This week the first two tomatoes from the tomato plants we’ve been growing were finally ready to eat!  The first tomato got sliced up for lunch and sprinkled with lemon juice, pepper, salt, avocado oil, and the tiniest bit of shredded babble cheese.  It was so good that I didn’t even think about taking a picture.  But the second tomato was a nice and big, and I planned an actual meal around it (what? you don’t think that a sliced tomato by itself counts as a meal).  I LOVE greek food (scratch that.. I love pretty much any ethnic food).  But since I don’t really eat red meat, I rarely get to have gyros anymore.  But this recipe for turkey gyros is the bomb!

 

INGREDIENTS (makes two big hearty servings):

+one single serve container of plain greek yogurt (i like the fage brand best)

+one small persian cucumber

+a couple cloves of garlic

+feta cheese (maybe about 1/4 cup or less, depending on how much you’d like for garnish)

+two-three sprigs of dill

+one lemon

+one small onion (i like yellow onions, but red or white would do just fine too)

+a tiny bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper

+one tomato

+a couple teaspoons of gyro spice blend to taste(i’ve seen this in grocery stores on occasion, but I get mine online from Spice Heist.  you could also make your own by combining garlic, oregano, cumin, marjoram, rosemary, thyme,black pepper, and salt to your taste)

+one package of ground turkey (ground chicken would probably be just as delicious)

+pita bread (I prefer the flatbread type of pita, but you can also use the pita pocket style pita.. or shoot.. forgo the pita all together and just turn this into a delicious salad!)

 

DIRECTIONS:

+Make your tzatziki sauce (did i even spell that right?).  Combine the greek yogurt, one clove of garlic chopped up nice and small, most of your cucumber chopped up nice and small-save a small portion of your cucumber for garnish, just of half the lemon, half the dill (chop it up nice and small), and half the feta.  Mix all that together nice and good.

+Make your onions (you could choose to just use plain slices of onion.. but this is way better).  Slice your onions nice and thin and then let them soak in a mixture of the juice of the other half of that lemon, a little squirt of olive oil, the other half of that dill chopped up nice and small, and some salt and pepper to taste.  This essentially gives you some delicious quick pickled onions.

+Chop up the rest of your stuff. Tomatoes- slice those.  The rest of your cucumber- slice that up.

+Make your gyro meat.  Preheat your oven to about 425 or so. Mix your ground turkey with the gyro spice mix and chop up that second (and third- if you like garlic like I do) clove of garlic and add that in there too.  Form it into a loaf type shape  (short-about an inch, and long-about the length of your pita).  stick it onto a pan/cookie sheet into the oven for about 25 minutes (or until cooked thoroughly.. obviously).

+Put your gyro together.  Pita, then meat, then veggies, then sauce, then cheese. Am I forgetting anything?  Eat it! Its yummy!

 

 

Watermelon salad is just a necessity in the summer time.  I feel like we always have watermelon on hand because its delicious.  And I have mint and arugula growing in the garden because I love arugula and I love moscow mules and mojitos:) All thats left is a little lime and feta or goat cheese which we also usually have around somehow.  Its easy peasy, I always seem to have the ingredients, and for some reason it always impresses people at a get-together.  You could make this a salad with a little bit of watermelon and mint and cheese garnish. Or you could make this a watermelon dish with a little mint arugula and cheese topping.  Either way its delicious.

INGREDIENTS:

+watermelon

+feta (or goat cheese! yum!)

+mint (i used our “mojito mint” plant.. it has a little bit of a lime taste to it!)

+arugula (you could use this as just a garnish, or if you want, you could use lots of arugula and make it into more of an actual salad)

+one lime (i actually used honest teas mint limeade when i had no limes once and it turned out delicious)

 

DIRECTIONS:

+Cut up the watermelon into bite sized cubes/chunks/balls.  If you’re feeling really advantageous, you could cut it in half and make two watermelon bowls out of it. so fancy.

+Chop the mint. if you’re using arugula as a garnish, go ahead and chop that up too. Zest a little bit of that lime and throw that in the mix too.

+Mix it all together and eat it. I once ate only this for dinner. And it was glorious.

 

 

 

My friend Karen makes a mean risotto. And by mean, I mean incredibly delicious.  But it has always intimidated me, so I’ve never actually made it myself. Until this week.  And you guys.. I understand why restaurants charge so much for it.  Its a super easy simple dish, but takes so much time and patience to make. But its totally worth it.  I don’t know if my husband has raved about a meal like he did this one.

INGREDIENTS:

+one onion (i think i used a yellow onion)

+a couple garlic cloves

+a small bunch of parsley

+a can or frozen package of lesueur peas (i suppose any frozen or canned peas would work just fine, but lesueur peas are just so sweet and tiny)

+a bunch of frozen shrimp

+about half a cup of white wine (or cooking wine)

+about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan (nothing special.. just the green can of kraft parm will do just fine if thats all you have)

+a whole lot of butter. like a half a stick. yep.

+three cups of chicken stock (heat that sucker up in the microwave or on the stove)

+one cup of arborio rice

 

DIRECTIONS:

+Cut up all that onion and garlic and parsley nice and small.

+Make it! Add about 1/4 stick of butter and a good swirl of olive oil to a pot on medium low heat.

+Add the garlic and onion and cook for a couple minutes.

+Add the rice and stir it nice and good to get everything mixed together and coated in that delicious butter for 5 minutes (maybe less?).  Don’t let it get browned though.

+Deglaze the pot with some of that white wine, and cook until the wine is reduced (about 5 minutes or less)

+Here comes the obnoxious part. Add the chicken stock to the rice one big ladle at a time, stirring continuously until the chicken stock is absorbed and the rice is almost dry/paste like. You can stop this tedious process once the rice is firm but tender, creamy but not runny (for me, this was about every 3 minutes for 25 minutes. ugh. my wrist hurts just thinking about it.)

+Add the peas, parsley, parmesan cheese, and the rest of that butter (1/4 stick). Stir it in nice and gently until everything is nice and gooey and melted and creamy. Think of it as the italian comfort food version of mac n cheese.. but like a billion times classier..

+cook up that shrimp on the stove top with a tiny bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper, and BAM! There you go!