yogurt

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Hotel conference food can be hit or miss, and the food at my conference so far has been lacking. A light lunch coupled with a lack of the variety of afternoon snacks part of my normal routine, and by 2:00 yesterday I was hungry, cold, tired, and wanting to be at home to make some real food. Specifically, the delicious dip that I made on Sunday to go with spicy turkey burgers, a recipe that will be posted at a later date.

While prepping the dip for the first time, I made good friends with it, dipping raw zucchini and red peppers in it, then using it as a dressing for arugula. Oh the possibilities!

The goods:

2 cups Greek yogurt, I used 2%, but you could easily use 0%

1 cup roasted piquillo peppers, dried with a paper towel to remove as much moisture as possible

4-6 cloves garlic, I went for 6

1/2 TSP crushed red pepper flakes

sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

red pepper dip

It’s spicy, creamy deliciousness, poured over a turkey burger, with pita triangles, and really I love vegetables, but this dip could get a veggie hater to give them another try.

turkey burgers  

I love the simplicity of this dip and the variations that could come from it. I have made similar dips before, but for some reason, maybe the proportions I used, this just rocked!

I am thinking of adding ginger, garlic, soy, and curry powder this weekend, and I can’t wait to make this for entertaining.

Other food this past weekend included my amazing zazu inspired couscous dish which I will post later in the week and this mezze platter from Sultan’s Kitchen in downtown Boston.

For less than $10, I had feta, hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, salad, grape leaves, and olives. It was divine!

vegetarian mezze

I ALSO bought some summer reading this weekend, The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle and Candace Bushnell’s One Fifth Avenue. I feel like some good trashy beach reads were missing from my life.

What have you been reading lately?

Tags: entertaining ideas, recipe, yogurt

It was on a visit to Iceland last year that I first discovered Skyr, a delicious and creamy thick yogurt. Wikipedia says the following about Skyr:

Skyr is an Icelandic cultured dairy product, similar to strained yogurt. Technically it is a very soft cheese.

Since I have forever been a fan of more natural European yogurt over the typical overly sweetened American varieties of my youth, I spent our days in Iceland excitedly eating Skyr a few times a day. Hey, it’s the little things! 😉

Fast forward a year after our trip when I am scanning the yogurt selection at Whole Foods and see the clean, sophisticated little cups of Siggi’s yogurt in flavors completely unique to your usual yogurt scene.

Since then, I have tried Siggi’s vanilla, plain, and orange & ginger yogurts, the orange & ginger being my favorite because of its tangy citrus flavor and a hint of gingery spice. Somehow, Siggi’s makes something that is incredibly rich and filling completely fat free. . .with 16-17 grams of protein per container. Siggi’s is all natural and made from milk that comes from grass fed, hormone free cows.

Being a fan of the yogurt, I was more than a little excited when Judith from Healthworks invited me to meet Siggi himself! A yogurt celebrity at my gym? I was there!

Siggi's Icelandic Style Skyr Yogurt

Healthworks and Siggi’s teamed up to give out some free samples and coupons, and I of course took them up on their offer! I will be having a blueberry Siggi’s for breakfast this morning.

The best part, of course, was meeting Siggi himself. I was surprised at how young he is! I am not sure why, but I pictured him to be much older.

It turns out that he and Judith were born on the exact same day, same year and everything!

Siggi from Siggi's and Judith from Healthworks

I enjoyed the opportunity to chat with Siggi about Iceland, yogurt, eating habits of Americans and my blog. He was so nice and kindly gave me some coupons for free yogurt which I will be sharing with you at the end of this post. But first a summery soup recipe using Siggi’s yogurt:

With yogurt on the brain and a bunch of carrots past their salad prime, I decided to come up with a cold soup recipe utilizing plain yogurt as the base. Siggi’s would work great, as would any thick, plain yogurt.

Chilled Spicy Carrot Soup Ingredients:

8 large carrots, chopped into small pieces

1/4 cup red onion, chopped into small pieces

4 cloves garlic

3 TBSP Olive Oil

2 cups yogurt

1 cup organic vegetable stock

1 TSP each, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, and chili powder

sea salt to taste

Coat the carrots, whole garlic cloves, and onion in olive oil and toss with cinnamon, cumin, chili powder, and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees until the carrots are soft. If the garlic looks too brown, remove it early and set aside. Burnt garlic is the worst!

carrots, garlic, onion

Once the veggies are cooked, set them aside to cool for about 20 minutes, then toss in the food processor and puree until completely smooth. Allow to cool for another 20 minutes; if you are in a rush pop the bowl in the freezer for a few minutes. Once it is fully cool, stir in the yogurt until the mix is completely combined. At this point, give it a taste. It will be thick, but you may like it just the way it is. If you prefer to thin it a bit, stream in vegetable stock and stir until the soup has reached the consistency you desire.

cold spicy carrot soup

I loved how creamy and cold this soup was, and the spices I used complimented the sweet carrots well. I will definitely be making this again, maybe with butternut squash in the fall.

Because of the thickness of the yogurt and sheer volume of carrots, this was a VERY filling soup. Next time I would serve a very small portion as an appetizer or eat this as a light meal on its own.

Now time for a little giveaway. Three lucky Travel, Eat, Love readers will win 2 coupons each for 2 free Siggi’s yogurts.

All you have to do is visit Siggi’s website, leave a comment on this post telling me which flavor/s you would buy if you won, and link back to this giveaway if you have a blog. If you don’t have a blog, link back on Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks Judith and Healthworks for yet another really cool opportunity!

Tags: Food, giveaway, Healthworks, Iceland, Siggi's, Skyr, soup, yogurt

If there is one thing you get out of my recap of yesterday’s lunch with Stonyfield Farms’ CE-Yo, Gary Hirshberg, it’s that even buying one more organic product makes a difference. You don’t have to do a complete overhaul of your cabinets and spend your entire salary on organic food to make a difference in both your health and in the world.

Lunch with the CE-Yo was held at the new location of EVOO in Kendall Square, Cambridge. I had a wonderful food and wine pairing at EVOO’s former location, so I was excited to visit their new, much more convenient  location.

EVOO Cambridge

Stonyfield Farms luncheon EVOO menu

The inside of EVOO is beautiful with an open kitchen and a great private room.

EVOO dining room

EVOO Kitchen

After I arrived and took a few photos, I chatted with a few other bloggers:

image image

Elina and Jennifer, Tina and Ali

And we met the CE-Yo, Gary Hirshberg.

Gary Hirschberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farms   

Gary was incredibly interesting, informative, and passionate. His devotion to organic food and family farms are enormous parts of Stonyfield’s success, and Gary works on an “Everybody wins” philosophy.

Stonyfield was founded 27 years ago as a 7 cow organic farming school. Gary and his business partner, Samuel Kaymen, began making yogurt as a way to fund the school.

Gary gave us a brief background on his own local eating history. When we was growing up, all of the family food came from within a few miles of home. There were , at one point, 300 family dairy farmers in Concord, NH. When Stonyfield started there were 400 dairy farmers in the entire state of NH, and now there are only 87 remaining. I find this to be incredibly sad. The food that is grown/produced by small farmers is done with such care and attention, as opposed to food that comes from giant factory farms, and the last thing we need in the US is LESS care placed toward our food.

Gary reminded us that for our great grandparents and many of our grandparents, everything was organic. Pre WWI and WWII, food was not treated with chemicals. Post war, chemical manufacturers discovered new uses for their chemicals, and alas, we started on the path that we are on today, where we suffer from an endemic penetration of chemicals both from food and from our environment.

Gary shared a lot of information, and here are a few of the points I found the most interesting (or disturbing!):

  • By the time babies are born, they already have 285-300 toxins in their blood. One third of these are tied to food.
  • Organics make up 3.7% of the US food supply.
  • Stonyfield’s support of 1750 family farms keeps 180,000 acres chemical free.
  • Stonyfield donates 10% of its profits to environmental causes.
  • The farmers that Stonyfield buys milk from never experience a price decrease. They are paid well above the rates of non organic farmers.
  • Cows on non-organic farms live 4-6 years. Cows on organic farms tend to live for 12-20 years, thus increasing their milk producing years and the profit for the farmer. Cows on organic farms must also have access to pasture which makes them happy 🙂
  • Through their commitment to organic milk, Stonyfield helps to prevent 425,000 drug treatments for animals and 185,000 lbs of insecticides and herbicides.
  • The President’s Council on Cancer recently found that 41% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and 21% will die from it. One of the most significant things that we can do to prevent cancer is to eat an organic diet.
  • The #1 way to bring down the price of organic food and to make it more accessible to all is to increase the volume in which it is produced. To this end, large corporations such as Wal Mart selling organic is a very good thing.
  • Per capita, Austrians eat the most organic food. Another reason for me to love Austria!

I could go on and on with the information I learned today, but I really came away with wanting to pay more attention to the food that I eat and to make even more of an effort to buy organic. Gary truly made me FEEL like I can make a difference with my dollars and that blogging is a powerful tool for spreading this message. He also said his prayer for all of us would be that we could blog as our “real jobs”. Yes, please! 🙂

Of course, no food blogger lunch is complete without delicious food, and EVOO took good care of us!

I started with the Asparagus Soup with Parmigiano Reggiano, Red Chili Flakes, and EVOO. It was velvety with chunks of fresh asparagus; it totally tasted like spring.

asparagus soup

My lunch entree was a Seared Atlantic Golden Tilefish with Organic Potatoes, Fiddlehead Ferns, Wild Ramps, Cilantro, Curried Potato Broth, and Minted Carrot Salad.  I don’t think I have tried tilefish before, but I loved  how meaty and flavorful this fish was.

tilefish with fiddleheads 

 

Seared Tilefish Fillet with Organic Potatoes, Fiddlhead Ferns, Wild Ramps. Cilantro, Curried Potato Broth and Minted Carrot Salad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert we had Stonyfield Organic Yogurt Tart with Balsamic- Basil Glazed Strawberries. The tart was incredible. It had a creamy, tangy flavor, and you could tell it was made with only the best ingredients.

Stonyfield Organic Yogurt Tart with Balsamic- Basil Glazed Strawberries

Stonyfield Organic Yogurt Tart with Balsamic- Basil Glazed Strawberries

And received a sample of Caramel Oikos yogurt. . . it was the first time I tried this flavor, it was sweet, creamy, yum! It did not last long once I got it home!

Caramel Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt

Before we left, EVOO’s chef, Peter McCarthy, came out to meet us. Chef McCarthy talked briefly about EVOO’s efforts to use organic and local ingredients whenever possible. Their menu, as a result, incorporates delicious, seasonal dishes.

image

I am looking forward to returning to EVOO for a dinner with wine pairings very soon. Their menu is too tempting!

Thank you Stonyfield and 360 for inviting me to such an incredible lunch, and thank you Chef McCarthy and EVOO for hosting us!

Speaking of organic, there are only TWO DAYS to enter  my Olivia’s Organics giveaway!

Tags: EVOO, farming, Food, Gary Hirshberg, milk, organic food, Stonyfield Farm, sustainable food, yogurt

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