that appeal to both omnivorous and finicky eaters within the same family, I declare the component-able dish a big winner.

By component-able I mean a whole made of different parts that can be assembled according to personal preference. To wit: our dessert last night at home. Relatively healthy? Check. Easy preparation? Check, check. Appeals to all four individuals? Check, check, check.

After a lovely Father's Day chicken and steak grilled dinner, plus a few salads, I put out a store-bought chocolate angel's food cake, a homemade fruit salad, and low-fat vanilla yogurt.

Angel's food is a very low-fat, yet satisfying cake. I love the classic vanilla version, but my kids like the chocolate, so you know how that ends up. Earlier in the day, I'd tossed blueberries, raspberries, cut-up mango, plums and papaya with a little fresh lime juice.

The complete dessert consisted of a slice of the chocolate angel's food cake, a generous dollop of low-fat vanilla yogurt, and a few spoonfuls of the fresh fruit salad. My daughter and I had the complete plateful, my son had just the cake, and my husband skipped the yogurt.

Really good, really easy and really pretty healthy.