Golubtsy in tomato sauce (15 minutes of fame competition)

To celebrate the launch of the Andy Warhol inspired limited edition Campbell's Tomato soup cans, Campbell's invited the bloggers to create a recipe using Campbell's condensed tomato soup for their 15 minutes of fame competition. 

I decided to take Warhol's soup on a trip to Russia and play with one of my favourite Russian dishes - Golubtsy (lit. little pigeons in Russian), which is one of the most popular comfort foods throughout the ex-Soviet countries.

Golubtsy (cabbage envelopes stuffed with meat and rice)
Ingredients:
300g minced pork
1 medium carrot, grated
1 finely chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
300g minced pork 
a handful of fresh herbs - chives, thime, sage, rosemary
salt, pepper
1 big cabbage (white & round)
250g cooked basmati rice (I used Tilda Barbecue basmati rice)
80g butter

For the sauce:
1 can of Campbell's cream of tomato soup
5 heaped tbs of Greek style yogurt (for example, Chobani plain yogurt)
salt

Fry the minced pork for about 10 minutes with the chopped garlic, onion, grated carrot. Season well with salt and pepper. Add the fresh herbs (either chop them or snip with scissors) and cook for another couple of minutes. Leave the mince to cool.

In the meantime prepare the cabbage. Place the cabbage in the salted hot boiling water for 5 minutes, then take it out, dip in cold water and remove the leaves carefully, try not to tear them. If the inner leaves are sitting too tight, place the cabbage back in the boiling salted water for another 5 minutes. Once you have a stash of leaves, put them all, one by one back in the pot and cook for about 2 minutes. Cook in batches, don't overcrowd the pot. Take them out of the water and drain in the colander.
Each cabbage leaf will be your envelope where you put the stuffing. Flatten each leaf and depending on the size of the leaf place 1+ tbsp of the stuffing. Fold the cabbage leaf like an envelope. If it is not big enough and doesn't want to stay put as a pocket, you might use the cotton thread to wrap around the envelope to keep it together while cooking.
The next step: melt 1 tbsp of butter in the frying pan and fry the golubtsy for about 2-3 mins on each side.

Take a deep ceramic or glass oven dish and put all the stuffed cabbage envelopes together. You might need more than one dish. I had enough stuffed pockets for two of these dishes. One was cooked for dinner, the other went in the freezer. If you are cooking for a bigger family and want to cook all the golubtsy at once, double the amount of the sauce, i.e. use 2 tomato soup cans.

Golubtsy before the sauce is added

It is best to use the white round cabbage, and not the pointy variety, as it would be tricky to make envelopes with it. A green round cabbage is also fine (in fact that's the one I used yesterday) but its leaves are less sturdy.
For the sauce mix a can of condensed tomato soup with the plain yogurt (or soured cream), add a bit of water to make it less condensed and pour over the golubtsy.

Place the dish in the oven preheated to 180C and cook for about 30-35 minutes.
Remove the cotton thread before serving.
Serve hot with a chunk of good bread.

I haven't used the tomato soup in this recipe before, but after I tried it yesterday, I asked myself, why haven't I thought of it before. It works as a wonderful sauce. A really tasty dish, even my dear husband who is difficult to please, said how good it was. 

If you are curious to read what the other bloggers cooked for the challenge, check out their blogs
Italian Chicken from Dragons and Fairy Dust
Goat's Cheese & Chorizo Pasta Bake from Madhouse Family Reviews



And here is my and husband's photo done via the Warholiser.

Just Add range of squeezy tubes

I'm a busy Mum, and holidays are always a pretty hectic time for me, when both of my guys are at home and demand my attention. I'm not the biggest fan of takeaways or ready-made meals and prefer to cook most of our meals from scratch. As I don't want to compromise on taste or quality, I appreciate the shortcuts which allow me to spend less time in the kitchen and still prepare decent dishes. Just Add range of squeezy tubes consists of squeezy Ginger, Coriander, Basil, Chilli, Garlic and Sun Dried Tomato and is available from ASDA and OCADO.

I do grow my own herbs and have a chilli plant in the greenhouse. The problem with the chilli I have is it is pretty hot, so even one chilli turns the meals into a fire-eating experience. What do you do? use only half a chilli? The answer might be to use just the right amount of chilli paste from Just Add tube, it allows you to measure exactly as much as you like it to be. Some like it hot. Some, like me, are wimps and prefer a milder flavour.

And if you want to spend more time enjoying the garden or reading to your kids, "Just Add removes the fiddly task of chopping when cooking meaning that you can simply reach for the squeezy tube or one shot sachet to add your desired taste sensation".
The choice of squeezy tubes allows you to cook a wide selection of dishes, from many world cuisines.
Just perfect for a fuss free meal, full of flavours.

Pasta with clams is one of my most favourites types of pasta. Typically I would chop the fresh herbs like parsley or coriander, add the chopped garlic or onion and sometimes a bit of a chilli too (see my previous post Pasta with clams and sea beet). This time I was testing the squeezy tubes, using them instead of the fresh herbs.

Pasta with clams
Ingredients:
spaghetti (75-100g dry pasta per person)
clams (about 250g per person)
2tsp Just Add coriander
1tsp Just Add garlic
1tsp Just Add chilli
a handful of baby tomatoes
salt, pepper
80ml white wine

The other day I bought a bottle of Sicilian wine Inycon Terre Siciliane Fiano 2012. Having treated myself to a set of Montalbano books, I really fancied a bit of a Sicilian wine for dinner (we also had a guest coming). To be honest, I expected more from a bottle priced at £7.79. It was OKish but rather boring and totally forgettable. But it was fine for cooking. If you cook pasta with clams, choose a nice dry white wine.
Anyway, as usual, I digress.
Cook the clams in a deep pan (wash them first and check if they are all broken, if you find any broken shells, discard them.). Add the coriander, chilli and garlic and pour in the white wine. Scatter a few baby tomatoes around. Add the salt. Cook until all the clams are open (to speed up the cooking, you might put the lid on the pan). If any clams remain closed, discard them.
Cook the spaghetti as specified on the pack in the salted boiling water, it should still be al dente. Drain the pasta and mix it well with the clams in their sauce. Serve immediately.
Do not add any parmesan if you want an authentic flavour.

I have been enjoying "The snack thief" by Andrea Camilleri, and laughed aloud reading the scene when Montalbano has lunch with his second-in-command Mimi Augello:
"When the spaghetti arrived, Montalbano had fortunately finished his hake. Fortunately, because Mimi proceeded to sprinkle a generous helping of Parmesan cheese over his plate. Christ! Even a hyena, which, being a hyena, feeds on carrion, would have been sickened to see a dish of pasta with clam sauce covered with Parmesan!" (The Snack Thief, page 33)

I laughed because I think in the past I have committed the same "crime". Mea culpa.

If you have fresh herbs like parsley or coriander, scatter a few torn leaves on top.

Taste-wise, it was really good. Looks-wise, I think I would still like to see the freshly chopped herbs. Just Add squeezy herbs were a good substitute for the fresh herbs and delivered a flavourful meal, and it was completely fuss-free too.
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Another recipe that might inspire you to try Just Add squeezy tubes is
Chicken with kohlrabi and fennel

As I mentioned more than once on my blog, I am often having only a vague idea of what I am going to cook for dinner, it rather depends on what I have at my disposal or what catches my eye when I go shopping. I saw this pretty purple kohlrabi in Waitrose on offer, and got it for the chicken dish.

Chicken with kohlrabi and fennel
Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs
1 kohlrabi (a turnip could be a good substitute), chopped
1 fennel bulb, sliced
2 medium carrots
1 garlic bulb, divided into cloves
3 tbsp olive oil
2tbsp Just Add basil
1tbsp Just Add coriander
a handful of baby tomatoes
salt, pepper
1tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Chop all the veg. In a big tray place the chicken thighs and all the chopped veg. Scatter the tomatoes and garlic cloves. In a small bowl mix the oil, Just Add herbs, lemon juice and salt with pepper. Pour in the tray over the chicken and veg, mix well, all the pieces should be coated evently.
Place the tray in the oven preheated to 180C and cook for about 45mins-1 hour. Stir all the veg and chicken a couple of times when they are cooking, so that the food is browned evenly. Check that the chicken is cooked through with a wooden skewer.
If you don't have a kohlrabi or fennel, substitute with a turnip and a big onion, or add parsnips as well as baby potatoes. The choice is yours.
Just Add herbs add a lovely flavour to this easy dish.

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You could add the squeezy herbs to all sorts of dips and sauces.


Carrot and orange soup
Ingredients:
3 medium carrots
2tbsp red lentils
1 orange (juice)
1 small potato
1 vegetable stock cube
2tbsp Greek style yogurt (e.g. Chobani)
1tbsp Just Add Coriander

Roughly chop the carrots and put them in the medium sized pan with the chopped potato and red lentils. Add the stock cube as well, and a bit of salt if you want. Squeeze the juice of 1 orange and add to the soup. Once the carrot is cooked, blitz the soup until it is consistently creamy.
In a small bowl mix the plain yogurt with Just Add coriander (basil would work as well). When you serve the soup, add a generous dollop of the yogurt-coriander mix to the soup.
Very easy, light, low calorie and delightfully satisfying. All the flavours sing together, and the touch of yougurt with coriander adds a lovely sour and herby note to the sweet soup.

To find our more about this range, look at Just Add Facebook page.

Disclosure: I received a selection of Just Add Squeezy Tubes for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions and recipe suggestions are mine.

Potato cakes with duck eggs and smoked salmon

Over a week ago I had a little chat with a fellow foodie blogger Dom from Belleau Kitchen on the subject of chives' flowers. He is a true artist in the kitchen, and his photo styling is always impeccable. I was impressed with his photos of a delicious celeriac soup (if you fancy to have a look and admire his photos, here is the recipe link): a pretty scattering of chives and a purple flower. Dom confessed that the flower was purely served as a decoration. I looked online on what you could do with the flowers of chives, and they are mostly used in salads and soups. Would they work in potato cakes?

The dinner on Sunday was a result of what I had in the kitchen (the smoked salmon needed to be eaten). I also bought a box of duck eggs at Cogges Manor Farm when we visited it earlier that day. And I had plenty of potatoes. Chives grow like weeds in the garden, and keep reappearing every year. I often use the green bits, but haven't eaten the flowers of chives, so this was an experiment for me.

Potato cakes with duck eggs and smoked salmon
Ingredients:
4 small to medium potatoes
1tbsp olive oil
4 heaped tbsp of Greek style yogurt (I used Chobani fat free plain yoghurt)
1tbsp plain flour
a handful of basil leaves
a handful of chives (including 5 flowers)
1 egg
salt, pepper
Cook the potato in salted boiling water (in skins). Once cooked, remove the skins and grate the potatoes. In a medium sized bowl mix the grated potatoes with the olive oil, Greek style yogurt, plain flour and chopped herbs. Add the flowers (just divide the purple mini flowers into sections). Season well.
Using hands, flatten the potato mix into 6 cakes. You can fry them, but I'm trying to cut down the calories, so baked them in the oven on a tray covered with foil and slightly sprayed with the olive oil.
Traditionally I would use a lot of butter and maybe mayo for the potato cakes, but this time Chobani and olive oil worked as a substitute perfectly well.
Cook in the oven at 180C for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Serve the warm potato cakes with slices of the smoked salmon and poached duck eggs.
I think adding the flowers to the potato cakes was a pretty good idea, they added a lovely flavour which wasn't overwhelming.

And that's why I love Twitter, you can stumble upon some tweets almost accidentally, get an idea (or in the words of the glorious Baldrick "I have a cunning plan!") and get inspired.

Sweet potato cupcakes with yogurt frosting (reduced calorie recipe challenge)

Sweet potato cupcakes with yogurt frosting
Ingredients:
300g sweet potato, cooked and mashed
150g light brown sugar
2 eggs
170g fat free Greek style yogurt (I used Chobani raspberry yoghurt)
30g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
150g self-raising flour
1/2tsp cinnamon
90ml olive oil
icing sugar + plain Chobani fat free yogurt for frosting
freeze-dried strawberries for decoration
raspberries, blueberries (optional)

Cook the sweet potato in water (cut into quarters), once cooked, take it out of the pan, let it cool, then mash with a fork in a big mixing bowl with sugar and cinnamon. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, ground almonds, baking powder, yogurt and mix well, add the flour and olive oil, mix well again.
Pour the cake mixture into the cupcake/muffin paper cases and place the filled cases in the oven preheated to 180C on a tray. Bake for about 25 minutes, check with the wooden skewer that they are cooked through.
Take the cupcakes out and leave to cool.
Make the frosting by mixing the plain Greek style yogurt with the icing sugar (I have used the Chobani plain yoghurt).
Spread over the cupcakes with a spoon. Decorate with the berries of your choice or freeze-dried strawberries.


Typically I bake almost everything with butter and would have used the soured cream frosting. Using the oil and fat free yogurt in the cake batter as well as the fat free yogurt for frosting makes it a calorie reduced option. Plus using the sweet potato, I added less sugar than usual.

Eddie wanted to participate, so I let him mix the cake batter and also fill in some paper cases. I only had cheap muffin paper cases from Waitrose which won't hold anything, even when double-layered, so the cupcakes got rather wide in the middle.
They look funny but taste great. The yogurt in the batter makes them moist and flavourful, the sweet potato adds the sweetness, so that you can use less sugar.

Here is my mini-cook, eating one of the cupcakes while sitting on his haunches, without waiting for the icing to be added. Well, I suppose we had to try it before decorating, didn't we?

Adding my recipe to lovely Verily Victoria Vocalises blog linky #PoCoLo.

Chocolate polenta cake

On the last trip to the garden centre I got a couple of croissants for my guys, and a slice of a dark chocolate cake with the cream cheese frosting for myself. Sasha quickly polished his croissant and started working on my cake. So I decided that the next cake I'd bake would be done with the dark chocolate. I was taking risks with Sasha, as he loves my cakes but only if they are done in a certain way. My guys love my orange polenta cake, and I was wondering if I could add a few changes to the recipe they enjoy so much. And thus today's cake was a chocolate polenta cake.

Chocolate polenta cake
Ingredients:
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
200g butter
100g polenta
100g ground almonds
100g gluten free plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence
1 orange (zest +juice)
1 lemon (zest)
3tbsp Greek style yogurt (I used Chobani yoghurt with blood orange)
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces and melted
icing sugar + freshly squeezed orange juice for the icing

Zest the orange and lemon and add the zest in the big mixing bowl. Add the eggs, caster sugar, orange juice, baking powder and beat well. Add polenta, ground almonds, gluten free flour, vanilla essence, yogurt and mix well. Add the melted butter and chocolate, mix well again.
Pour the cake mix in the cake tin and put in the oven preheated to 180C for 45 minutes.
The cake is ready when the wooden skewer comes clean.
I usually tip the cake out of the tin when it is still quite hot, though the general consensus is you should wait until it is cool. But we like to eat the cake when it is still warm.
Mix the icing sugar with the freshly squeezed juice of 1 orange and pour over the cake, then dust the cake with the icing vanilla sugar.
I suppose it would be lovely with a proper chocolate frosting so next time I will try to do that.

Well, what can I say? My dear husband said Simon Cowell's phrase which I actually cannot stand "I didn't like it, I loved it". Sasha was very excited when I was mixing the ingredients and couldn't wait until the cake is out of the oven. He demolished a big slice in 60 seconds.

If you liked this recipe, you might like to see the recipe for Orange Polenta Cake.

Not so Classic New York Cheesecake

Cheesecakes: love them or hate them. I remember the day when we had guests for dinner, an Italian couple, friends of my in-laws, I was a young wife then and really eager to impress our guests. So I baked a cheesecake, and it looked absolutely gorgeous. Our Italians though refused to eat it categorically, as the husband had the food poisoning incident from eating the cheesecake on his previous visit to England. Well, it was their loss, I should add, as the cake was lush. I tend to change the ingredients slightly when I bake my version of the New York cheesecake, so I could really call it New Yorkish. This time I have added a new yoghurt from Chobani.
Last Tuesday we had two people doing the maintenance works in the garden. They are both lovely chaps, whom we have known for several years. We invite them when we need to do big jobs in the garden. It was first drizzling, then bucketing on Tuesday afternoon, but they worked in the rain. To keep them warm, I offered them hot drinks and cakes. They said this cake was absolutely delicious and that they would be more than happy to have a cake like this served in a restaurant as a dessert.

Not so classic New York cheesecake
Ingredients:
150g crushed biscuits, Hobnobs and Hovis Digestives
2tbsp sugar
50g Stork
2 packages of Light Philadelphia soft cheese
170g pot of Chobani fat free with raspberry yoghurt
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
3tbsp self-raising flour
1tbsp vanilla paste

I typically use the butter in cakes, but I had a pack of Stork in the fridge (if you ask why, I bought it to enter the competition. Yes, me and my competitions, lol).
Crush the biscuits in a bowl. Add the sugar and melted butter or margarine. Mix the crumbs well. Press onto the bottom of the springform cake tin.
In a deep bowl mix together the soft cheese, yoghurt, vanilla paste, flour, eggs, using the hand blender.
Pour the mix over the crumbs in the tin.
Bake at 180C for good 70 minutes, until the centre is almost set (it will still be wobbly when you take the tin out).
Cool the cake before removing the tin. Be careful or it might crack on the side (mine did, it didn't affect its taste, but slightly spoilt the looks).
It is best eaten the next day after staying in the fridge overnight (or at least 3-4 hours before serving).

For this cake I used Chobani fat free yoghurt with raspberry. This is a new flavour in a Chobani family of yoghurts. I have recently reviewed this tasty range, see my post Chobani yoghurts for more recipe ideas.
The raspberry yoghurt is the same Greek style thick yoghurt, as you would expect from Chobani, layered with a sweet raspberry puree. Delicious on its own, but also lovely as an ingredient for a cake.

Lovely people from Chobani sent me a couple of tubs of new yoghurt to try.
I use the spelling "yoghurt" in this post, though typically I write "yogurt", but I don't want to confuse you if you start googling for Chobani.
And in case you are wondering about the pretty china, this is a Royal Crown Derby coffee set which I bought on ebay. I just couldn't resist, it is so beautiful. Perfect for a sophisticated cup of coffee with a lush slice of cake.

Chicken and okra casserole

I am a spontaneous shopper. I saw the okra on offer yesterday, and grabbed a small bag, then came home and started wondering what to do with it. I found some lovely curries with okra and yogurt, but I had none of the specific Indian spices apart from garam masala that the recipes were asking for. Then I came across a Turkish recipe of a chicken casserole with okra, and having a look around the kitchen, decided that I have the necessary ingredients, more or less. If you want to cook the authentic version of Chicken and okra casserole, read the link from The New York Times.

I have adapted the recipe to suit my list of ingredients and downsized it considerably. I only had 125g of okra rather than the whole pound.

Chicken and okra casserole with yogurt
Ingredients:
8 chicken pieces
125g okra
2 big tomatoes, chopped
5 heaped tbsp of Chobani fat free plain yogurt
juice of 1 lime
1 garlic clove
1 onion
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground coriander
salt, pepper
1tbsp Wild Rose el Hanout
1 tsp of plain flour

Heat the olive oil in the large casserole or wok-style pan, add the flour-dusted chicken pieces. Season with salt, pepper, coat evenly with Rose el Hanout and ground coriander.
In a separate frying pan fry the finely chopped onions and okra (sliced in half). Once the onion is slightly caramelised, add the onion/okra mix to the casserole with chicken, squeeze the juice of one lime and stir well. Add a chopped clove of garlic and tomatoes. Pour some water and cover the casserole with the lid. Cook on slow for about half an hour. Five minutes before you finish cooking, add the yogurt mixed with 1 tsp of plain flour.

I used the Chobani fat free yogurt, which is very thick and tastes amazingly good.

Serve with rice (I used Tilda Lemon rice).

The result: a total triumph of flavours. I am so going to do it again. Next time I'll try a meatless version of just the okra in yogurt dish, with perhaps more tomatoes. Absolutely delicious.

Adding this recipe to #CookItBlogIt linky on the inspiring The Diary of a Frugal Family blog.

Win a baking hamper with Chobani (giveaway c/d 1 May 2013) NOW CLOSED

A few weeks ago I reviewed a selection of Chobani yogurts. If you missed my post, you can find it here. These fat free yogurts are absolutely delicious and healthy. And make a versatile ingredient for lots of different recipes, both sweet and savoury.

Lovely people from Chobani have kindly offered a baking hamper for one of my blog readers.

One lucky winner will receive:

• Full range of fat free Chobani Strained Yoghurts
• Apron
• Tea towel with handy healthy swaps chart
• 2 x cake tins
• The ingredients they need to make Chobani Cranberry Blood Orange Oat Bars (see the recipe below)

Cranberry Blood Orange oat bars

INGREDIENTS

190ml Chobani Fat Free Blood Orange Strained Yoghurt

120g plain flour

155g quick cooking oats

110g brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp salt

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp orange juice

100g sugar

15g plain flour

1 large egg white

250g dried cranberries

Zest of ½ an orange

PREPARATION

Step 1

Preheat oven to 160°C (Gas Mark 3). Lightly coat a 17.75-­‐cm (11x7-­‐in) rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

Step 2

Whisk together flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, bicarbonate of sod and salt in a ;arge bowl. In a small bowl whisk together butter, canola oil and orange juice. Add juice mixture to flour mixture stirring until

crumbly.

Reserve 125ml of mixture for later. Press rest o fmixture into pan and up sides, using bottom of a measuring cup to even out base.

Step 3.

Whisk yoghurt, sugar, flour and egg white in a medium bowl. Stir in cranberries and orange zest. Spread over base in even layer. Sprinkle reserved oat mixture on top.

Step 4.

Bake until edges are golden-­‐brown, 30-­‐40 minutes. Cool completely and slice into bars.

So, what do you need to do to win this fantastic hamper?
T&Cs:
Only one step is mandatory: answering the question. All the other steps are optional.
Only one entry per person is allowed (however, you can tweet daily to increase your chances).
The giveaway is open to the UK residents only.
The closing date is 1 May 2013 (just in time before the World Baking Day on 19 May).


(A little inside: the Rafflecopter tells me exactly if you have done the correct step or not, so a little word of warning to those people who click on the form without actually doing what has been asked, your entry won't count. I would not have mentioned it, but checking the last Rafflecopter form for the previous giveaway I was saddened to see that some people cheat. For example, the Rafflecopter form tells me that 65 people clicked they have answered the question, while there were only 58 comments left. So please do not disqualify yourself).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Apologies for the word verification, I had to add it here, as I am bombarded with spam otherwise.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Many thanks to all for all your food suggestions! I enjoyed reading your comments. The Rafflecopter has picked the winner: it is Jane T as you can see on the form above.
Big well done, Jane! I have tweeted to you with good news.

Chobani yogurts

Are you feeling peckish? Would you like to have a lovely snack that would taste great and have 0% fat? There's a new range of yogurts on the market - Chobani - which has taken America by storm.

"Chobani was founded on the belief that people have great taste; they just need great options. That’s why we started Chobani back in 2005 — to make high-quality, great tasting yoghurt available to the masses. In just five short years, yoghurt lovers across the pond made Chobani the number one selling yoghurt in America!"

Available in six fat free flavours - Strawberry, Peach, Black Cherry, Blood Orange, Pomegranate and Plain. You can find it in selected Tesco stores.

It is so easy to kick-start a healthy eating plan with Chobani fat free yogurts. Their thick texture makes the range of Chobani yogurts to be a truly versatile ingredient for cooking lots of different dishes.
Here are a few ideas:
- swirl a tablespoon of plain yogurt in the thick creamy soup: pumpkin, carrot and orange, tomato, beetroot - the choice is endless.
- for a low fat potato salad version substitute your usual mayo or creme fraiche with the Chobani plain yogurt
- Love blini? top up with a teaspoon of yogurt and go on, add a sliver of smoked salmon
- fed up with the usual cereal or granola with milk at breakfast time? Create a delicious granola berry fool: take a glass, add a couple of tablespoons of granola, then a layer of the fruit compote and top up with the Chobani yogurt (how about the blood orange or black cherry flavour).

When the portable cool box arrived to our house with the fresh selection of Chobani yogurts, my little man Eddie was dancing around and insisted on eating one of them there and then. He went for the strawberry flavour. I had a spoonful as well, and was impressed with the quality of the yogurt, very creamy. Eddie kept saying "cream with strawberries", and he was right, it does taste just like the cream with strawberries, absolutely delightful.

I love using yogurts in cooking, and the two tubs of plain yogurt came very handy.
My first dish was a very simple beetroot salad: bake the beets in the oven until cooked through, let them cool, grate, mix with the chopped walnuts and dried prunes and add the plain yogurt. If you prefer, add a crushed clove of garlic for a more adult taste. As Eddie is not fond of garlic, I kept this salad garlic-free.

Another lovely salad made with the plain yogurt - Kohlrabi, apples and dates salad - was so tasty that I can easily eat it every day. And again the Chobani yogurt works beautifully with this combination of flavours, enhancing the sweetness of the apples and dates and the juiciness of the kohlrabi.

For Valentine's day I wanted to bake a yogurt cake with a difference. As this is the season for the blood oranges, I opted for using the blood orange yogurt from Chobani with the real blood oranges while baking this cake. It was very moist and moreish.

For a healthy treat serve the roasted fruit like peaches with a generous dollop of Chobani peach yogurt. You can find this recipe on my previous blog post here.

Whether you decide to eat the Chobani yogurt straight from the pot or use in cooking, you will enjoy the combination of the thick creamy yogurt with the real fruit pieces. All Chobani products contain five live and active cultures and real fruit.
Chobani is also certified kosher and gluten free and is over 95% lactose free.

And what's more, Chobani is committed to supporting the community. It gives 10% of its annual profits to charities worldwide through the Shepherd's Gift Foundation.

P.S. We were sent a coolbox of yogurt for the purposes of reviewing, all the opinions are mine.

Kohlrabi: sputnik on a plate

British supermarkets are not very adventurous when it comes to vegetables. Only once, a few years ago, our local Waitrose shyly put a few kohlrabis on display. When I saw them, I put a couple of these alien-looking veggies in the shopping basket, and the girl at the checkout was totally perplexed as to what she had in her hands. Once I left the shop, I checked the receipt to find out that I was charged for the "avocado".

So, what is a kohlrabi? It is also known as the German turnip, and is in fact a cultivar of cabbage.
If you ever chomped on the cabbage heart (I loved them as a kid, my Dad would always give it to me after slicing the cabbage for the soup), it has the same crunchy fresh taste, milder than the cabbage. A bit like a juicy baby turnip which you can eat raw. Or cook if you prefer.

Kohlrabi is quite popular in Russia. Many Russians who have dachas and allotments grow their own kohlrabi. They are very tasty as pickled. I said that and even swallowed, having remembered the fab pickles, deliciously crispy, with a mild dill flavour, ahh, I wish I had some now.

You can find kohlrabis in the farmers' market if you are lucky. Or get them from Abel & Cole. I was very pleased to find a kohlrabi in one of the latest fruit & veg boxes from A&C.
The green spikey sputnik looked very fresh, and I fancied to try it raw in a salad. Off I went to google for the salad recipes that have the kohlrabi, and one of the best recipes I found was actually on the Abel & Cole's website itself.

With the kind permission from Abel & Cole, I reproduce the recipe for your delectation. Even more, I truly encourage you to try this salad at home. It is wonderfully crispy, juicy, and the combination of flavours and textures is simply sublime.

Kohl Rabi with Apples, Dates and Walnuts

Ingredients:

1 kolh rabi
½ lemon
1 large or 2 medium-sized apples
Handful of walnuts
5 dates, de-stoned and quartered lengthwise
3 tbsp Greek yogurt (I used Chobani Greek style plain yogurt)
1 tbsp runny honey
½ tsp fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
Handful fresh rocket, other green leaves or parsley (I had some fresh coriander in the fridge, so I used it instead of the parsley)

Slice the kohl rabi in half. Peel and then shave off shards of the flesh using a vegetable peeler. Slice in to 'lazy' (i.e. not perfect) little julienne strips using a knife. Squeeze over a bit of lemon juice.

Quarter an apple cut out seeds and stalk and then, leaving on the skin, cut into thin little slices. Add to kohl rabi and squeeze over a bit more lemon juice to prevent it from colouring.

Toast a handful of walnuts in a frying pan over medium heat. Once toasted, add to salad, along with the dates.

In a teacup or mug (or a little bowl) gently fold the Greek yogurt with the honey and rosemary leaves. Dollop onto salad and dress using your hands.

Top with a handful of fresh rocket leaves or a few pinches of freshly chopped flat parsley.

Will I make this salad again? A definite Yes. This is one of the recipes that would appeal to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians who want to have a break from the meat.

For more recipe ideas and suggestions on what to cook with the kohlrabi, please visit the Abel & Cole page.

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. I loved the recipe and wanted to share it with my blog readers.