Secret Recipe Club: Tzatziki Dip

.  Hello, my dearies!

It's SRC time and my how time has flown in 2013.  Can you believe we're already two months through this year?  Because I can't.  I say this time and time again, so why not one more : I don't know where the time goes.  But I can't really complain about it because it indicates that life is happening.  At least I'm not bored out of my mind, right?

 

I have so much to catch you up on but I must save it for my next post, because this post is dedicated to my beloved SRC club.  And Simply.Food.  Who you can correctly assume was my February assignment.

Not gonna lie, Simply.Food and LSM could not have been more opposite in terms of context.  Simply.Food is well...healthy.  Healthy in a vegetarian aspect.  And if you've only taken a glimpse at my recipes, you'd see that LSM thrives off of butter, sugar, and more butter.  But the purpose of SRC is to broaden your culinary horizons, so no complaints here!  And who can't use a little more healthy in their lives?  I mean, really. 

Browsing through Simply.Food's recipes, I stumbled upon a review conducted on Total Greek Yogurt and it stopped me in my tracks.  A while back I went through a greek yogurt phase, eating it at every dinner [with some honey and fruit].  I went nuts for it.  And at the time I was running quite a bit, so the healthy and protein packed snack always hit the spot.  Unfortunately I never did much else with it but I know it can be used as a healthy subsitute in many recipes.  So here was my chance to see the savory side of greek yogurt.

And apparently Simply.Food and I had the same idea, because the blogger subsituted the greek yogurt in her classic tried and true Tzatziki Dip recipe and came up with this dandy creation.  I've had tzatziki a handful of times, and even tried making my own tzatziki sauce, but it didn't quite turn out like I had hoped.  So here was to hoping Simply.Food had a better recipe than I did!

The dip itself is so refreshing, filled with cold bits of grated cucumber.  The greek yogurt is uber creamy and thick and the secret ingredient [or at least in my mind] is the garlic-y paste you create out of garlic cloves.  This way, the garlic flavor seeps into the whole dip, finding it's way into every bite.  Mmhmmm!  I ate the dip with pita chips but I can imagine any type of carby goodness would be great.  Or you could be all healthy and use veggies, too.  Either way, this dip will be perfect for when the warm weather rolls around or if you're just looking for a healthy alternative right now. 

So thanks again, Simply.Food, glad to be a part of SRC with you!  .

From Simply.Food

 

Ingredients:

500 g. greek yogurt

1/2 of a cucumber

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

1 pinch paprika

 

Directions:

1. Pour the greek yogurt into a large serving bowl and mix well. 
2. Peel the cucumber and cut in half.  Remove the seeds and grate the cucumber half; set aside on a paper towel to drain some of the excess liquid.
3. Peel the garlic and finely mince to create a smooth paste; set aside.
4. Add the grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and salt to the greek yogurt and mix well.
5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.  Sprinkle with paprika before serving.