TOTAL GREEK YOGHURT REVIEW

I was sent some Total Greek yoghurt to sample and use in my cooking. Here's my long overdue review and some suggestions on how to use the yoghurt. The top photo is full-fat yoghurt served with honey and was absolutely divine.

Tsatsiki made with Total yoghurt.

Fat-free yoghurt served with jam.

2% fat yoghurt served with complimentary honey.

2% fat with honey.

Total is real Greek yoghurt rather than the cheaper 'Greek-style' yoghurt, and it is strained to remove excess whey, apart from the little 2% tub, I think.

As you can see from the close-ups, the low-fat and fat-free products are less even in consistency. The 2% yoghurt is thicker around the edges of the tub and slightly grainy whereas the full-fat one is beautifully smooth. The non-fat one is evenly thick, though grainy, because it has been strained and has a disk of paper resting on top to prove it but the 2% with the honey one is thinner.

The honey that comes with the snack-size tub is good quality and there's plenty of it.

Flavour-wise all the products are good in their category. I like to use full-fat products so my palate wasn't as keen on the non-fat and 2% ones but they were good compared to similar products. I found the fat-free yoghurt surprisingly creamy, which is probably because it's strained and therefore condensed.

I used the full-fat yoghurt in curries and in a baked cheesecake, replacing half of the cheese with Total. I flavoured the cheesecake with grated marzipan, which may sound slightly strange but the almond was a very good match with the yoghurt.

You shouldn't use low-fat or fat-free yoghurt in anything that's heated up because it may curdle but it's great for dips or non-baked cheesecakes. I also used it to make a layered dessert with shortbread, apricots, pistachios and honey.

PANCAKE DAY CHICKEN

Time for something politically correct after the reindeer recipe last month.

Hey, Pancake Day is coming! I think it's interesting how every country has its own name for it: Mardi Gras, Pancake Day, Laskiainen (Finland), etc. I suppose Shrove Tuesday is the international term for it but no one uses it. It sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? Also, people don't really notice the religious connection nowadays so I say call the day whatever you like.

OK, so Brits make pancakes on Pancake Day. Yes, the clue is in the name but the point is that that's the only way they celebrate it. Not too exciting compared to Mardi Gras or a Venetian masked ball but at least it's something, and it's very unique which is great.

The Finns are a bit impatient when it comes to special occasions. We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, Midsummer on Midsummer's Eve, Easter on Good Friday, and Shrove Tuesday on... Sunday! The festivities include skiing, butt-sliding, tobogganing and general outdoors fun, followed by pea soup and brioche buns filled with cream and jam or almond paste.

We have some Finnish in-laws coming over next week and I think I'm going to give them a feel of Pancake Day. My father-in-law makes pretty good pancakes and we tend to make our guests earn their upkeep. My husband's always making people do the washing-up for us. I think that's just cruel but making pancakes is OK, right?

This savoury recipe is great if you want to use up any leftover pancakes on Wednesday, or if you want to do a full-on pancake dinner on Tuesday. Why not have pancakes for mains and dessert? I think this needs a dessert, to be honest – a win-win situation, then.


Serves two not-so-hungry people

Filling:
50g butter
2 gently poached chicken breasts, or leftover chicken.
1 small onion
1 stalk celery
1ooml good chicken gravy (if homemade, use chicken stock, swiss bouillon powder and garlic)
green chillies to taste
salt
5ml balsamic vinegar

To asseble:
2 or 3 English pancakes, ie. very thin pancakes. I made mine with gluten-free flour mix.
Mild cheddar
(a splash of gravy)


Fry the dry ingredients of the filling, add gravy and allow to simmer until celery softens. The filling needs to be quite thick because the pancakes, unlike lasagna sheets, will not absorb any of the liquid.




Layer the pancakes with the filling. If your top layer is a pancake, pour some gravy over the top, if it's chicken, leave the extra gravy out.

Cook under the grill (broiler), or in a very hot oven, until golden.

My husband can't handle chilli so there's extra sprinkled on my half. Yummy!

Enjoy!

VENISON CHILLI WITH REINDEER

Time flies when you're busy and I sure have been. Of course that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking; I just haven't been taking much photos (maybe it hasn't been very pretty) or writing about it. This chilli is one of the recipes I tried recently, after discovering it, I can't remember how. Check out the video recipe by the amazing BBQ Pit Boys. Hats off to the attitude these guys have.

I spent Christmas in my native Finland, and as you may know we have reindeer in the north. As venison is just deer meat, why not reindeer? Some may think it's quite macabre to eat Rudolph, especially around Christmas, but we don't see a problem with it.

Bloggers always write about something being 'the best' while actually meaning just 'really nice'. I don't do that. This chilli really is the best I've had. I also had beef chilli recently but now that just pales in comparison. I was blind but now I see.

There's a couple substitutes I made to the original recipe, due to dietary restriction or unavailability of ingredients, or just because I happened to have something I wanted to use. You should really watch the video but below is an illustration of what I used.

Here we have the salami. Finns will recognise this instantly. You can use whatever salami that has a strong meat flavour.

And just to write it out to you. Measurements aren't that important here.

Venison
American-style bacon
Russian-style salami (to substitute Italian hot sausage)
Pickled jalapenos
Onions
Garlic
Tinned tomatoes
Tomato purée
Fresh tomatoes
Green pepper
Mushrooms
Kidney beans
Dry apple cider (to substitute beer)
Cajun seasoning
Oregano
Cumin
Chipotle powder (dried, smoked chilli, to substitute the smoking)
Paprika powder
Cayenne pepper
Salt
Black treacle
Also pepper, I think


Easy: Fry meat, add other stuff, stir. Let simmer for a couple of hours.


To serve:
Tortilla chips
Blue cheese
Mild cheese
Pickled jalapenos

SCONES

Easy and quick comfort food. These are very soft and delicate with a crispy top even when made with gluten-free flour mix.

I have a theory that shop-bought gluten-free scones are actually just surplus astronaut food that NASA are selling out to minimise losses.




3 parts self-raising flour (gluten-free is fine)
2 parts lemonade of sparkling water
1 part cream
a pinch of salt
more flour until workable


Mix until smooth, and gosh almighty it'll be very smooth.

Bake in 200°C until golden.

YOGHURT VANILLA CUSTARD

This is one of those brainchilds of a lazy mind. I had no eggs and no cream but there was some leftover custard powder from making vanilla pumpkin pie. Normally I'd never make custard from powder but this turned out quite nice because of all the additional ingredients.

My guests said the custard was a perfect match with the pie.


Yoghurt vanilla custard

90ml milk
2 inches vanilla pod
30ml (or more) sugar
30ml custard powder
3 drops orange oil
enough Greek yoghurt to thinnen, about 100ml.


Heat up the milk, sugar and vanilla.




Add custard powder. Stir continuously.




Add the Greek yoghurt one spoonful at a time when the custard starts to thicken. Mix in the orange oil. Serve hot or cold.

VANILLA PUMPKIN PIE

Halloween got cancelled.

On Wednesday we went down to London, to visit The Dungeons among other things. The sight of the 4-and-a-half hour queue stretching half-way around the block – a mighty big block it was, too – was plenty of horror for us so we decided to ditch that plan. Luckily we had other plans in London as well.

At the weekend I did 29 hours of work between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. I was about to keel over out of exhaustion. I think I looked quite a bit like a zombie – I definitely felt like one. Actually quite fitting for Halloween, don't you think?

My sister-in-law had carved us a pumpkin lantern but I was too tired to put a candle in it and take it out. I was having a nap when we got trick-or-treaters but managed to get myself up, forgetting my glasses so I have no idea what they looked like.

Oh well, at least I made a pumpkin pie earlier last week.



Crust:

100g unsalted butter
75ml sugar
150ml plain gluten-free flour mix


Filling:

5oog cooked pumpkin
40g custard powder
100g condensed milk
2 eggs
0.5ml ground cardamom
1ml nutmeg
4ml cinnamon
1.5 inch vanilla pod, seeds separated

Prepare the crust and roll out on a 10"/26cm pie dish. Chill before baking in 200°C until only just done. A disaster will happen if you use self-raising flour so keep away from it.

Puré the pumpkin and add remaining ingredients. Pour onto the crust and bake until set.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or some quality custard.

Before

After

Served with yoghurt vanilla custard.

AFRO-MEXICAN PUMPKIN SOUP

I can't quite decide which cuisine this soup is trying to represent. There's plenty of cinnamon, cumin and chickpeas which make it a little bit African but there's also coriander, lime and brown sugar which make it Mexican. The Thai curry paste complicates it further. Oh well, the soup is lovely, and that's the main thing.

Another thing that's impossible to define is the amount of servings. This can make four servings for some not-so-hungry people, but also just two for a hungry, lonely man as I discovered last weekend.

I'm not a big fan of soups or peanut butter and I used to hate coriander (cilantro) so if I call this soup lovely, it's a huge praise. Actually, I think this recipe is what made me like coriander but we still call it Fairy herb because it tastes a bit like washing-up liquid. Maybe I just like Fairy.

I adapted the recipe from this one. I make it very often and don't measure anything but have a look at the original if you need more specific instructions.


Afro-Mexican pumpkin soup

A big chunk of lard for frying. Use ghee if the thought of lard is unpleasant. Oil will burn.
A heaped teaspoon of red curry paste.
2ml cinnamon
5ml cumin
Chilli powder to taste
Several garlic cloves, at least 4
Two peppers, or some leftover bits equivalent to two whole ones.
Boiling water
A big chunk of pumpkin or butternut squash, I'd say about 500g.
Two very heaped spoonfuls of peanut butter. As much as you can hold on a tablespoon.
A tin of chickpeas, drained.
A heaped tablespoon of brown sugar
Juice of one lime
Salt to taste.
A big handful of chopped coriander (cilantro).

Fry the spices and garlic. Add peppers and fry for a minute. Add water, pumpkin and peanut butter.




Boil until the pumpkin is tender. Mix until the froth created by the peanut butter has dissolved and add chickpeas. Mash the soup roughly and add remaining ingredients. Add more chilli if needed. Stir until the sugar and salt dissolve and serve.

Some coriander.

And a bit more.

Notice how there's ice crystals on the coriander. I buy it in big bunches, chop it up, and freeze it.