Greek Lamb Roast

Another favourite, following a traditional Greek recipe from Mr3P's. 

Simple and delicious.

There is no danger of vampires invading our abode.

You'll need

A piece of lamb suitable for roasting. I used a leg.

Dried Oregano (Greek oregano if you can get it..it is much stronger that the supermarket variety). In Melbourne you can pick it up from good delicatessens, I usually get mine from one in Oakleigh. I've just run out, so I'm planning a little shopping trip there (or Brunswick) very soon and I'm sure I'll be blogging/instagramming it. BTW, I've finally got on the instagram bandwagon and I LOVE it. 

Fresh Garlic Cloves

Good quality, extra virgin olive oil.

Lemon juice.

Salt & pepper

Place your lamb in a roasting pan (or slow cooker)

Carefully "stab" the meat here and there and stuff the holes with pieces of fresh garlic.

 Drizzle the oil over the lamb and squeeze the lemon juice over the top, then sprinkle with oregano, salt and pepper.
Add a cup or two of water to the bottom of the pan to stop the lamb from drying out while it's cooking.
Seal tightly with foil, or cover with the roasting pan lid.

Now cook, slowly (about 160C) for about 5 hours. Just check from time to time that there is still a little water in the pan. In the last 45 minute of cooking, you can add potatoes to the pan. If your on a low carb eating plan, you might want to skip the taters and serve with veggies and salad and maybe some low fat tzatziki (recipe here).

 This roast (above) was cooked for only about 3 1/2 hours as I wanted it to "carve" instead of falling completely off the bone. And the fact that I forgot to start the roast earlier..lol.

It was still delish.

we used the leftovers the next day to make lamb and salad wraps.

Do you have a "go to" roast in your little handbag of recipes?

Let me know in the comments.

I didn't blog most of the week as I've been sick (I think I had man flu) so I feel I have some catching up to do. 

More recipes to come over the weekend.

kali orexi

Chicken Souvlaki & Tzatziki Sauce {recipe}

A favourite in our house. Easy & healthy too.My husband (Mr3P), who is from Greek heritage tells me that souvlaki means "on a stick"...it's his VERY loose translation. In fact he tells me that if you can poke it with a stick, then it's souvlaki (in his mind anyways). This is a family recipe that was given to me. Yes, it's simple, but aren't some of the best recipes?

Chicken Souvlaki

Chicken breast fillets

Lemon juice

Crushed garlic

Olive oil

Dried oregano

Salt

• Cut chicken into cubes and place in a non-metalic bowl
• Add other ingredients and mix well
• Allow to marniate for as long as possible (at least 15mins) or you could freeze them at this stage
• Meanwhile, soak wooden skewers in water (this will prevent burning the skewers later)
• Thread the chicken onto the skewers. You could freeze at this stage too.
• Pan fry or bbq, turning occasionally until cooked through. In the pan, I like to use glad bake or similar (like here), this prevents the marinde from burning and clean up is easy.

Tzatziki sauce

Greek yoghurt

1/2 cucumber, peeled and finely grated

1 BIG teaspoon of crushed garlic

salt

finely shredded, fresh mint

• mix ingredients together
• best made earlier, so the flavours can get to know each other a little better
• yummy as a dip, served with veggie sticks.

You can also serve with pita bread (my recipe here).

I'd like to start a link party for healthy, wholesome recipes for the family. Would you be interested in joining in? I'll be back a bit later. to get it started.

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Spanakopita {carb free}

You may have read (or even tried) my Spanakopita recipe from a previous post. It's one of my favourite non-meat dishes....but it's very carby....which is no good for my weight loss plan. It's not something we eat everyday, but I do get the odd craving for it and to think I have to give it up forever would be torture. So, after chatting with my PT Elizabeth, she suggested I try to make it WITHOUT the pastry...makes sense huh? 

So, I did...and I cut out a little extra fat while I was at it.

here 'tis

1 Bunch of silverbeet (Swiss Chard), washed, chopped and steamed

or 1 packet of frozen spinach, thawed

150g low fat feta

200g fresh,low fat ricotta

2 or 3 eggs

1/2 brown onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

salt & pepper

1 clove garlic, crushed

mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl

spray a non-stick muffin tin with cooking spray

or line with those silicone muffin cases

fill with mixture (it won't rise much)

bake at 180C for 15-20 mins or till set.

serve with salad

You won't even notice the pastry is missing....yum!

Yemista {recipe} Greek Style Stuffed Capsicums

This is a simple Greek dish (that I have fiddled with to suit what I had in the fridge). Probably the great thing about this dish is that you can change the ingredients here and there and it usually turns out pretty well. 

As you may have read in (this post), I like to make my own mince...that really makes a difference in this dish, so give it a try if you can. I like to make this in the slow cooker, especially in summer so I don't have a hot oven heating up the house all day.

Sorry, I don't have a "finished dish" picture.... I was too hungry and forgot to take it!

and there were no leftovers..........

I'll take on next time I make it and add it here later.

To create:

Wash some red capsicums (you can use any colour you like but the red are the sweetest) I have also stuffed potatoes (scoop out the middle), tomatoes and eggplant. After all, the translation of Yemista is "stuffed vegetables".

Using a sharp knife, cut the "lids" off the capsicum and trim away the seeds and bitter white bits on the insides. Set aside to make your filling.

For the filling (the one I did today):

Mix together in  bowl-

Mince..I used beef

4 thinly sliced mushrooms

1 finely diced brown onion

4 cloves of garlic

3 heaped tablespoons tomato paste

1 cup cooked aborio rice

1 tablespoon dried Greek oregano

salt & pepper 

small chunks of fetta cheese

1/2 teaspoon crushed chilli

next : stuff em to the top and sit in your slow cooker

pour some water into the base of the slow cooker so it comes up the sides about 2cm (top stop the Yemista from drying out)

pop the "lids" back on

cook on low for about six hours 

just check them after 4hrs to see how they're doing.

This batch had a lot of water in the bottom of the pan near the end of cook, so I just poured it off about 1/2 hour before they were ready.

About 15 minutes before you're ready to take them out...add some grated cheese..I used tasty cheese. Take off the lids and sprinkle with the cheese, put lids back on and cook a little longer.

Serve.

Yum.

I love my slow cooker.

{recipe} Greek Salad On A Stick

This is a quick and easy recipe, that makes a great appetiser to have with pre dinner drinkies!

Just skewer slices of cucumber, tomato, red onion, fetta cheese (try to get one that doesn't crumble too easily) and a big fat juicy (pitted) Kalamata olive. I used extra long toothpicks or maybe they're short souvalaki sticks...not sure. I got them from Woolworths......
You can even make a little salad dressing to dip into. Mix up some good olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice and you're good to go!

See you soon.

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{recipe} Avgolemono - Greek egg & lemon soup with chicken

This is another family favourite. Adapted from my husbands family recipe. Traditionally, you would use a whole fresh chicken, but I have used skinless chicken breast fillets to try to cut some of the fat content down. This recipe will serve about 6 adults as a main meal (it's very filling). Thanks to Sarah, from A Beach Cottage for the inspiration for today's lunch and therefore, today's blog post.

Ingredients

2 skinless chicken breast fillets
1 carrot, peeled
1 onion, peeled & halved
2 celery stalks
lemon rind
good pinch of salt
1/2 cup long grain white rice
3 eggs
3 juicy lemons (juiced)
2 tablespoons cornflour
salt & pepper to taste
parsley chopped (to serve)

Method

Place chicken breasts, carrot, celery, onion, lemon rind and salt in a large pot. Cover with water and bring to the boil. reduce the heat, cover and simmer for half an hour. turn off heat and let cool for a bit.

Discard carrot, celery, onion and lemon rind.

Remove chicken breast (reserve the liquid). Shred the chicken breast and set aside.

Add rice to pot with stock, bring to the boil, cover and reduce to simmer for about 20 mins or until the rice is tender.

Add shredded chicken.

In a separate mixing jug, whisk eggs, then add lemon juice. Mix a little water with the cornflour (in a cup) so that there are no lumps, then add this to the egg and lemon mix.

Spoon some hot liquid from the pot (about 3 ladles) into the jug of egg and lemon and whisk together. Be careful not to curdle the mixture. then add to the hot soup, stir through so the soup thickens.

Add some salt, pepper and parsley to taste.

Serve with crusty bread.

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I Heart Nap Time

{recipe} Chickpea Tabouli, Keftedes (Greek meatballs) & Pita

This is my 3pickles version of tabouli. Simple, tasty and easy to make from ingredients found in the pantry & garden.

Just toss together, finely chopped parsley, halved or quartered cherry tomatoes, chopped red onion, finely chopped mint & a tin of drained chickpeas. Season with salt and dress with extra virgin olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice. I like to let the flavours develop for a bit before serving.

 I love this salad with Greek Meatballs (keftedes), wrapped in homemade pita bread, then drizzled with Tzatziki or yoghurt and some sweet chilli sauce.

To make the pita bread, just use my Farmer's bread recipe, found here. Instead of placing dough in a bread tin, divide into 8 portions, roll flat onto a floured surface and "dry" pan fry (or use BBQ hotplate). The bread will puff up after about 30 seconds, flip over and continue to cook the other side. Easy.

To make the meatballs, combine beef  or lamb mince, finely chopped onion, finely chopped parsley, crushed garlic, a dollop of tomato paste, an egg, breadcrumbs and about 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Season with salt & pepper if you like. Roll into little meatballs (about one heaped tablespoon of meat mixture each). Place meatballs on a plate ,cover with clingwrap and leave in the fridge for at least half an hour to set (so they don't fall apart when you cook them). Shallow fry (I like to use rice bran oil), or if your really good you can place them on non stick baking paper and bake in a moderate oven till done.

Till next time.........

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{recipe} Rizogalo - Greek rice pudding

Another family favourite that tends to get requested as the weather starts too cool. This is a traditional Greek recipe, but I find it is very similar to the English version that my Aussie/English Nanna used to make (except for the cloves). Very simple to make (I like it simple) and tastes great warm or cold.

RIZOGALO

4 cups milk (I  used 1 cup powdered milk and 4 cups water mixed)
1 cup long grain rice (uncooked)
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons butter
1 cinnamon stick (used 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon if you don't have a stick)
3 whole cloves (or use a good pinch of ground cloves) I did this today
3 eggs slightly beaten

In a large saucepan add the rice and about 2 cups water. Bring to the boil (don't stir), then turn down to simmer and place lid on pot. Simmer until rice is almost tender.

Add milk, sugar, butter, cinnamon and cloves and bring back to the simmer. Stir frequently.

When mixture looks thickened, remove cinnamon stick and cloves.

Take about 1/4 cup of hot pudding mixture and add to beaten eggs. Stir and repeat. Then add egg mixture to pot and stir to thicken and mixed thoroughly. This prevents scrambled eggs!

Pour pudding into large serving dish or individual bowls and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Let cool and serve warm or chill and serve cold.

ENJOY!

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Carole's Chatter: Food on Friday