Greek Yogurt Mashed Potatoes

I had a bag of baby Yukon gold potatoes that I’d gotten for 99 cents (yay for manager’s specials at Kroger!) that I needed to use up, so I rescued them from my apartment and brought them over to Linda’s so that we could use up the mountains of fresh dill she had. (We’re trying to clean out our respective refrigerators, so it’s somewhat of a joint process.)

I didn’t think to drizzle in some sriracha sauce until I’d already eaten most of it, but I’d recommend you try it with that! Gives it an extra kick! :D

Greek Yogurt Mashed Potatoes

253 calories, 49g CHO’s, 0g fat, 17g protein, 4g fiber, 90mg sodium!

Ingredients:
-10 baby Yukon gold potatoes
-1 cup Fage 0% Greek Yogurt (Plain)
-2 tbsp Homestead Creamery 2% milk
-1 tbsp garlic, minced
-sea salt, to taste
-freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
-fresh dill
-drizzle of sriracha sauce (not pictured)

Instructions:
1) Wash potatoes and peel skin.
2) Fill a pot with just enough water to cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil, then let simmer on medium heat for ~15 minutes, or however long it takes them to be tender enough to mash with a fork (or potato masher, if you happen to possess one).
3) Add greek yogurt and milk to the potatoes and mash to your desired consistency.
4) Add salt, pepper, dill and sriracha sauce until the flavor is to your liking.

(Please excuse the messy sides of the bowl. I decided to save bowls/water and just mashed em’ up in the bowls we’d be eating in.)

This week’s Spill It, Sundays theme is “5 Facts!” :]

Five facts about…your family!

1. I have one older brother! We were born 13 months apart and he’s one of my best friends.
2. We used to beat each other up all the time, but when I was around 12, we made a pact to stop fighting and have actually kept the peace ever since then!
3. My parents are awesome and I love em’. :D They are super chill, as far as Asian parenting goes. I’ve never had a curfew (although to be fair, I never did anything with my lack of curfew either, so that might be why).
4. My dad has a somewhat twisted sense of humor though. When I injured my neck and couldn’t turn my head or look down, he’d drop money in front of me and laugh because I wouldn’t notice. :[ These days, he tells me I’m fat and I flex my biceps at him and tell him it’s not good to insult people who can beat him up.
5. My mom is of the variety of human being who only eats it because she has to in order to live. This makes me sad, so I’m constantly trying to make awesome things when I’m home to change her mind.

Five facts about…your childhood!

1. All my family friends my age were guys, so I grew up very much a tomboy and was really upset that I wasn’t allowed to do all the things that they could do (e.g. pee standing up, join boy scouts, etc.).
2. I’m still a little sad that because I refused to do anything “girly” (see #1), I passed up gymnastics/singing/dance as a kid. Better late than never though, right?
3. My parents didn’t know what we’d be interested in as kids, so they just had us try everything. I think this was an awesome philosophy, but unfortunately, I like everything, so I keep picking up new hobbies and keeping all the old ones. I want/need more hours in a day.
4. I’m super grateful that my mom got me started on music when I was little. :] It’s still one of my favorite ways to de-stress and for a couple years, was also what paid for my livelihood through college.
5. I wrote in paper journals for ages (regularly since 2000) and have had an online journal since 2001, but med school has not been conducive to my paper-journalling, so I switched over to exclusively blogging. I still miss the paper sometimes, but time will always be an issue.

Five facts about…you + school!

1. I double-majored in Exercise Biology and Music Performance in undergrad. I had the most amazing professors on the face of the planet and was living with my best friends, so even though I was taking 8-12 classes per quarter (while doing a billion other things), it was an awesome experience, and my last two years there still remain as some of the best times of my life thus far.
2. I am about 2 classes away from having an associate’s in Athletic Training (so close, yet so far!).
3. I moved across the country for a year to do an accelerated master’s program at UMDNJ in Biomedical Sciences.
4. I’m currently in medical school!
5. I have, on more than one occasion, been called a degree slut. I promise I’m stopping after the med school degree?!

Five facts about…you + travel!

1. My mom loves to travel, so I (very eagerly) get dragged along on her adventures when my schedule allows for it. This is actually how/why I ended up on a 12-day cruise through the Mediterranean a couple weeks before taking my MCAT. Perhaps not the best of ideas, but Greece was involved and I couldn’t turn it down. It turned out okay though, because hooray! I made it into med school.
2. To date, my favorite places are Hong Kong, Greece, Thailand and Hawai’i.
3. I’d also love to go on another medical service trip! I went to the Dominican Republic over spring break this year and it was awesome.
4. I love to travel, but I’m not a very big fan of long plane rides. On the plus side, I can fall asleep anywhere and don’t get affected by jet lag, so it’s not as bad as it could be.
5. Somewhere in South America, Tahiti, and Costa Rica are on my bucket list!

Five facts about…your eating style!

1. This one throws people off, but I’ve never knowingly eaten bacon. (My friends like to refer to my church as the “no-bacon-church.”)
2. I like durian, but no one likes to associate with me if I eat it. :[
3. For the most part, I like to eat healthy, but I always designate a cheat meal/day for the week. This is usually Saturday, because my church makes amazing food.
4. …but I’m also very gifted at packing down alarming quantities of food in one sitting, especially if it’s food that I really like. My friends can attest to this. :O
5. I most likely have a missing or mutated acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme (why hello, Asian glow, palpitations, nausea and terrible times!), so I can’t/don’t drink alcohol. This is perfectly fine with me though, because alcohol is expensive, and I would much rather eat good food instead. :]

We’ve been collaborating on flashcards and have been trying to keep each other motivated, so…Pixie stuck this on one of the cards. Thanks, High Expectations Asian Father!