Just Add Yoghurt

When I think about Christmas growing up I think about waking up early, opening presents, rushing to church and then coming home to a stomach-stretching lunch shared with family, whereby every belt buckle and pants button would fly open as soon as that final bite was taken. That is why I wear dresses on Christmas day. Our lunch table was a mix of traditional Australian-Christmas BBQ and prawns and Greek-Christmas inspired Pastitsio (like Greek lasagne), tiropita, Greek salad and roasted vegetables. For dessert icing-sugar coated Greek almond shortbread, kourabiethes, would almost always make an appearance. You won’t find many Greek houses not serving kourabiethes at Christmas time. Truth be told, I never liked them because they are lathered in icing-sugar and could often be really dry. However when combined with a semi-sweet yoghurt and honey custard and only lightly dusted with icing-sugar, I’m all over them! Yoghurt and honey custard ingredients: Ingredients:...

As Christmas draws near I wanted to use my next few blog post recipes to explore what other culture’s Christmas table looks like. In Australia, prawns, ham, BBQ and the humble Pavlova commonly fill people’s Christmas table. However for other countries, traditions differ. The Japanese celebrate Christmas with KFC and the Dutch make a biscuit called banketletter (meaning letter cake), which is made from marzipan or pastry and made in the shape of the first letter of people’s name that attend a family’s Christmas party. I was intrigued by the Italian tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve. Drawing on the  Roman Catholic  tradition of abstinence, which in this case refers to not eating meat or milk products, the Italian-American community took this tradition one step further with the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  This feast involves families coming together and sharing seven fish and seafood based dishes. The first course is often something snack-like, sinc...

As the weather gets warmer and days longer, beef koftas with salad is one of my favourite dishes to make. With the yoghurt garlic sauce, these koftas are packed with aromatic spice and flavour. You can also cook these koftas on a stick, one of the most basic, ancient forms of cooking. It also makes it a lot of fun to eat and the kids will love it. Ingredients: 1 kg mince beef 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped finely ¼ cup bread crumbs 1 ½ tablespoon ground cumin 2 tablespoon yoghurt (heaped) Juice of ½ lemon 1 onion, minced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon salt Pepper to taste Yoghurt sauce: 4 tablespoons yoghurt 1 small cloves of garlic 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon lemon Method: Mix all the kofta ingredients together Shape into short sausage shapes Heat a non-stick pan until hot Place the koftas on the pan and turn the heat to medium Cook until brown on all sides – approximately 3 minutes on each side Don’t overcook – cut...

This salted caramel cookie has been inspired by a Land O Lakes recipe. The cookie is short, the caramel sweet and creamy and the salt brings a nice balance. Plus Mr Bball loves salted caramel so he loved them!   Ingredients: Cookie: 2/3 cups unsalted butter ½ cup sugar 2 egg yolks 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 ½ cups all purpose flour Caramel filling: 125g sweeten condensed milk 2 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt Salt to taste Method: Cookie: Mix butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla with an electric beater until creamy Add flour and mix in thoroughly Refrigerate for 1 hour Meanwhile, heat oven to 200 degrees fan forced Shape cookies into small bowls – the cookie dough is very crumbly. Don’t worry – handle with care though Once all the cookies are rolled out place your thumb (or the bottom of an egg) in the middle of each cookie to make a well – the cookie may crack. Cook for approximately 8-10 minutes or until brown Let the cookies cool. Carame...

Hypothesis: Not all yoghurts are made equal. While I didn’t fly to Europe to prove this hypothesis, I sure did use our 4.5 week European honeymoon as a chance to test it. Across 14 European cities, in nine different countries, I tasted 17 different yoghurt varieties. All varied in flavour and texture. It all started in Amsterdam, where on a rainy day I tried Zuivelhoeve Boer’N Yoghurt, while sitting on a wet bench pining for the summer I was cruelly promised but so far denied. The tart creamy yoghurt was balanced perfectly with the sweet strawberry compote and just enough granola muesli to provide a textually pleasing crunch. All in all, my first yoghurt was a winner. The second yoghurt in Amsterdam wasn’t as successful because it wasn’t a traditional yoghurt. Thick, incredibly sweet, with no tartness in site, I was somewhat confused by this Danone Danio Vanilla yoghurt. That was until a lovely Dutch Instagram follower kindly informed me that the photo I had posted...

A different kind of post because it’s not about yoghurt! Mr Bball and I recently went to Europe and I wanted to share three of my favourite meals. So let the story begin…. On 31 July 2016 my now husband and I packed our bags, ate all the food in our fridge (yes I almost ate an entire tub of yoghurt because I didn’t want to waste it) and started our honeymoon adventure. With a list of ‘things to do’ in all fourteen cities we were visiting, each list topped with what local food and drink to indulge in, we jumped on our Emirates flight with relief. The last few months had been hectic with the wedding, a quick trip to America for Mr Bball’s work 6am after the wedding and a lot of work to wrap up, so getting on that plane filled me with this calmness I hadn’t felt for a long time. A 13 hour, followed by 7 hour flight, we finally made it to our first city Amsterdam. Greeted with a free glass of bubbles to celebrate our honeymoon, we ventured out to experience the canals, the sm...

Mr Bball and recently completed an A-Z country challenge, cooking recipes from a range of countries including Zambia, Yemen, Brazil and Denmark. This Danish recipe was one of the most interesting. I enjoyed it but Mr Bball wasn’t a fan. It is a perfect winter dish – delicious moist meatballs with a curry gravy served with rice, mashed potato or crusty bread to soak up every last bit. Best consumed under a blanket on the couch watching a movie on a rainy day. The interesting thing about this recipe is that you boil the meatballs – this cooking approach kept them moist. Ingredients: Meatballs: 300g pork 250g beef ½ cup milk 1 large onion, finely diced 5 tablespoons flour ½ teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon salt 1 egg Curry sauce: 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large onion finely diced 35g butter 3 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons curry powder 2.5 cups water from boiling the meatballs 3 tablespoons yoghurt 1 teaspoon salt Squeeze lemon ...