Monday, April 13, 2015

Greek Dinner: Souvlaki, Tzatziki, and Roasted Potatoes

First I want to say how much I love this meal.  everyone in our house adores it, is is super healthful, and quick and easy.  The only thing that needs to be done ahead is to make tzatziki.
 Super easy:  Small dice a lot of cucumber, I like at least 3/4 of a big English cuke.  To that add some lemon zest (optional) lemon juice (not optional, a tablespoon or so) a tablespoon of olive oil, garlic, and herbs.  I always add fresh parsley and dill (fresh, dried, or in this case paste all work well), sometimes I add mint or chives, whatever floats your boat that day.  Mix in enough yogurt to make it look like this, and don't forget salt and pepper.

 For the potatoes, preheat oven to 400, and drizzle some olive oil on a cookie sheet. Cut some potatoes into nice large wedge shapes and drizzle with more olive oil and heavily season with Penzey's Greek Seasoning.  If you like Greek then just buy a huge bag, worth it just for these.  Roast at 400 till golden brown and crisp outside, tender and fluffy inside.  These are amazing.







 Greek salad, romaine, good Greek olives, feta, cucumbers, tomatoes and the Greek salad dressing recipe on the Penzey's bottle, except I often use lemon juice instead of vinegar.  Rich likes to add pepperoncini peppers, I am not as big a fan.




For the souvlaki, heat a large frypan on the stove to medium high and heat olive oil while you chop the chicken breast small.  Season well with the Greek seasoning and brown in the hot olive oil.



While the chicken browns chop up a mountain of onions and bell peppers, all fairly small.  Don't mince it, but still small.


Add the peppers and onions to the browned chicken and continue to saute until all is cooked and browned.  The onions should be soft and golden, the peppers should still have a bit of bite.  Be sure to season liberally with the Greek seasoning as you cook, and add more olive oil if needed.  After it all gets brown squeeze in a bit of lemon to help get all the browned bits up off the pan.  Adds such amazing flavor to the souvlaki.

This is one of my family's favorite meals.  We always start with our salad and then pile the tzatziki sauce on top of the souvlaki and dunk potatoes.  Alternatively we serve it with white rice, souvlaki on top of that, all covered with tzatziki.  Delicious!!

Third Annual Game Of Thrones Food Day

 I was so excited to start cooking yesterday.  I got up early and started blackberry walnut yeast bread.  I then made honey butter to go with it, and lemonsweet.  (Recipes are either from the Game of Thrones cookbook, or adapted from them or my own recipes based on the literary descriptions.)

 Then once the bread was baking I started on fingerfish (aka, fancy fish sticks) and Dornish eggs.  Dornish eggs my way, sauteed onions and lots of peppers.  I used poblano, cubanelle, green bell and orange bell peppers.  Seasoned and sauted until still a bit crisp but mostly tender.  I topped them with chopped hard boiled eggs and cheese.





 The whole breakfast was rounded out with the lemonsweet (lemonade made with honey and herbs), a blood orange, and a pear.  I think that this was the best breakfast I have ever had, anywhere.  I am making it again, soon.  The kids LOVED it, and I wasn't sure how they would react to fish for breakfast, but they want it again.
 We were actually so full from breakfast that we skipped lunch, but I made date apple orange oatbread, and apple stuffed rolls.
 Pease porridge, which tasted far better than it looks I assure you.
 Buttered carrots and parsnips, amazing.
 Buttered beets, always a favorite.
 Interior of amazing apple stuffed rolls.


 Roasted chicken, and roasted apples.
 Oh the sweetcorn fritters, they were so delicious.

One of our favorite meals so far.  Next year though, I am making beef and bacon pie, Sansa salad, and some of the recipes from the new Dornish chapter that I just got on the kindle.  I may decide to have another feast for the season finale, since this was so much fun!  Plus I still have so many recipes I want to try.  I also forgot to take pictures, but I made lemoncakes, and they were also amazing.  Next I want tarts.  Lots of pies and sweets :)  Definitely doing a feast for the season finale.  What do you think I should make?