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 :)

Zucchini omelette

Hey everyone!

This is a quick little recipe, I've got a lot of them lined up for you people so keep an eye out!

This is perfect for any time of the day, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.

 Just a plain zucchini omelet as breakfast is yummy.

This is pretty easy and delicious. It's not really an omelet, more like scrambled eggs. 

We put in:

• sliced zucchini
• leek/green onion,
• tomatoes
• red peppers
• dried pork loin (homemade Cypriot lountza) marinaded over a month in red wine.
• salt and pepper to your liking
• 1 egg per person (we had jumbo eggs so that meant 2 yolks per egg)
• feta cheese

Lightly fry the zucchini with the red pepper and then when it's sufficiently browned to your liking, add the rest of the ingredients and start mixing until the eggs are cooked and there's no visible uncooked egg-white around your pan.

Keep in mind to taste your omelet before you put in any salt. Feta cheese is pretty salty already, as well as the dried pork loin that we put in.

Also, for any Costco members out there, i really recommend the EPIROS feta cheese they sell. It's the best feta cheese I've had in Canada.

It's made of sheep's milk rather than cow's or a mixture of cow and sheep milk, it's authentic and much healthier. It's also the most popular feta cheese brand in Greece.

But if you want to make it a lunch dish, all you need to do is add some rice or anything else that is to your liking. Here we added black rice!

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And that's it! Enjoy :)

Salmon accompanied with blueberry salad.

The bottom picture is Haddock. The top is Salmon. Just make what you prefer!

Ingredients

• salmon fillets
• leek
• frozen vegetables
• blueberries
• coconut milk
• 1/2 cup tomato juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Start by preheating the oven at 300 degrees F (150 Celsius).  Cut your salmon fillets to your desired size and place in your cookware along with 1/2 cup tomato juice, 1 tablespoons olive oil and some cut up leek.

We put half a can coconut milk (condensed, not the watered down stuff) with frozen veggies and a handfull of blueberries in a pot and put it to warm up a little. The coconut milk gets that blue hue from the blueberries as well as a distinct aroma. It's such a good combination.

Meanwhile put the salmon in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes in 300 degrees F.

If your vegetables are thawed then you wont need to leave them as long in the pot. Be the judge and do the taste test. Get the pot off the burner when you think it tastes best.

And that's it. Simple and fast and absolutely delicious.

Honey chicken

Hello all! Remember the sneak-peak to the honey chicken i had?

Well, here is the recipe for it. It was simple but time consuming, and it turned out great!

Here it is:

You dont need a lot of ingredients for this recipe.

All you need is your choice of meat; it can be pork, chicken etc.

Some water, olive oil (a few tablespoons) and honey.

The salad was a spicy mexican salad. It had the dressing in it and all we did was mix it all together.

For some extra taste, we cut up an orange. It really paired well with the honey chicken.

Put 2  tablespoons or so of olive oil in your pan or pot and then add water to it. Put it on your oven coils on very low heat.  Add the pork/chicken and let it slow cook for 30  minutes or until fully cooked through. The low heat will make sure that your pork doenst burn and the water will not evaporate as fast. If you aren't sure whether it's fully cooked through, cut it through the thickest part and if there is any red or raw meat showing, keep it on the fire.

When your meat has fully cooked add the honey to your pan (while the pan is still on the low fire) and mix it with the remaining water/oil, while making sure you are coving your choice of meat with the honey mixture. The oil and water will help the honey stick on your meat better.

And that's it! It was so good!! The salad was a surprise for us because we didn't see that it was a pre-made one when we bought it. We decided to try it out and mixed the dressing with the vegetables and it turned out really  tasty.

Hope your guys enjoy this.

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.

:)