Greek Chicken Meatballs

 

 I made this for dinner last night and it was wonderful. The best part was watching the kids take heaping portions of the chopped cucumber. I love eating healthy family dinners all together at the table especially when we have friends over. This recipe is from RecipeChart.com and the recipe can be found HERE. I highly recommend!

Creamy Tzatziki

I love Tzatziki especially when there are left overs. I like to think of it as the sibling to the Indian sauce Raita.
Ingredients
I container Greek yogurt (Greek makes is more authentic, but I will otherwise use plain Stonyfield yogurt in it's place)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (nothing tastes better than Hellman's)
1 clove of garlic minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon freshly chopped dill
1 tablespoon freshly chopped mint
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest or else 1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cucumber, seeded then grated and drained.
Process

1. In a medium bowl combine all ingredients except the cucumber, mixing well.
   
2. Gently fold in the cucumber.
   
3. Serve as an accompaniment to Greek food or as a dip with crudite!

YUM!

Middle Eastern Kebab Marinade

Tonight was a refrigerator dinner night, that is, one of those evenings when you know you have odds and ends in the fridge that you need to use. Tonight the left over stock, raw pork and chicken were demanding to be cooked, so I thought to create a nice spicy marinade. We are serving it with the Caesar salad. To prepare the marinade, combine the following ingredients

Ingredients for Marinade

1/8 cup stock

1/8 cup apple cider vinegar

1 Tablespoon tomato paste (I actually had some homemade left)

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 /8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 Tablespoons Olive oil

A couple grinds of Salt

Several grinds of black pepper

Marinate the meat in it for at least 30 minutes before preparing on skewers.

You may make additional skewers with onions and your choice of kebab veggies but they may want to start them about 15 minutes ahead of the meat. Arrange meat and veggies onto Kebabs.

Bake on a broiler tray at 425 for 30 minutes or more, until done. This could also be done on the grill. Tonight, when cooked, I will be serving it with a side sauce of last nights attempt at homemade ranch dressing. The dill, buttermilk, and sour cream in it could make it a decent tzatziki, but I didn't like it enough to post the recipe - YET!