Friday, April 17, 2009

A Greek Easter

There were many a photo to be a had in many a home to document the preparation for this Easter Meal. Few were taken. Thankfully, I have a faithful photographer mom who saved this food from being neglected entirely as well as perhaps saving our camera from death by spurts of sizzling lamb grease. I am thankful for both.




On the Menu: Lamb, Chicken, Pitas, Tabouli, Tzatziki, Hummus, Lemon Rice, Greek Salad, Roasted Potatoes, and Squash
(Tasty Non-Greek Dessert Followed)
I was impressed with this picture

I did not make all the food seen in the pictures. The recipes for the food I made... I got the lamb recipe... here. The lemony greek rice... here. The greek potatoes... here. The Tabouli... here. Okay now, putting in links is fun.

just in case you ever think about making these...

the lamb went over well and seemed to be cooked as much as it should have been - this, I was happy about. I would advise, when making these, you make the patties small (we had them like gyros in a pita) because lamb is rich and one can get too much of it pretty quickly. I made them in a skillet (hence the spurts and sizzles from the grease). The Bashas by us seems to often have ground lamb on managers special... I'd advise to look for specials because full price, at least at Fry's, was mighty pricey.

the greek rice I put way more oregano in it than called for and way less garlic. The former because I thought it said tablespoons when in fact it said teaspoons (classic) and the latter because I thought there was going to be plenty of garlic going around in other dishes. That's probably what the author of the recipe meant anyhow. Anyways, I think the rice was one of my favorites. I might add more feta next time (I did not measure it when I put it in) because it was awfully nice to get a little chunk of feta with a bite of rice every once and while.
I didn't even use brown rice (shocker) and next time, if I make it again, I would be very tempted to do so.

Potatoes didn't seem to brown too well although they weren't unappetizing, (were they?), they just kind of tasted like potatoes.

The tabouli I think turned out well although I was lighter on the mint than I should have been. I'm not a huge tabouli fan in general so it's hard for me to say if it was really great. Let's just say we ate the leftover rice in a day or two but are still housing the tabouli in the fridge.