A Yoghurt Masterclass & Spelt Naan Bread
When I was invited to attend a ‘Yoghurt Masterclass’ hosted by Total I can honestly say I didn’t know quite what top expect. But being new to the whole blogging thing meant that curiosity and a small sense of achievement at having been contacted directly and randomly through the blog got the better of me, I couldn’t resist. So I toddled off to the stunning venue of A’telier de Chefs, located just behind Oxford Street, I found an impressively modern looking building housing two large modern kitchens and array of swoonsome kitchen equipment.
It would be naive of me not to expect a nutritional slant on the day, what with Hala, the woman behind Nutrition Rocks and Phil Moore, weight loss blogger extrordinaire as top billings, but still felt slightly dissmayed to find myself sat in what felt like a slimming class for the first half of the day. Having said that, Hala did have some great advice; her message was on balance rather than deprivation, and Phil’s story is truly an inspirational one. For me personally, having dealt with eating ‘issues’ in the past, I didn’t feel I gained anything from the session however and sat in relative silence, waiting patiently for the fun stuff.
Things certainly picked up in the afternoon when we were let loose in the kitchen. Six dishes were first demonstrated to us by chef Andre Dupin and then we each got to re-create them, and more importantly then eat each, and yes I ate all, well five as one was fish. I was starving by this stage and I can assure you they all went down a treat with a couple of glasses of red wine! There was a broad range of expertise within our group so the dishes were very simple and more assembly jobs than anything very elaborate. But I don’t think any more could be expected with us all trying to reproduce six small meals in an afternoon. A new discovery for me was brick pastry, an extremely easy to use alternative to filo and I’ll definately be picking some up to make my own version of the samosas. I also thought the chestnut puree was a great addition to the tiramisu and I couldn’t resist adding a dollop to the top of mine!
More than anything the day was a wonderful opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers and food lovers, to indulge in our shared passion. When nicely stuffed by the end of the day, many of us took to a nearby bar and continued talking food and blogging with the frankly lovely Total Greek team, fuelled by the prettiest sparkling violet cocktails. I can honestly say I’m looking forward to seeing them at future events.
So anyway, having just renounced the whole ‘diet’ element of the day I have a confession…. I’ve actually been using Total 0% for years and almost bought some the morning of the event before realising how stupid this was – of course we all walked away with nice big cool bags of the stuff! You know what it’s like though, I find myself thinking about food pretty much all day long, planning it, eating it, cooking it, reviewing it, and it’s never the low calorie stuff is it? I find myself eating cheese, bread, meat and chocolate in quite large quantities in slick rotation, so for me this is where the Total product fits into my lifestyle. Without having to resort to diet food or ‘dieting’, I find it a great quality product for substituting in recipes and often quite drastically reducing calories without having an impact on the flavour. For example, more often than not my flamiche is made with Total 0% and not the more indulgent creme fraiche that I state in the recipe to no detrimental effect (and more importantly the boy hasn’t caught on yet despite claiming to hate the taste of yoghurt).
Here’s my recipe for naan bread, I spent ages trying recipes to find one that worked, most resulting in dry and solid or scone like versions. This one works although for the life of me I can’t remember exactly where it originated. I’ve used spelt flour with just a little white to give it a bit of lightness and to stop it being too dense, purely because I’m a bit in love with the nutty flavour and, well, it’s a bit different, it’s got lost of fibre, but mainly because it tastes good and is great for mopping up a healthy, or not so healthy curry! You could just as easily subsitute for any flour of your choice.
Spelt Naan Bread – makes 4 large
- 350g wholegrain spelt flour
- 100g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 sachet fast action yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 large egg beaten
- half teaspoon salt
- 150ml warm milk
- 150ml Total 0%
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- nigella seeds
Stir 1 teaspoon sugar and the yeast into your warm milk and set aside, meanwhile sift your flours into a bowl and add the remaining sugar and then all your other ingredients.
When the milk mixture is starting to froth merrily away, pour it into the bowl and combine all the ingredients with a fork before turning out onto a work surface and kneading for several minutes.
Return the dough to the bowl, cover with cling film and leave for around 1 hour till it has risen.
Preheat your oven to it’s highest setting and pop a non stick baking tray in to heat. Knock back your dough, divide into 4 even balls and pull, stretch and manipulate them till you’ve got a round or tear shape. Pop your first two straight onto the hot baking tray and cook for aproximately 3-5 minutes but keep an eye on them as they will cook really quickly and I’ve managed to burn MANY in no time at all. Repeat with the other two. The dough also freezes really well so you could easily make two and freeze the others for another time
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