OT: Greek Yogurt

[Sharkman]

To make a GREAT tzatziki sauce, you combine 3 cups of plain Greek yogurt with 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 clove of finely chopped garlic, 2 medium size cucumbers (peel them, slice them up, scoop out the mushy part with the seeds, then run it through a food processor to grind it up), and 1 tablespoon of fresh dill. If you've ever eaten a gyro, that's the creamy sauce in it that tastes so good. Tzatziki sauce is a good sandwich spread or dip for a lot of foods. Here is the web page for the whole recipe: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2007/07/worlds-best-tzatziki-sauce-recipe-greek.html

[whitefang]

See? That's what I mean about that stuff. I prefer MIRACLE WHIP, or any generic version of it, to mayo on my sandwiches. But I wouldn't eat it straight out of the jar. That Tzatziki sauce sounds(and tastes)like a good thing to use in cole slaw or a salad dressing. I've had it on gyros before, and thought that about it at those time, too.

Whitefang

[Dannyalcatraz]

*GWARK*

 

I can't stand Miracle Whip!

 

But that's what makes capitalism so great- choices, choices, choices!

[whitefang]

I could split hairs and state that the only choice capitalism gives you is between what you can afford and what you can't.

 

But I catch your drift.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

There is no accounting for taste. I can afford Miracle Whip but choose not to. I prefer Best Foods when it comes to Mayo...

[Scott Fraser]

There is no accounting for taste. I can afford Miracle Whip but choose not to.

 

Miracle Whip is to sandwich spreads as Spam is to meat.

 

I prefer Best Foods when it comes to Mayo...

 

Trader Joe's mayo for me.

[Larryz]

+1 Scott. Will give Trader Joe's a try one of these days. Only one thing worse than a Spam sandwich, and that's a Spam sandwich made with Miracle Whip. LOL!

[A String]

+1 on the horrible stuff that is Miracle whip. I will occasionally use store bought mayo but really, with a hand blender, it only take a few seconds to whip up homemade mayo.

[Mark Schmieder]

Aha, I didn't realize regular grocery stores (which I haven't shopped at in my entire adult life) have only had Greek yogurt for 2-3 years. I buy most of my food at what I think the British call a "greengrocer", which is a small independent local grocer that primarily carries local, fresh produce and bulk bin goods (grains, legumes, seeds, nuts, etc.). Not the same as a rip-off joint like Whole Paycheck, which I don't shop at. But I'm lucky we have such grocers here; the Boston area where I lived before also has always had a lot of independents.

 

I love tzatziki. It's really hard to find good Greek or Middle Eastern food in the SF Bay Area, but quite easy in Boston. We've had some incursions lately so things are getting better. I'm not sure if I've ever made my own tzatziki; probably a couple of times long ago. I like it super-garlicky. Best I ever had was in Seattle of all places, at a Middle Eastern and Green restaurant 3/4 of the way up the hill towards the old museum location before it moved downtown. Haven't been in 15+ years.

 

One interesting thing about frozen yogurt is that it rarely is. :-) I especially get a kick out of the nationwide chain called "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt", because in fact it ISN'T yogurt! :-) They use a bit to flavour it and give a bit of tang, but it is primarily cream. The idea is that Americans like things sweet (I don't, but I was lucky in being exposed to a variety of ethnicities growing up and developing an early taste for non-traditional cuisine). The best frozen yogurt I've ever had was in Montreal -- unsweetened, hard-packed, with frozen berries mashed in to your heart's content (or just plain, which is good enough).

 

Read the labels and you'll see a gigantic range in nutritional ratios. It's really quite shocking given that all are supposedly adhering to a particular style of yogurt or frozen yogurt. But it also seems to be as simple as the dairy fat content.

 

Oh, as for Trader Joe's, it can't be a one-stop store for me and I prefer not to buy produce there as I'm single and they package everything in overlarge bundles that for me would go bad, but I'll sometimes stop at one to stock up on "emergency" food for when I work late. They have, in general, healthier fare when it comes to frozen and other prepared food categories, but the odd thing is that different items in the same "branding group" can have radically different nutritional content (salt, fat, calories, etc.) so I always read each label carefully.

 

Another odd trend in American commercial food is that products that have been around for over 100 years untampered are suddenly being mucked with. It's especially annoying with brands that were always the respite for those of us who DON'T follow trends and who have always lived simply. So now you have to even regularly read the labels of stuff you've bought all your life, to stay awares.

[whitefang]

I shop for food at Meijer's because it's one place I can afford. I refuse to spend $3.60 a gallon of gas just to burn it up driving out to some market that sells MILK for the same price in order to buy food. There are several closer, more affordable places to buy it nearby. So they DON'T carry tomato paste in a tube...I managed to get along WITHOUT it so far.

 

I prefer Miracle Whip to mayonnaise on sandwiches because it has FLAVOR. Mayo always seemed tasteless to me.

 

I wish you, Mark, would mention just WHAT foods are recently being mucked with. It would give me some idea of what I might not have noticed. The one thing that bothers me is when there are items I've come to like that my food source decides NOT to carry anymore. One example is a product, a hot cereal, from a company called "Hodson's Mills", which was oat bran. Prepared like oatmeal, it was a nice occasional alternative to oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, which my store also discontinued carrying. Not altogether, just the "cooks in 1 minute" variety. I've eaten that stuff for 60 years, and can't figure out why they no longer carry it. Anyway, my store quit carrying that hot oat bran stuff, and replaced it with "steel cut" oats, which take 20 minutes to prepare and has the consistancy of wet gravel. There are other food items that I've enjoyed in the past, even the RECENT past, that have also been discontinued. I kinda feel like The Outlaw Josey Wales....once I get to LIKING something, it ain't around long.

Whitefang

[Mark Schmieder]

Well, I mostly cook from scratch and I was summarizing stuff you'd find in a grocery store which isn't all food. For instance years ago I had to stop using Arm & Hammer laundry detergent because they "joined the crowd" by adding perfume (which I'm allergic to). It was always the trusted brand for those of us with allergies.

 

Ritter chocolates, which are European, dramatically shifted their ingredients without changing the packaging, a couple of years ago. They started adding butterfat to their dark chocolates, and most of the mainline well-known European vendors have followed suit!

 

Toothpaste and deoderant is another category, along with soaps, with new allergens popping up in various manufacturer's products that I've been buying my entire life. I don't like experimenting to find replacements as it takes awhile to find something I'm not allergic to (skin allergies run throughout my family).

[skipclone 1]

I shop for food at Meijer's because it's one place I can afford. I refuse to spend $3.60 a gallon of gas just to burn it up driving out to some market that sells MILK for the same price in order to buy food. There are several closer, more affordable places to buy it nearby. So they DON'T carry tomato paste in a tube...I managed to get along WITHOUT it so far.

 

I prefer Miracle Whip to mayonnaise on sandwiches because it has FLAVOR. Mayo always seemed tasteless to me.

 

I wish you, Mark, would mention just WHAT foods are recently being mucked with. It would give me some idea of what I might not have noticed. The one thing that bothers me is when there are items I've come to like that my food source decides NOT to carry anymore. One example is a product, a hot cereal, from a company called "Hodson's Mills", which was oat bran. Prepared like oatmeal, it was a nice occasional alternative to oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, which my store also discontinued carrying. Not altogether, just the "cooks in 1 minute" variety. I've eaten that stuff for 60 years, and can't figure out why they no longer carry it. Anyway, my store quit carrying that hot oat bran stuff, and replaced it with "steel cut" oats, which take 20 minutes to prepare and has the consistancy of wet gravel. There are other food items that I've enjoyed in the past, even the RECENT past, that have also been discontinued. I kinda feel like The Outlaw Josey Wales....once I get to LIKING something, it ain't around long.

Whitefang

 

In Japan there is a constant revolving door of products, which get stuffed into small store shelves until they disappear. it doesn`t matter how good or how popular they are. There is a kind of canned cocktail called chu hai, which is made in various flavors, some good some almost undrinkable. There was one made from kiwi fruit, my friend thought I was mistaking it for something else. Less than a month after they debuted and before I could get one to prove it, bam-gone. Now a year later they are back on the shelves. For how long-I have no idea. same thing with one made from Shiquasa, an Okinawan relative of the lime. One month there, the next-zip, gone. Haven`t seen them since. If you like something, buy ten of it.

BTW I wanted to make some oatmeal cookies a few weeks ago, had no idea what `steel cut` meant and when I was in HK I grabbed a box off the shelf. BOY was that a mistake. They were like buckshot cookies.

[whitefang]

When I first bought and tried the "steel cut" oats, my wife said it best.

 

After her first spoonful, she asked, "Did they HAVE to leave the steel in it?"

 

My daughter, an egg nog freak, found something called "Pumpkin Spice Milk". Kinda tastes like you're drinking a pumpkin pie. It's actually pretty good. But she could only find it at one nearby store, and the store closed up! Some Aldi outlets carried it during the holidays, but not all of them, and in limited quantities.

 

I'm an unrepentant cereal hound, and several of my favorites have disappeared: Buc Wheats, Oatmeal Squares, Vanilla Mini Wheats, Nesquick chocolate cereal. Among others. Yet you still have no problem buying a box of probably the WORST breakfast cereal ever made, CAPTAIN CRUNCH! Go figure...

Whitefang

[skipclone 1]

I was a big Life cereal fan way back when, especially the cinnamon version. Haven`t had it in ages. Generally I have no time for breakfast, I`d rather get more sleep.

[whitefang]

HEY!!

 

Breakfast is the most IMPORTANT meal of the day!

 

So WAKE UP! Have a good breakfast!

 

 

Then go back to bed...

Whitefang