Ginger lemon frozen yogurt 生姜レモンフローズンヨーグルト

A long time ago, we used to make ice cream and frozen yogurt. We first used a "Frozen cylinder" device which we kept in the freezer to chill. Then to make ice cream, we added the mix and hand cranked until the ice cream formed. We felt, at the time, that the effort and quality of the resulting ice cream was not worth it; never mind that the cylinder took a big chunk out of our precious freezer space. Then, we came across a self contained (with compressor) mini-ice cream maker on sale and bought it. This was much better. We have made ice cream and frozen yogurt a few times, but them we forgot about it for a long time. While we were trying to find more space in the cupboard, we came across this old ice cream maker occupying valuable cupboard real estate. We were not sure if it still worked and decided if it did not work it was "gone/history".  But, miraculously, we flipped the switch and it still worked after all these years of neglect. So, we made, ginger lemon frozen yogurt. We served a few scoops with our favorite girl scout cookies.

We did not make it too sweet. The lemon and ginger flavor was very refreshing.

The recipe came from Alton Brown (Food network). We made some changes and also reduced the portions to fit our ice cream machine (maximum is about 2 cups).

Ingredients:
Greek yogurt 2 cups (my wife drained plain whole milk yogurt).
Lemon juice from one lemon
Lemon zest from one lemon (micrograted).
Grated ginger, 1 tsp
1/8 cup sugar
1/8 cup corn syrup
Crystalized ginger

Directions:
Mix the ingredients together and place in the ice cream machine container #1.
Put in the paddle #2, Put on the machine's lid #3.
Stir about 20 to 25 minutes with the chill unit on. #4 and #5.
When the ice cream is formed fold in the crystalized ginger, put into a container and then put into the freezer #6.

This ice cream came out nice and creamy. After few days in the freezer, it was so hard, we could not scoop it out of the container and had to microwave it for 20-30 seconds to loosen it up. Nonetheless it was very good. The lemon ginger flavor was very refreshing and would be perfect on a hot summer day.

Udon with spicy miso sauce 肉味噌うどん

This is a re-purposed spicy red miso sauce with pork (niku-miso with red miso and pork 肉味噌) I made a few days ago. Since I made it a bit too spicy (I am not sure if it was due to the Sriracha sauce or the jalapeno pepper), but it was a bit much for my wife. So we added yogurt like we often do for Indian curry which made it much milder. That led me to come up with this dish as a final "shime" 締め one evening. I made the sauce for the udon noodles from the spicy red miso sauce with pork and yogurt.

Although adding yogurt may be somewhat unusual for more traditional Japanese recipe of "Niki-miso udon 肉味噌うどん", it went well. I also added spinach which my wife prepared from fresh spinach for spinach soufflé (which we did not make because we ran out of time and energy and were too full to eat it anyway).

For a impromptu dish made from re-purposed ingredients, as leftover control, this was quite good.

I warmed up my spicy pork red-miso sauce, added yogurt (did not measure, plain non flavored) and mixed. When it was warmed up, I mixed in the cooked spinach.

We used dried thin udon noodles, Sanuki undon 讃岐うどん, cooked as per the package directions and rinsed in cold running water after it was cooked and drained.

The addition of yogurt made the sauce mild and creamy without adding much additional taste but a nice smooth texture. It easily clung to the noodles and was a perfect small ending dish for us.

Smoked trout spread, Greek yogurt and cheeses マスの燻製のスプレッド、グリークヨーグルト、チーズ

These are appetizers we had one day which included Greek yogurt my wife made using a special yogurt from a farm in Pennsylvania near where she grew up (left upper brown container) and smoked trout spread (lower right tan container). We also served two interesting cheeses; Blue castello (Denmark) (lower left) and Bucheron Sevre Belle (France) (upper right).

The picture below is a close up of the Greek Yogurt made from a special "high-octane" yogurt which was mixed with our favorite Spanish olive oil and seasoned with salt.

This picture shows the smoked trout dip. We used to make this smoked trout cream cheese spread often when we regularly bought artisanal apple wood smoked trout from a nearby gourmet grocery store. We haven't made it recently, however, because the smoked trout is no longer available.

The picture below shows the Blue castello (Denmark) cheese which was a nice, mild but not too mild blue cheese. It was a bit more assertive than our favorite "Cambozola". It is a bit more crumbly but has a nice blue cheese taste. Cambozola is more creamy and has "Camembert" characteristics.

Bucheron Sevre Belle (France) is aged but not too aged and even the rind was nice to eat. It is a nice cross between fresh and very aged (and fuzzy) goat cheese.

Smoked trout spread

Ingredients:

1. Hot smoked trout. We used to buy smoked trout from the grocery store but this one was made from fresh trout hot smoked in the Webber. I used soaked hickory chips and indirect heat for about 20 minutes (#1). My wife carefully deboned (#2) and flaked the meat (#3), of a whole trout.

2. One package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, (#4).

3. Fresh dill, chopped, 1/4 cup (#5)

4. Lemon juice of one lemon

5. Horseradish to taste (we also added wasabi). 

Just put everything in the food processor and process it until creamy and homogenized (#6). Taste and adjust any seasonings you like .

Greek yogurt spread with olive oil

Ingredients:

Greek yogurt*

Olive oil (we use our favorite Spanish olive oil)

Salt

* The Greek yogurt was made using "Seven Stars Farm" yogurt from Pennsylvania which my wife found one day while cruising down the dairy isle at the local Whole Food grocery store. The name "Seven Stars Farm" and the picture of the star constellation on the package  jumped out at her from all the other packages in the cold case. She stopped dead in her tracks and exclaimed "I know where that is!!" This farm happened to be across the road from where my wife went to high school.  At that time, however, they did not make yogurt, it was just a dairy farm selling to milk wholesalers according to my wife.. We didn't have any choice but to get one--or rather, to be more exact, to get several. Although the the percentage of fat of this yogurt appears to be slightly above the usual 4% (we estimated 4.5% from their nutritional facts), it looks and tastes like it has much more fat content than that. It even has a thin layer or yogurt from cream on the top which gives it some yellow color. While we really like Danon 4% whole milk yogurt and regularly use it to make Greek yogurt, Seven Stars Farm yogurt definitely has a much "higher octane rev"; it is really something special 

Making Greek yogurt, my wife has really got this down to a precise and easy process.

First, we needed a deep conical strainer like the one you see below (#1 and #2). (if the strainer has a rounded rather than conical bottom the whey does not drain out as well and the resulting Greek yogurt will not be as concentrated.)

Second, you need a better quality cheese cloth called cheese muslin. The cheese cloth from the grocery store tends to be very fragile and coarse and lets most of the curd pass on through as a tithe to feed the "sink God" that lives in the drain.  She spreads the cheesecloth in the strainer and adds the entire container of yogurt and folds the edges of the cloth over it (#2).

Since a rather large bowl would be required to accommodate the deep conical strainer she saves space in the fridge by using the yogurt container itself (#1) to catch the whey. That container is then fitted into a small metal bowl to catch any drippings that may fall from the cloth (#2), then, the whole thing is placed in the refrigerator.

Overnight, Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is made (#3). You will be surprised with the amount of whey accumulated (#4).

I would like to say these snacks are a bit too rich for us but, really, who would I be kidding? They went perfectly well with red wine. Although we have made Greek yogurt spread before from Danon whole milk yogurt, this Greek yogurt is in an entirely different class. You could actually see the layer of butter yogurt on the surface after it was strained. Adding the spicy Spanish olive oil and salt really makes it. The smoked trout spread was no slouch either. The horseradish and smokiness both worked well and really complemented the wine. The two cheeses were also quite good. We filled ourselves with these wonderful spreads and cheeses and the appetizers became dinner.

Prosciutto rolls 生ハムロール

This is a quick snack to have with a glass of wine. We had leftover prosciutto from the previous day's cold pasta lunch. I decided to make rolls and served it with my baked spicy tofu (served cold).

Inside the rolls, I included my wife's Greek yogurt (which she made by draining regular plain yogurt overnight in the refrigerator) mixed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and fresh cracked back pepper. I also included, cucumber, thinly sliced Vidalia onion and watercress.

I wanted the watercress to look like it was sprouting from the roll.

I suppose anything can be rolled in prosciutto. Blanched asparagus or cheese would be the common choice.  I added our favorite Spanish olive oil to the Greek yogurt. I spread the mixture on 1/3 of the slice of prosciutto added the onion and a button of cucumber (American mini-cucumber) and watercress. I simply rolled it and cut it in half and stood it up on the cut surface. I drizzled on more olive oil. Although there is no cheese on this plate but the combination of Greek yogurt and olive oil and tofu are almost like some type of cheese. This is indeed an excellent starter dish.

Canned Mackerel canapé サバのアメリカ版缶詰のカナッペ

We tend to think canned food can last forever but apparently that is not the case. All canned goods have an expiration date. Although even when past its expiration date, canned food may still be quite good. When I see that the can is several years past its expiration date, however, I throw it out. I found several cans of sardines and anchovies in our pantry which fell into this category.  So the next time I was at the grocery store, I bought some replacement cans, one of which was canned mackerel in olive oil. Japanese canned mackerel サバ缶 is usual bone-in, cut cross-wise or "dou-giri" 胴切, it is either cooked in water or seasoned with miso or soy sauce. Either way, the bone is soft - probably pressure cooked - and can be eaten. The one I bought was boneless fillets packed in oil by "bumble bee tuna" company. I decided to use it to make a small canapé.

On the "everything flat bread", I smeared a mixture of our favorite Spanish olive oil and my wife's strained yogurt (Greek yogurt) with chopped fresh dill. I seasoned it with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. I then placed a skinned and sliced Campari tomato on top. Finally, I topped the stack with the filet of mackerel. 

This was rather good. The mackerel was neutral tasting. Despite being canned in olive oil it was not oily and the usual strong favor was not prominent. The Greek yogurt with olive oil is as good or better than sour cream (our home made creme fraiche could have been better, though).

Greek yogurt and olive oil ギリシャヨーグルトとオリーブオイル

We had some leftover salmon, so I made my salmon salad as a starter one weekday evening. The small dish consisted of slices of cucumber, wedges of tomato (skinned), salmon salad and my wife's homemade Greek yogurt with Spanish olive oil with freshly cracked black pepper.

The Greek yogurt with the fruity spicy Spanish olive oil (additional cracked black pepper on the top) was the best. This was Spanish olive oil we got on our recent trip the Pennsylvania.  I served this with flat bread crackers with sesame seeds.

The combination of yogurt and olive oil was a surprise. The yogurt seemed to absorb and accentuate the fruity grassy and peppery flavor of the olive oil. It made a wonderful spread. It tasted great either spread over the cucumber or cracker. We had noticed before how yogurt absorbed and accentuated the taste of mayonnaise when we mixed the two together as dressing for potato or cucumber salad. Using this combination we were able to get an intense mayonnaise flavor while using just a small amount. This same characteristic seems to have extended to the combination of yogurt and olive oil and it was a great discovery that we shall exploit extensively. We were drinking red wine for sure but were so blown away by the yogurt/olive oil we cannot remember exactly what it was.