I feel a tad bit of a fraud. A few weeks ago, I was reading a message board for UK food bloggers when I saw a post asking if anybody would be interested in reviewing a brand of yoghurt. I love trying out new things, so I said yes. A few weeks later, there is a knock at the door and 14 – yes 14 – containers of yoghurt were being delivered.
No problem there other than figuring out how I was going to use all that yoguhurt before it expired. Where I feel a bit of a fraud is that the yoghurt I was suppose to try out and review was Total Greek Yoghurt. Far from being the first time that I have tried this brand of Greek yoghurt, I have in fact been eating and enjoying Total Greek Yoghurt as part of my diet for a few years now.
In fact, if you read back through Weekend Carnivore, you will find a number of posts where I evangelize about Greek yoghurt in general. There are a variety of reasons for my tubthumping. Firstly, even the full fat version of Greek yoghurt, and especially the Total brand, is still pretty low fat. So, once you get down to the fat free – what Total calls 0% – you are at very low calories and no fat.
More importantly for me though, is that I am lactose intolerant and for some reason, when I eat Greek yoghurt I don’t react. Without sounding like a commercial – and I promise you I would never do a false review of any product – this is only the case with the Total brand of Greek yoghurt. I have tried supermarket brands of ‘Greek style yoghurt’ and I more often than not react. I won’t claim to know why and please don’t assume that it won’t be the case for you if you are lactose intolerant but it is true for me.
Apart from the healthy nature of Greek yoghurt, I enjoy using it as an ingredient because it is so versatile. I often eat it at breakfast, as you would predict, topped with fruit or even with a bit of whatever sugar free jam I have on hand swirled into the mix. However, where it really comes into its own for me is as a replacement for sour cream, creme fraiche or, even in some cases, cream.
When cooking something like a creamy sauce or curry, I will happily stir in a bit of the Greek yoghurt and get the same result. For this I would favour the full fat version since it doesn’t separate at all during heat.
As a general rule, I find that the less fat you have in the Greek yoghurt the more sour the taste and the less creamy. This is the same with Total and it simply means that where I would want to replace cream I use the full fat variety (I have used it to make homemade ice cream, for example) and when I want to replace sour cram or creme fraiche I go down to the 2% or o% varieties.
One way that I use the lower fat varieties is to cut into mayo to make lower fat coleslaw, potato salad or dip recipes. You don’t notice a taste difference but you sure do notice the calorie and fat grams difference.
To mark my mission to finish 14 tubs of Total Greek Yoghurt before their New Year expiry dates, I thought I would create a new recipe that combined two of my favourite uses for the ingredient. Spinach dip is an American party classic and every good American home cook has a potato salad recipe in their recipe arsenal too. So, I thought why not combine the two?
This was the result and I have to say I rather enjoyed it and I hope you do too!
Low fat spinach dip potato salad
Low fat spinach dip potato salad
Ingredients:
450 grams baby new potatoes, skins left on
110 grams frozen spinach
70 grams fat free mayonnaise
85 grams 2% Total Greek Yoghurt
2 tablespoons dried onion flakes
1/2 teaspoon vegetable bullion powder
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried chives
salt and freshly ground pepper, to season
Directions:
1. Cook the baby new potatoes and let them cool slightly. I do this by steaming them for 30 minutes in my electric steamer but you could boil them too.
2. While the potatoes cook and cool, defrost the frozen spinach and squeeze out all the excess liquid.
3. In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients and stir really well to fully combine. Use a good amount of seasoning since there is a lot of moisture going into this recipe. However, judge how much salt you need based on how salty your bullion powder is because it can be rather salty.
4.Stir the spinach into the bowl just to combine with the mayo and yoghurt mixture.
5. Cut the baby potatoes in half width wise and fold into the spinach mixture.
6. Cover and cool in the fridge for at least an hour to allow the flavours to develop.
7. Take out of the fridge, give a good stir and serve.
Makes: 4 hearty servings
