YOGHURT APPETIZER

Yoghurt is rich in potassium, calcium, protein and B vitamins, including B-12 and some researches show that yoghurt strengthens and stabilizes the immune system.

The lactobacillus in yoghurt feeds the intestines, maximizes nutrients you can absorb into your body, insures the digestive system stays healthy, and stabilizes the immune system. It also kills bad bugs or bacteria in the human gut as much as it stabilizes the immune system.
Good yoghurt contains’ live cultures’. There are good brands of yoghurt available in the stores but check the label to make sure it specifies active cultures in it.  It is always better to buy the yoghurt plain other than with fruits or sugar in it.  Even, adding fresh fruits later will not help to get benefits from yoghurt. Keep the original whatever you eat instead of adding something sweet in it. This is the commercial way of companies to make you addicted to have sugar in each food you eat so that they will make a lot of money to sell you more and more, more diets, more artificial vitamins. It is a game of creating demand and satisfying demands in a way to make money.

 Frozen yoghurt is not the same as fresh yoghurt because it will only have a fraction of the beneficial bacteria of fresh yoghurt and it will not enhance lactose tolerance as much as fresh yoghurt does. As you know lactose in milk is converted by Yogurt's bacteria into lactic acid which helps digest lactose or dairy products. The lactic acid of yoghurt is a perfect medium to maximize calcium absorption.

The process of milk into yoghurt involves the conversion of lactose into lactic acid. Lactic acid helps digest lactose because yoghurt provides the enzyme needed to digest milk products.  The calcium found in dairy products needs to enter the body in an acid matrix otherwise your body will not absorb it, so the lactic acid of yoghurt is a perfect medium to maximize calcium absorption. Eight ounces of yoghurt will equal 400 mg of calcium, 25% more calcium than you can get out of a glass of milk.

Some researches show that women who eat enough yoghurt have less vaginal and bladder infections.

I recommend making your own yoghurt It is easy to make it and there are some advantages.  Even if      some yogurts in stores are better than others, most of them do not allow the bacteria to multiply to the extent that you can when you make it at home. The longer you let your yoghurt sit at room temperature before refrigerating, the stronger the bacteria cultures will become. Most commercial yogurts, even those made without gum, gelatin or stabilizers, add milk solids to thicken the yoghurt. This makes the yoghurt a concentrated food which is more difficult to digest. If you want to eat yoghurt and digest it easily you had better make your own yoghurt. It will not take a long time.

You can make your own yoghurt at several places such as in an oven, on a heating pad, in the sun, in a crockpot or at the back of stove.
Pour 1 quart of milk into a casserole dish and add 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt. Stir well and cover the casserole. Place in a warm (100 degree F.) oven with the heat off. Let it sit overnight.  You can also use heated towels or small blankets to put around the yoghurt container for keeping it warm enough outside of the oven.

The sun is also a good source to keep your yoghurt warm. Pour 1 quart warmed milk into a glass-lidded bowl or casserole. Add 3 tablespoons plain yogurt and cover with the glass lid or a clear glass pie pan. Place in the sun on a warm sunny day and let sit for 4 to 5 hours. Watch it to make sure it is not too hot or shaded as the sun moves.

My grandmothers made yoghurt by adding 1 cup starter to 2 quarts milk and let it sit, covered with a dish towel, on the back of their stove and leave it there overnight.

If you want to use crockpot make sure that you preheat your crockpot low for about 15 minutes, until it feels very warm to you. Put covered containers of yogurt mixture into the crockpot, cover it, and turn off the heat. At 35 to 45minutes intervals, heat the crockpot on low for 10 to 15 minutes. 

The easiest and more practical one is using your oven or the natural source, the sun.

Cacık is a Turkish appetizer of seasoned, diluted yogurt, eaten throughout the former Ottoman world. In Greece a similar, much thicker and creamy yoghurt dish is called tzatziki. It is served cold in small bowl usually as a side dish or with ice cubes in Turkey but as an appetizer dish in Greece.

Cacık is made of yogurt, salt, olive oil, crushed garlic, chopped cucumber, dill and mint, diluted with water to a low consistency, and garnished with sumac in some areas.  You can use dill and min either fresh or dried but I would recommend to use fresh dill in the other ingredients. Garnish it with fresh mint and a few drops of olive oil.

 You can also consume cacik as an appetizer but this time, make it like a dip without adding water to yogurt. Ground paprika may also be added when it is prepared as an appetizer. Some people use lettuce or carrots instead of cucumber and they call it as “kis cacigi” (winter cacik). It was rare to use cucumber in winter time in old times but you can find a ll kind of vegetables at any season.That’s why, people had to be creative and use other vegetables which would substitute for the one rarely found or very expensive because of the off season.

You can find the recipe in my cookbook called ‘FROM MY HEART TO YOUR KITCHEN’ . Enjoy the fresh and healthy yoghurt appetizer and nurture your body!