Yoghurt and herb dip

Serves 4

 

1/2 cup Greek-style yoghurt

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

salt and pepper

Method:

• Simply combine the yoghurt, herbs, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Let them stand for at least a quarter of an hour for the flavours to combine. Check the seasoning and serve with crudités.

Variations:

• Use fresh herbs if any are available.
• Use half-and-half or all mayonnaise, especially if it’s home-made.
• Use 1 tbsp Dijon mustard instead of the herbs.
• Leave out the herbs and combine with finely grated cheese.
• Try all of the above ideas together!
• Leave out Annie’s Mixed Herbs, and add 1 tsp sun-dried tomato purée and 1/2 tsp basil.
•  Substitute mint for Annie's Mixed Herbs and chop in a small cucumber.
• If you have any on board, dice a few pepperdews and mix those in.  Leave out or reduce the amount of herbs. 

Cheese and Yoghurt Sauce

This is a very lazy, and very effective way of making a thick sauce to go over pancakes, lasagne and so on. In my opinion it tastes much better than white sauce, however carefully made.  I would be a little bit careful using it in the pressure cooker, however, because it might separate. If you make your own yoghurt (see recipe), you will usually have some on board. This recipe assumes that you have thick, Greek-style yoghurt, but if yours is on the thin side, use all yoghurt or add another egg.

 

Serves 2

 

1/2 cup Greek-style yoghurt

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 cup grated cheese

 

 Method:

• Beat the yoghurt, milk and egg together. Add the grated cheese and mix well.
• Pour over the dish and heat through, either on a low heat with a flame tamer on the top of the cooker, or in a moderate oven.

Note:

• If you are making this sauce for lasagne, there's no need to cook it first.
• This is also a brilliant sauce for making "quiche".  Just pour it over after you've put the other ingredients in the flan case.  

Variations

• You could, of course, use vegan yoghurt, plant milk and vegan cheese or 1 tbsp nutritional yeast if you don't like using dairy products.  I can understand that choice because personally, I find it a lot easier to eat the odd egg than to support the dairy industry.
• I haven’t tried making a fully vegan version of this, because the usual egg substitute is 1 tbsp ground flax seed whisked in to 3 tbsp water and then let stand until it becomes gelatinous, about 5 minutes. This works well in baking, but I’m not sure if it would achieve the desired result in this recipe; and it would also colour the sauce.  Maybe a commercial egg substitute would work, but I'm wary of ultraprocessed food.  Moreover, most of them appear to be based around gram flour which (a) I already have on board and (b) is not an egg substitute: eggs are eggs, flour is flour.