Random food notes

[snousle]

Got some nice yellow tomatoes on our way back home from the coast. Mashing, straining, and slowly reducing their juice till it's thick makes a really, really good sauce. If you avoid adding anything to discolor it, the color stays nice and bright. It's extremely sweet, much more so than the equivalent red sauce, and looks real good on a plate of spaghetti.

Been thinking about the use of subtle contrasts in foods. I had a soup a while back that really rocked my world - it was a smooth, fairly thick veloute made with slow-cooked onions, just barely stirred into chicken broth, in about a 50-50 mix. The difference in viscosity between the two components made for a remarkable sensation on the palate.

I got the same thing from eating yoghurt with ice cream. Specifically, it was some vanilla ice cream, topped with granola, then Greek yoghurt, and a drizzle of honey on top.

I am crazy for "Greek Gods" yoghurt. It's a standard thing in our fridge. One of the memories that sticks out from my travels was the incredible yoghurt they had in Greece, which I ate every day for breakfast. That was back in '92 or thereabouts. I pined for decades for this product, and would simulate it by straining yoghurt in a colander in order to thicken it up. That was OK for savory dishes, but not so much for sweets and fruits. Now, Greek Gods has brought us a pretty good version of that yoghurt, and it's available in the supermarket most of the time. It probably has about ten million calories per serving but I cannot say no to it. A frustrating thing, though - they'll often have fruit yoghurt, or low fat yoghurt, or this yoghurt or that yoghurt - but no REGULAR ORDINARY PLAIN yoghurt. That drives me nuts. Fortunately we have a very responsive supermarket and they take my carping about this very seriously, so it only rarely happens nowadays.

Comments

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I hear you - I prefer an "ordinary" yogurt, but finding the plain, whole-milk version (as opposed to the low- or non-fat plain version, or the whole-milk type with flavoring and added sugar) can be a challenge. So it's not just where you are, nor just for Greek-style yogurt.

I do like using nonfat Greek yogurt blended half and half with sour cream; the result is great for anything I use sour cream for, with a lot more protein and about half the fat - and without the stabilizers and thickeners they put into "lite" sour cream to make up for the missing fat. I have noticed that it depends what brand you use for this - some greek yogurts just fit better with sour cream than others and of the ones I've tried, Chobani is the best for this - YMMV, of course.

Yoghurt

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

We have a wide selection of fermented milk products here. You can get yoghurt made from cows, goats or sheep milk. Greek-style yoghurt comes unsugared, sugared, or with cereal, nuts and raisins. And of course there is Greek yoghurt actually made in Greece. I of course look for "natural" or no sugar added varieties.

Chuck