I've been searching my brain for recipes that I've made up and that count as healthy and coming up fairly empty I'm afraid. But, here's one that I think goes the distance.
If you put yogurt into cheesecloth and let it hang for a day or so, a lot of whey will come out and you'll be left with a wonderful soft cheese-consistency yogurt. At this point, you have lots of options: I like to use the "recipe" below to make a savory spread, which makes a great snack when spread on a cracker or piece of bread. I especially like it on a piece of toast with a slice of avocado or between an egg and a piece of toast. I've also gone the sweet route, and mixed the base cheese with some (homemade) jelly. I like that version spread on pancakes or waffles as a healthier alternative to syrup and one that provides some protein as well. I shared this with my friend Jill, and she used it as a substitute for cream cheese (honestly, I get a little lost at the thought of making a cream cheese substitute - I love the real stuff WAY too much!). She mixed the basic cheese with pumpkin, a little maple syrup, and some spices. Anyway, there's tons you can do with it. Health-wise, I like to think of it as a way to get the benefits of yogurt in a medium that's spreadable. If you have a good low-fat yogurt you can use that, but I think the flavor is honestly much better with full fat yogurt. It doesn't matter as much for the sweeter versions.
Here's my favorite (savory) version:
Line a sieve or colander with a triple layer of cheesecloth. Pour 1 large container of yogurt in, then lift the corners of the cheesecloth and tie around a spoon handle set over a large bowl so that the yogurt hangs like "large fuzzy dice" from the spoon handle without touching the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge. Dump out any accumulated whey* from the bottom of the bowl occasionally. When no more whey collects (usually overnight) or you're becoming impatient, untie the cheesecloth and dump the yogurt cheese into a bowl.
Stir in:
1 smallish glove of crushed garlic
~1 t. minced fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste.
Let sit for a little while - a few hours to a day is plenty - to let the flavors develop.
*Another great use for the whey is as a "starter" for homemade sauerkraut (and probably other fermented veggies). The bacteria that makes sauerkraut is the same as that which make yogurt. It occurs naturally on cabbage leaves, so this starter isn't strictly necessary. But in my (limited) experience, it gets the fermentation off to a quicker start and, most importantly, spikes the cabbage with the good bacteria that you want to grow, helping the good bacteria win out over other bacteria and fungi.
Hey, feel free to post any recipes or thoughts of interest. The fact that I have been focused on healthy cooking lately does not mean that every recipe here has to be health food (in fact, see my next post), just that I was likely to be focused there. So, open forum, feel free to post anything.
ReplyDeleteLindsey
I decided to try making this with fresh basil. I also thought it might work to season before extracting the whey; that way the flavors are blending while the whey is extracting. So:
ReplyDeleteYogurt, 32 oz, I used Dannon plain Nonfat
Fresh Basil, 3 Tbl, Chopped, leaves only
Ground Mustard, 1/4 tsp
Lemon Juice, 1 tsp
Salt, Some
Mixed it all up and put it in the cheesecloth per Maggie's instruction. I left it stacked in the colander to get enough clearance.
I tried making yogurt cheese using winter savory since that is what is growing most in my garden so far (the other herbs are all first year plants in the process of getting established). I think I may have put in too much pepper and now I can not remember if I added 1/4 tsp or so of garham masala or not. It took a long time (several days) for the flavors to develop and has a kind of nutty overtone which suggests spreading on some kind of expensive cracker. I tried it on a saltine and it's pretty good. On a stalk of celery, the flavor is a little too dark. I suspect with less pepper and no "winging it" from the spice drawer this would make an excellent veggie dip. And since I used non-fat yogurt, it is totally free of sour-cream guilt at the dip bowl.
ReplyDeleteLindsey
Two days ago, I mentioned trying this using fresh basil. The idea of mixing the herbs and seasonings into the yogurt, then setting it in the cheesecloth overnight worked great. The flavors were well blended and developed as soon as the whey was expressed.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the basil version: WE LOVE IT! It came out great. Butter Valley Harvest in Bally grows hydroponic basil out of season, available in the local store. I saw on their website that they also grow hydroponic beefsteak tomatoes, available a their store on Wed. afternoon or Sat. morning. So yesterday, I hopped up to Bally and bought some out-of-season tomatoes to see if they are any good. Well, they taste like hot-house tomatoes pretty much. Some hint of tomato flavor, but not like August from the garden. However, basil yogurt cheese spread on a slice of tomato is out of this world. I can't wait until tomato season to really try this. We'll have out own garden basil by then also.
I originally got the idea for this from a recipe in Gourmet that involved slow roasted (2+ hours) tomatoes in the oven, then layering them with balls of the yogurt cheese and covering the whole thing with oil. It's a nice fancy kind of thing at Christmas, but I've always found it to be more work and oilier than it's worth compared with just making the cheese itself. Glad you like it!
ReplyDeleteBack to the savory yogurt cheese with the "dark" flavor. Mom suggested rice crackers, so I bought some today. GREAT call. This yogurt cheese was great on plain rice cracker and EXTRAORDINARY on the wasabi crackers. We are definitely talking company quality horduvers here. In my book, yogurt cheese is a complete winner with lots of experimenting to do with different herb flavorings. Gotta make it in advance tho' so the flavors can blend.
ReplyDeleteLindsey