Greek-style Lamb Burgers

What can I say…this one may have become one of our absolute favorites!  Hugely flavorful for not a lot of effort.  In my low-carb recipe idea search, I saw a pita-less gyro, and that gave me the idea to do a lamb burger over a Greek salad.  We topped the burger with some not-quite-tzatziki and it was delicious.  I used a Bon Appetit recipe for this, and made no changes.  Great as-is.  I kept the salad on the lower-cal side by cutting the oil substantially when I made the dressing.  We definitely didn’t miss it.

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Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

I want to call it tzatziki, but it’s kind of a cross between that and raita…which was exactly like the recipe from Chow said it would be.  Excellent with our Greek lamb burgers and salad, and will also make a yummy veggie dip later.  We were fans and will reuse.  You could definitely serve this as a dip rather than a topping/sauce. Good use of the zillions of CSA cukes we have. 🙂  I found I had to be pretty generous with the salt to brighten it up.

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Lettuce Wrap Turkey Tacos

This was a great, low carb idea I got from Skinnytaste.  I have home-mixed taco seasoning, and that was perfect to spice up the a ground turkey a bit.  We really loved this, and since neither of us is a huge fan of taco shells, we actually preferred the lettuce!  Pretty quick and easy for a weeknight meal, too.  Top with any of your favorites – a little reduced fat cheese and sour cream helped temper the heat a bit.   I serve this with Mexican-style black beans.

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Mexican-style Black Beans

For an easy side dish with any Latin or Mexican-style dish, this is a fun one.  We made this to go with lettuce wrap tacos, but it also would do well on its own as a filling for a taco, etc. I usually cut a bit of the chili – a little goes a long way with the beans, I feel.  It also makes excellent leftovers, and is a bit less heavy than doing rice and black beans (another favorite of mine).   I love a little cotija cheese sprinkled over them as well. 🙂

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Stuffed Peppers (Lower Carb)

We are trying our hand at low-carb, and so far so good.  As far as main dishes go for us, it’s not too bad – we don’t eat much pasta.  But rice, starchy veg, and my beloved pretzels and beer…well, there’s no substitute for the latter, but it’s surprisingly easy to do without the former.  This is a stuffed pepper that we concocted using vegetables instead of rice mixed in with the turkey and our homemade roasted red pepper tomato sauce.  It was quite good, and the leftovers make for easy lunches.

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Roasted Pepper and Garlic Tomato Sauce

I have a good old standby sauce that I use, but I also have a bajillion pounds of basil that need to be used up, and this seemed like  a good time to give a different recipe a go – especially one that could be canned.  This was outstanding, and pretty easy (if labor intensive).  I’ll be making this one again for sure.  It has a little bit of a kick, and will be great in both pasta or vegetable dishes.

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Traditional Meatballs

We don’t do pasta very often, but I really, really love spaghetti and meatballs.  I made these guys with my usual Classic Tomato Sauce and it came out well.  I cooked 3-5 meatballs in the sauce and baked the rest, which worked out well for us since I didn’t bust out the huge stock pot this time.  I have a long-standing meatball recipe I have used (along with my Uncle’s stock pot!), but modified it a bit this time using an Ina Garten recipe and was pleased.  Great, tender meatballs…makes about 12-15 of them, unless you like big ones.

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Chile Marinated Chicken Wings

Rosie the Corgi was a big fan of making sure that she gave Shawn a grilling cookbook for Father’s Day.  She loves grilling, since it means occasional morsels for her. 😉  Since Rosie lacks in opposable thumbs, I picked out “Weber’s Real Grilling” on her behalf, and this was the first recipe we tried.  All I can say is wow!  Total winner.  The only change we made from the as-printed version is that we cut back on the peppers a bit

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Chicken and Kale Casserole

We got a big, lovely bunch of kale in our CSA this week that needed a job.  I was contemplating something to do with it besides a soup, and found this casserole on Serious Eats (originally Martha Stewart, I think).  It’s nice for a summer casserole – lighter and very bright.  It made a ton of course, which was my intent…lots of lunches!  This was pretty easy to make a bit healthier with whole wheat pasta, part-skim cheeses, and Smart Balance instead of butter.

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Cherry Almond Cake

I stumbled upon this cake a few years ago at Joy of Baking, and it turned into a favorite.  I’ve made it with fruit other than cherries, but cherries are the winner for sure.  I’ve also done it with and without ground almonds, and though I prefer it with the almonds, it is delicious without as well.  A very versatile cake, and when we got cherries in our CSA this week, it was clearly the thing to do. 🙂

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