Meatball Souvlaki!

 Want something quick, easy and different to make for dinner? Make these awesome meatball souvlaki pitas. You can have these on the table in under 30 minutes - can't beat that on a week night. Plus, these will help you get out of that rut of having the same old week night meals. Your family will thank you!

Meatball Souvlaki
Recipe adapted from Everyday Favorites by Canadian Living

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain, fat free greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup grated baby cucumber (about 1 baby cuke)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp fresh dill, minced
• 1/2 tbsp fresh mint, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 greek pitas
• shredded lettuce
• cherry tomatoes, quartered
• thin slices of red onion
• hummus

Meatballs:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup garlic and herb croutons, whirled in the food processor until finely ground
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper
• 1 lb lean ground beef

Method:

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, spray foil with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, whisk egg. Whisk in the crouton crumbs, mustard, oregano, salt and pepper. Mix in beef. Roll into 1 tbsp balls - makes approximately 24 meatballs). Place on a prepared pan. Bake in 450F oven for approximately 18 minutes or until cooked through.
3. In a bowl, combine yogurt, cucumber, garlic, mint, dill, salt and pepper. Spread pitas with a layer of hummus. Then spread a layer of the yogurt mixture over pitas. Sprinkle with lettuce. Divide tomatoes, onion, then meatballs. Fold each pita in half to eat. Enjoy! Serves 4.

 Easy and delish! Hope you enjoy this one. We sure did! Stay tuned for tomorrow's Daring Bakers reveal. Its a good one. :)

This post has been linked up with Fusion Fridays Link Party over at Jennifer Cooks. Head on over and check out what other fabulous dishes the blogosphere has whipped up this week.

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Pita Bread - Attempt #2 & Hummus Ma Lahma

Alright, it has taken me a while, but I've finally got up the nerve to try my hand at making pita breads again! I took the advice of a couple of my great blog followers and upped the temperature of my oven and rolled them thinner. And the results were far improved! Still not perfect, but definitely much improvement! I saw partial pockets form this time where last time I got no pockets! Soooo I will keep trying. I do have a bit of a tale to tell about this one though...

Have you ever broken a rolling pin? Didn't think so! Well, while I was making these, my rolling pin broke. I had been using this cheap wooden one I picked up from ikea when I first moved out on my own and it had always done the trick. I tidied up my kitchen prior to starting to make the pitas so I would have a nice clean counter to roll them out on. When i started rolling out the second pita, I noticed some brown dust on the dough which looked like coffee grounds. So I'm like, I already wiped down the counter... where the heck is this coming from??? Well i look a little closer and the "coffee grounds" are actually pouring out of the middle of my rolling pin. NOT GOOD!!! So I had to be creative and roll the rest of my pitas out with a big can of chickpeas! So that is my kitchen disaster tale with a happy ending! Maybe I can blame the less than perfect results on the lack of a rolling pin? :D

I have wanted to try something like this for a while, but I just got around to trying it out! I found the recipe on the Food Network website. Emeril Lagasse developed the recipe and it sure is delicious. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes hummus and making home made pita breads just amp up the delicious factor!

You can find the recipe here. It is late and I'm not up for typing up the recipe. So please accept my apologies for my laziness!!!

I didn't change a thing other than add additional liquid (mixture of olive oil and water) to the hummus to get it to the consistency I wanted it. You can definitely play around with it til you get it the way you like it. Hummus is great like that! You can also mix up the spices you use on the beef. I think next time I'm going to try out a yummy curry spice mixture on the beef. Lots of ways to personalize this recipe and make it how you and your family like it! Have fun playing with it!

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Pita Bread - Attempt #1

I labelled this post as an attempt because it was just that - an attempt at making pita breads. A pocket was supposed to form in the individual breads, but that didn't happen so the attempt was a bit of a fail! But they tasted good and were great toasted and dipped in homemade hummus, so I guess they weren't a complete fail! I apologize for the quality of the photos - since this recipe wasn't a full-on success, I wasn't sure if I was going to post about it, so they are lacking a little bit!

Now that I'm done with my excuses, I should tell you about the recipe! They were quite easy to make and didn't require a lot of time, which is a bonus for most of you because I know you're often pressed for time. They're quite simple so you can add any flavourings you want and they should turn out just fine.


Pita Bread
Recipe from Bread for Beginners Handout - Well Seasoned Gourmet Foods

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/4 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

Method:

1. Stir yeast into water and let sit 5 minutes to disslove.
2. In large bowl, measure flour, yeast/water mixture, olive oil and salt. Stir til dough starts to form. Dump out onto counter and knead about 5 minutes or until smooth. Add more flour only if necessary. Put dough in lightly greased bowl and cover loosely. Let rise til doubled (about 1 hour)
3. Preheat oven to 500F. Get out two baking sheets. Dump dough onto floured counter. Divide into 6 even pieces and form into balls. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll each piece into a 7" circle about 1/8th inch thick. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Cover and let rest another 10 minutes. Sprinkle with coarse salt if desired. Bake one pan at a time for 4-5 minutes till puffed and just barely browned. Remove from pan, stack and wrap in tea towel to cool.
4. Wrap airtight. Freeze if not using within a couple of days.

So there you have it - first attempt at making pita breads... definitely not impressive, but at least they were tasty. Stay tuned for more attempts in the future - hopefully eventually I can get the pockets to form! If anyone has any tips I would love to hear them!

Happy Baking my Friends!