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 :)

Haddock curry cakes.

Hello! Sorry I've been MIA. I know I haven't posted the honey-chicken recipe but I'm afraid I didn't have so much time on my hands.

This is something I had tonight. It was so good I had to share it with you guys!

I know I've posted another haddock recipe. But this is completely different. You are going to love it if you try it out!

Here it is.

Ingredients/Directions:

Haddock cakes
2 haddock fillets

• cook the haddock in the oven prior to doing anything else. Cook it according to your taste/preference.

1/2 yellow corn mill
2 eggs
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp butter
vegetables - chopped

• Mix all these ingredients listed above into a nice smooth paste. This does not include the haddock! As for the vegetables, it really depends on what you want to put in it. We had some peppers, leek, parsley etc that we chopped up in it. You can put in something totally different!
• Add the haddock now. Cut it up/flake it and put in on top of the paste. To that, add:
•  2 tbsp teriyaki sauce
• 1/2 tbsp yellow curry powder
• Proceed to mix everything together until you have your ingredients evenly distributed throughout.

Place in the oven at 350 degrees F for 5-10 minutes, just so the eggs are cooked through.

Salad:
frozen vegetables - thawed
2 tbsp teriyaki sauce
a drizzle of olive oil
2 tbsp honey-mustard sauce. OR 1 tbsp mustard and 1 tbsp peanut butter

 With your thawed vegetables, place all the ingredients in a pan or pot of your choice and give them a light stir-frying.

That's it!

So simple. And so delicious! I urge you to give it a try!!
Let me know what you guys think.

:)

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! :)