An Evening With Chobani

Do you ever sit around thinking, "I wonder what kind of recipes I could make using Greek yogurt?"  If so, this is the post for you.  Last week I was invited to a dinner at Chobani.  The mission?  Make a full dinner using all recipes that include Greek yogurt.  I loved the concept!

My family loves Chobani yogurt.  I've gotten my husband addicted to it, and even my dog, Clyde, seems to know the difference and prefers licking the remnants of the Chobani cups over any other type of yogurt.  My personal favorite flavors are the pineapple and mango, but I'll pretty much eat any Chobani flavor :)  I do sometimes sub yogurt for butter or oil, but if you really think about it, there's a ton you can do with it in almost every recipe.  I feel like that's what the the point of this event was- to show us all the possibilities!

Chobani has a swanky high rise office in uptown Charlotte, complete with an awesome test kitchen, where we all assembled for the event.

photo credit Chobani photographer

Of course before we got into cooking, there was plenty of socializing, drinking, and nibbling on an appetizer spread that included dips made with Greek yogurt.

I was especially addicted to the guacamole, and enjoyed dipping my veggies and pita chips in that :)  Chobani yogurt gives it a nice yummy tangy taste.

I may have been slightly jealous of Brittany's glass of red wine, but my ginger ale was good too.

Introductions were made and our Chobani contact Amy filled us in on what we'd be doing.

photo credit to Chobani photographer

Then we all partnered up and got to cooking a recipe for dinner.  I ended up with Kelly and we found ourselves at the smashed potatoes with broccoli station.

Each station had all the necessary ingredients laid out for us, along with a recipe to follow.

Oh, and a cute apron and pot holder, which they let us keep.  Excellent, maybe now that I have two glove pot holders I will not burn my wrists pulling things out of the oven anymore ;)

Kelly and I got to work on our recipe.  She chopped and sauteed onions and I peeled and chopped the potatoes and broccoli and got them boiling.

Looking around the room, everyone was engrossed in cooking and chatting.  It was really fun :)

Partners!

photo credit Chobani photographer

Our recipe came together fairly easily.  I think one of the great things about the Chobani recipes is that they are not that complicated.  

photo credit Chobani photographer

I finished up our smashed potatoes by baking them with a generous layer of cheddar cheese spread over the top.  Yum!

The other dishes prepared included:  Gorgonzola crostini,

salad with honey walnut dressing, 

pumpkin risotto, holiday stuffing,

asparagus with hollandaise, 

and roasted butternut squash soup.

I gathered some of each on my plate, and it kind of reminded me of Thanksgiving!

The show stopper of the night came out in the middle of chowing down on everything else- the iced gingerbread cake.

If you make one recipe from this post, make THIS CAKE.  It's absolutely incredible.  It's moist and flavorful, and there is actually no butter in it, which is crazy!  I'm planning on making it for Christmas.

I was honored to be invited to the event since I'm not known strictly for my food blogging like many of my fellow bloggers that attended are.  I do love to cook though and am always on the look out for smart ideas in the kitchen.  Using Greek yogurt in recipes is a great idea and all of the recipes we made are on the easy side and took less than an hour to make, which are my kind of recipes.  Check out more ideas at the Chobani Kitchen.  Also look for the Twitter hashtag #justaddgood

I really had an excellent time socializing, cooking, and eating at this event.  Thank you so much for having me Chobani!

photo credit Chobani photographer