Good Greek yogurt makes me start the day off feeling like a god. It’s equally creamy/astringent, soothing/bracing, bucking you up with mild sugar whilst stiffening your spine with protein and calcium.
Like all the cool Greek folk heroes, Greek yogurt has elements of both femme and butch, swinging equally and effortlessly both with the fruity and nutty as with the salty and gamy.
There are only two things about Greek yogurt I don’t love
Firstly, it usually only comes in plastic tubs, and as much as I like the various and sundry Ancient-Hellenic graphics, I feel bad about creating that trash.
Secondly, the recipes for Greeking your own yogurt all seemed to require the patience of that guy in the myths that pushes the rock up the hill for eternity.
Until now.
Here’s how I did it last night -
1) Scoop a few spoonfuls of organic plain non-fat yogurt into a coffee-filter-lined colander over a large bowl.
2) Leave in refrigerator overnight.
(recipe loosely adapted from Amy Sedaris’ “I Like You: Entertaining Under the Influence“ – it belongs on your bookshelf now.)
Here’s one of my favorite ways to eat Greek yogurt. It’s a pasta dish with pungent cheese and bursts of mellow sweet onions, a perfect dish for those bittersweet last days of summer.
Amy Sedaris’ Yogurt Spa-Ghetti from the Not Quite Nigella blog
Make some for your little one to share when they come in from their first day of school. Hey, empires rise and fall, but we’re all still eating yogurt.
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NICE.
I found a yogurt strainer, still in its delightfully mid-eighties packaging, at a second-hand store for a quarter more than a year ago. I have had yogurt straining constantly ever since. I like to let it strain until it is the consistency of cream cheese and use it as a condiment, on sandwiches or a dollop in soup.
I use the whey in many, many recipes, most of which come from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, my favorite cookbook. Yummy raspberry electrolyte drink, pickled garlic, preserved lemons… the book is full of wonderful secrets.
Wow, what a great comment to recieve! Thanks, Helena. That sounds awesome (especially the preserved lemons)
Sweet! I just saw your not-so-lentil soup recipe and was glad that you were making yogurt cheese. Isn’t it delicious?
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[...] some ovo-lacto vegetarians to come by for lunch today, and was already thinking of how perfectly my yogurt cheese would compliment a lemony lentil stew. Greek Yogurt on its way to becoming cheese. Pic by Raggedy [...]