Greek Gyros-spiced lamb with pumpkin rice.

Hello all.

It's time for something more traditional.

Greek gyros is meat that has spices infused to it. Usually it's set up on a rotating vertical spit and adjusting the heat from the broiler and the amount of fat in the meat is used to control how juicy the gyro is. It is usually sliced off and placed in pita with tzatziki and salad. It's similar to shawarma and donairs.

In this case, we do not have a rotating spit, so we made gyro cakes out of lamb meat. Foregoing with the tradition though, we had it with some pumpkin rice. Because hey, pumpkins are plentiful here so why not take advantage of their benefits?

And so, here is the recipe!

Ingredients (enough for 2 people, plus seconds)

• 1 kilo lamb minced meat
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cinammon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp parsley powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp oregano

Looks simple, right? The only thing you need to do is to mix the lamb minced meat (or any meat of your choice) with the spices above. And if you think there's another spice that would go, don't be afraid to add it!

Form it into lamb cakes and grill it or fry it. We put it in a skillet on very low fire and let it cook.
That was actually the most time consuming part. The actual cooking time was the worst, because you can smell the delicious gyro cooking but you know it's not done yet.

Pumpkin rice

• 2 cups chopped pumpkin (we used butternut squash)
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 1 cup chopped asparagus
• 1 cup red bell pepper - chopped
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1tsp cinammon
• 1tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 cup rice (your choice - we used basmatti)
• 1/2 water

We put all the ingredients in the slow cooker from the morning and left it to cook 4-5 hours until we ate.
It was really good!!

Give it a try guys!

I'll also post a recipe on how to make some good tzatziki and not that sour cream crap you find in stores.

Let me know what you think :)

Delicious Vegetable Pie

So... the title of the blog entry is "Vegetable Pie"...Hm...what could we be using this time??

I'll give you a look first at the final product.

This is what i had for lunch today, vegetable pie with tofu! :)

 Like what you see?? The crust was so light and flaky, it was heaven. The question is, what did we use?

Kale, Spinach, Leek and Celery

Yup, we had some kale that was near the end of its life, so we made a large pie with it as well as the other veggies we had in the fridge.

Here's what we did.

Ingredients

• a whole bunch of kale
• a few stalks of celery
• spinach - about 2 handfuls
• Leek - chopped up, quantity is up to you
• half a halloumi cheese (in this case) - you many also use feta or any cheese of your choice
• salt for taste
• margarine/butter for coating the cookware
• butter puff pastry leaves - about 15 or more of them. 
• onion - quantity is up to you

Instructions

Start by pre-heating the oven at 350 degrees Farenheit.

Wash and chop the vegetables up. Chop up the onion. Grate or slice the cheese and mix it up if you wish. We layered the cheese on top of the vegetables instead. I find it preferable for my taste buds to suddenly get a nice chunk of halloumi rather than get a small constant dose of it throughout the pie. Mix the vegetables and onion up, add some salt to taste.

Lay out the butter puff pastry leaves. The main difference between phyllo and butter puff pastries is in their name, "butter"; it makes it easier for me to work with since they are already buttered up. I bought one package of them and all of it was used to make this flaky pie.

Layer the halloumi and vegetable mix. Close up the pastry leaves into a shape you desire and place the pie in a margarine-coated cookware so it doesnt stick.

Place it in the oven for about 30 minutes or until flaky and golden-brown in color.

That's it!

Our Vegetable Pie is ready to be consumed. It's so good, I really recommend trying it out.
It doesnt matter what vegetables you have handy, it doesnt have to be anything specific, any green and leafy vegetable works (lettuce, cabbage, kale, spinach, you name it!).

Bonus!

In order to get our share of protein during our lunch, we cut up some tofu in 1cm-thick slices and put Masala curry powder on it, then lightly fried it, until it was crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. Tofu doesn't absorb much besides salt (so be careful when you marinade it in soy sauce), so the outside of our tofu is slightly spicy while the inside is pretty bland. Yummy!

 

What can I do with leftovers??

 We had some bean sprouts in the fridge that were on the verge of going bad. So what did we do?  We spiced them up and ate them. Of course, sprouts are tasty when they are raw as well, but it was cold today and we wanted an extra 'zing'.

 Sprouts are excellent for you, they are a source of minerals, aminoacids, phytochemicals, proteins and vitamins such as vitamin C, A, B-complex, E, K and choline, which are all needed for us to maintain a good health.

In this case, we added some red wine in a pan along with some curry masala powder ( which in itself is a source of vitamins A, B as well as Iron amongst others) and olive oil. Heat it up and add the sprouts, leave it on until the wine evaporates.

                                        It looks like a bowl of worms but sprouts are yummy!

Remember the crock-pot lamb? This is last of it, we made enough that we kept eatting for three days. Which, if you think about it, means that it cost us about 35 dollars in total, to eat for 3 days, for 2 people. That rounds up at 6 dollars per person, per day.  Not bad at all!

Don't let it fool you, the pitta isn't a big as it looks, it wasn't a large portion of food, but it was more than enough for us.

We just used a lebanese-style pitta, put the remaining lamb and wrapped it. Really simple. We paired it up with the curried sprouts. I had them on the side, but if you want you could put it in the pitta along with the lamb. Yesterday we put the lamb along with some mustard and salad. That was really good too.                               

Tomorrow there'll be a new recipe up so keep an eye out! :)

Slow-cooked lamb with herbs

                                                                    The end result!

I love lamb. Slow-cooked lamb is one of the most delicious meats for me.
Whenever I eat lamb i consider it a treat, since lamb is so expensive, people can't really
afford to have it too often.

In this case, we are using a crock-pot, which is the best thing ever by the way, but if you
dont have one, you can use a regular pot on the stovetop or put it in clay cookware in the oven and leave it to cook for the day (yes, that's right, it takes long to make!). There are many alternatives,
use what you have.

By the way, a great place to get a slow cooker is from Amazon, for anyone who can't find one in a store close to them!


Let's get to it :)

Ingredients

Spices

• Ginger powder
• bay leaves
• rosemary

• Leg of lamb - boneless. I used an entire leg and whatever is leftover will be used to make wraps tomorrow.
• olive oil
• water
• potatoes

 For the salad

• Kale - two pieces
• 1/4 bunch spinach
• 1 onion
• 1 lemon

                                See how half my plate is full of greens? Gotta love the greens!

Instructions

This is a crock-pot recipe. Do you know what a crock pot is?
Wikipedia has the answer haha Crock-Pot
The gist is that it gives me the freedom to put food the night before, turn it on low, get to bed, wake up next morning, go out, come back and the food will be ready and waiting for me to take it out and eat.
I put the leg of lamb in it, put the ginger powder, bay leaves and rosemary. Rosemary is such a nice spice with lamb, i love it. You could also put thyme, instead of rosemary.
Cut the potatoes and spread the bay leaves in and around them.

 

                                               Here's a photo to see the food being cooked.

As you can see, my crock-pot is small. It's 2.5 Quart crockpot from Walmart.  So the next step is different for each of you. Since my pot is small, i only needed half cup of water to almost cover the food. Dont cover all of the meat because the lamb itself has some water itself that will come out while it's cooking.
All the spices you've put in before will be floating in the water and spread around.
Normally, if you leave it just with water, during the process of cooking, all the spices will float to the top and the taste will not be as strong.
What we did here is drizzle olive oil, just enought to cover the surface of the water. This makes the spices "trapped" in the water underneath, so all the taste will come out and the aroma will be heavenly.

That's it for the meat. Turn it on high until it heats up and then on low for the rest of the night. The food will be ready the next day.

Salad
The salad is really simple. It was prepared 5 minutes before we ate. I washed 2 kale branches (?) and a handful of spinach and chopped them up. Chop up one medium onion and take the fresh juice of one lemon and pour it in the salad.
As a dressing  i just used the lemon juice and a couple spoonfuls of the oil from the crock-pot with cooked lamb (the oil retained the aroma of lamb and the herbs).

The end result is a delicious blend of herbs and spices, with the distinct taste of lamb. It's a healthy meal with the proper amouth of starch, protein and vegetables.

Let me know what you think of it and if you have any suggestions comment below! :)

Spicy Meat-alternative lunch.

Food is food. The combinations are endless as long as you let your fantasy roam.
But, in order to stay healthy, you have to ensure that you always have your serving of protein, greens and carbs.
A good guide is this :

vegetables 50%
protein 30%
starch 20%

To make it a little easier, just make sure the protein you are eating is as thick and wide as the palm of your hand. It's different for each individual. Opt for rice and potatoes for starch, instead of pasta. In my diet I've substituted pasta with rice noodles/egg noodles or rice.

In this case meat-alternatives made of tofu are being used as the source for protein.

You'll notice that in most recipes I will be listing frozen vegetables.
The reason is simple.:

• Frozen vegetables as cheaper than fresh ones. 
• They are washed at the collection site right before freezing (with water cleaner than tap water in your home).
• they are more fresh than "fresh" vegetables since they are frozen right after collecting them
•  therefore their nutrients are unaltered while for "fresh" vegetables a lot of nutrients are lost in transit.
• they last a loooong time in the freezer.

this is the final product:

Ingredients

• firm tofu - half the size of your palm, as thick as your palm.
• half a tofurky spicy italian sausage - google "tofurky" it's a company name
• frozen vegetables of your choice - thawed
• one portion rice vermicelli noodles
• masala curry powder for marinating the tofu in
• a smidge of oregano
• soy sauce to taste

Start by spreading some masala curry powder on your tofu and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. 

In the meantime start making the rice vermicelli noodles in a pot, add some soy sauce in the water.

when they are ready, take it off the stove and drop in your vegetables. They will be warmed up but 

not boiled.

Take your tofu sausage and your masala curry tofu and lightly fry it in a heated pan with olive oil for 2-3 minutes on each side, depending how strong your heat is. It should get crispy on the outside while staying nice and soft on the inside. Sprinkle some oregano over it for the aroma - but careful, don't want to put too much since oregano is bitter!

And that's it!

The spicyness of the sausage is balanced by the vegetables and the noodles. Adjust it to your tastes.

Recipes should be your starting guideline. If you have any ideas then let me know! 

It's a delicious meal for cold days :)