purplelara

gyro salad (with lamb or pork) and tzatziki

Hey, I promised recipes didn’t I? Ya, sorry. We’re fasting for…Iran? Or, um Dafur? Or something?

Actually, I’ve been in a bit of a food slump for the past few months.  I’m not sure if was the nice weather or what but we’ve been eating a lot of burgers, chicken breasts and salad.  Boring. Combined with the fact that I also hardly ever have time on the computer, I’ve fallen behind on the recipes.  Sorry.

The other day I picked up one of those recipe magazines that are always displayed at the grocery check out line – I’m not sure where they get off on charging $10 for these magazines, but this one had some great recipes in it and I wanted to get out of my slump so I bought it. When I got home, I flipped through it and was inspired to get cooking again.

The next day I was super excited to be trying a light Tandoori chicken recipe…until I read that I have to marinate the chicken for a day. So that’s for another night then.

Not to be deterred, I dragged out a couple of my older magazines and tried one that I hadn’t tackled yet, and it’s definitely a keeper.

I started this dinner with a recipe called “Gyro Chopped Salad with Lamb Chops” from a Cuisine at Home “Cuisine for two” magazine (yes, yes, the title is barf-worthy, but the recipes are fab) I bought a couple of years ago.  As usual, I changed it a bit.

• 1 cup plain non-fat yogurt
• 1 cup cucumber, seeded, chopped (seeded? are you kidding me? who seeds cucumbers? let’s go with “chopped”)
• 2 tablespoons feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
• 1 garlic clove
• Juice of half a lemon
• S&P to taste

• 4 cups romaine, chopped
• 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled (or you know, more)
• 10 grape tomatoes
• 8 kalamata olives, pitted
• 4 peperoncini, chopped*

• 4 lamb or pork loins**

Spoon yogurt onto several layers of paper towel or cheesecloth. Press and compact, then set aside to drain (I left mine, draining the liquid several times, for about an hour).

In a food processor, zap the cucumber, 2 tablespoons feta, garlic and lemon juice until the cukes are minced.  Add drained yogurt and combine.  Add S&P to taste.

Assemble romaine, onion, feta, tomatoes, olives and peppers.  Top with tzatziki.

*Do you have any idea of what these are? Me neither, but google knows   everything , so here’s a picture.

**This recipe calls to season 4 lamb loin chops with salt, pepper and dried oregano. I bought pork loin chops, because they are cheaper and less fattening. Instead of just “seasoning” them, I marinated them for about 1/2 hour to an hour in some lemon juice, garlic, oregano and pepper.