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Yogurt "Cheesecake" for Shavuot

It's traditional to eat dairy foods on the Jewish holiday of Shavu'ot. There are a variety of theories about the reason for this but none of them seems to be definitive. Cheesecake is a particularly popular choice for Shavu'ot, but I was never a big fan of cheesecake. Until... 

Years ago, I found a recipe that was supposed to be a healthier cheesecake. It didn't particularly taste like cheesecake to me, but it tasted GOOD! It tasted more like a lemon pie to me, so I added more lemon juice to emphasize that flavor. A\nd it's so easy to make, with a small number of readily available ingredients!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups plain Greek yogurt (real 8 oz cups, not the 5 oz single serving "cups" they sell in stores)
  • 2/3 cup sugar (OK, it's not ENTIRELY healthy)
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp corn starch or potato starch (I usually have potato starch leftover from Passover at this time)
  • 1 pie crust (I like to use Keebler's graham cracker crust, which calls back to the cheesecake origins but you can use any pie crust you like)

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  2. Put everything (except the crust!) into a blender or food processor and blend until they are smooth and well-mixed
  3. Pour the filling into the crust
  4. Bake for about 35 minutes, until it's starting to brown a bit on top. It may still be jiggly but that's OK. 
  5. Take it out of the oven and let it cool for a bit, then put it in the fridge for about two hours. This will firm it up nicely.
And that's all there is to it! 

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