Saturday: A Cooking Day

If you follow me on Facebook, you already know that I spent a Saturday cooking up a storm in my house to get meals set for myself for the week.

I had a lot of ingredients to use up in my house and started cleaning out my freezer. I had things in there I didn't even remember buying but am glad that I did.

Every good soup starts with some onions and this Broccoli Cheese was no exception. I found it via Pinterest and decided to try it out. 

 I deviated from the recipe slightly in that I used Half & Half instead of Heavy Cream and added carrots and ham for more flavor. This turned out wonderful!

Then I started organizing my cookbooks and found a recipe for an acorn squash and sweet potato soup. I didn't have acorn squash but had a leftover part of a butternut squash that I needed to do something with. Into the oven with a little EVOO and I roasted those up with  scallions and garlic.

 I had never roasted squash in my oven before and it definitely adds another layer of flavor to the soup. I brought some for lunch today and can't wait to have it.

 Then it was time to make gyro meat in the crockpot. I found the lamb that I bought a few months back and realized now was as good a time as any to cook this up. So simple and the crockpot basically does all the work. Again this recipe was found via Pinterest, but I specifically hunted this one down after having these at a friends.

After two hours in the crockpot, I got a tortilla ready with a cucumber dill greek yogurt dip, pilled on the tomatoes and meat, topped with lettuce and feta cheese and was in business!

It was just as delicious as I remember.

 I also found a packet of Pesto mix that I forgot about. After making it the deliciously fatty way with butter and oil, I saw that you can sub any amount of butter you choose for water to lighten it up. Oh well, you only live once right? It was really tasty and coated my noodles nicely. I had enough for two meals with this and could take some to work then.

 As you can see, all my containers are ready to go for the week - 4 containers or Squash soup, 2 large containers or Broccoli Cheese soup and the chunk of Gyro meat - this girl is set.

Greek Lettuce Wraps

While I'm trying to keep with the healthy eating and cut out unnecessary calories where I can, I find that lettuce wraps work great as a replacement for bread in certain types of sandwiches. I don't think a PB&J would taste so good on one, but chicken salad like the curry one from Sprizzo's, tuna salad (Like Steaming Cup has) and other chunkier sandwiches would work.

Lately I have come across an abundance of cucumbers and although I love making my cucumber salsa, it doesn't fair to well after making it (as in you need to eat it that day or the next or it gets squishy) and I don't want to get burned out on it.

So I decided to go Greek and made some lettuce wraps and Tzatziki sauce. 

This chicken is something I will never make the same way again as I just thew ingredients in the pan and hoped for the best. It was so juicy and flavorful...not necessarily Greek in flavor, but still delicious. 

Then I made Tzatziki sauce for the first time. I grabbed cucumbers, dill, yogurt, lemon juice, onion and garlic powders salt and pepper and put it all in my food processor. This is something I'll need to keep working at. The flavor was there but the consistency was a little too thin for my liking and I think I needed to process it longer.

I had a huge head if iceberg lettuce that I got on a great deal so I chopped up some more cucumbers, kalamata olives, tomatoes, a few slices of onion and the chicken and drizzled the Tzatziki over it all in a lettuce leaf. Then I just folded up the lettuce and bit in.

It was really delicious and even after eating 3 wraps, I felt contently full but not stuffed. I think the removal of the pita really helped me enjoy more of the fresh flavors and not get full so quickly.

The gyro I got at the Waukesha County Fair and Gyros West were way better but I'm not comparing apples to apples. Those were with lamb meat and on a pita. I would say for an easy option at home that saves a few calories, I made a solid meal, but I definitely would prefer lamb and both their Tzatziki sauces over mine. 

I have a great recipe from a friend for crockpot gyros combining lamb and ground turkey and forming it into a loaf. It's amazing and I can't wait to make that soon.