Monthly Archives: June 2011

Shawarma

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After eating a lot of Donner Kabob in Germany, which is like Shawarma but in bread, I wanted to try it. I used the recipe below (halved) with fat free greek yogurt, extra garlic, and italian parsely (inspired by a different recipe). We found “thin” sliced lean beef at the grocery store so we used that. We cooked it in the broiler to more closely mimic being cooked by radiant heat when you get it for real. It marinated overnight.

I do not know what was the central cause but the beef was really tough. I may have overcooked it and it was probably not the highest quality. Also, it was not really thin sliced which may have added to it. We ended up having to cut it into pieces to put into the (whole wheat) pita. Even then, it wasn’t great. It certain smelled good and I am not giving up on the shawarma idea but maybe with chicken next time since we can pound it really thin.

Meredith made fat free tzatziki to go with it which was very good.  I do not know exactly what she did but I think she followed the same recipe from 2011-04-13.

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Mexican Chicken Salad

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We cooked chicken breast in the pressure cooker with some adobo and other seasonings. From there, Meredith did it so I am not 100% sure what was in it but this is what I remember. We shredded the chicken then added non-fat greek yogurt. There were other seasonings including more adobo, and a lot of cilantro. The cilantro was a bit strong but overall, I enjoyed the salad. Since the chicken was shredded, there was a lot of yogurt flavor but it was fat free so not bad.

Broccoli and Zucchini chicken

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First of all, it felt good to be cooking again. This was inspired by something I had in Germany but it really basically turned into something similar to Chicken Cacciatore. It was brocolli, zuchinni, yellow squash with tomatoes and spices. I also added some red wine and balsamic vinegar. There was also chicken breast peices.

It was pretty good. Not amazing but definitely good. I liked that it was mostly vegetables and was very healthy.

Egg Mash

Sorry, no photo. I made a really great egg creation of sorts. It was basically a fritatta with less vegtables, some cheese and I scrambled the egg (beaters) rather than cook it all together. In addition to onions, mini bell peppers and normal spcies, I also added some frozen corn and peas. That gave it a nice crunch. And, I added a well diced Habenero pepper. I had been using these a lot recently and they have been fine, but the fumes of this one filled the whole apartment, especially the kitchen, and had me and meredith caughing and sneezing our brains out (rather painfully). Thankfully, the pooch seemed to tolerate it well enought. With all that pain, it ended up not really being all that spicy. Go figure.

I also mixed (LF) cheese into it.

Black Bean Taquitos

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I like making “taquitos” where I make a filling, put it on a medium tortilla, a bit of cheese, roll it tight, and bake it. Well for brunch, we made them with a black bean filling. There was sauteed onions, mashed black beans, peppers and seasonings. It was pretty similar to the filling we use for been empanadas.

Stuffed Peppers, Curried Roasted Cauliflower

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The peppers were stuffed with lean beef mixed with a tomato sauce. Not really anything special. They were fine but not particuallry noteworthy. We got lucky becuase we were pushing the freshness of them.

The cauliflower was the same recipe as last time and again, it was GREAT! I want to experiment with other seasonings. And like I said last time, I want to try other vegetables roasted to this degree.