Teriyaki Turkey Burgers

This recipe makes some fantastic turkey burgers! Now, you can easily make your own teriyaki sauce for the recipe, but if you don't have the time store bought will do as a substitute. This is perfect for the meat-lover that is looking for a lighter burger. Salty and sweet teriyaki sauce lends the leaner meat a fabulous complexity of flavor. Umami indeed.


Teriyaki Turkey Burgers

Makes 8 - 10 burger patties

2.5 lbs. ground turkey
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup teriyaki
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. combine all ingredients in a big mixing bowl
2. Separate mixture in two equal parts. Each part will make 4 - 5 large patties.
3. Brush olive oil on grill grating and grill over medium flame for about 5 minutes per side. Make sure they are thoroughly cooked before taking them off of the flame.
4. Serve on burger buns with your favorite fixings.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback!

Creamy Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Tzatziki Dressing

I don't know about you, but I love salads with creamy dressing. They are always rich-tasting and delicious. My only problem with most creamy salad dressings is that they pack so many calories they defeat the idea of a healthy salad. The perfect salad dressing, therefore, would be so rich, creamy and flavorful that it would be impossible to believe it's actually waist-line friendly. Not only does this dressing deliver, it is a perfect compliment to chopped cucumbers and sweet grape tomatoes. The tzatziki style dressing is heavy on garlic and dill, which also compliments. I recommend you serve this as a side dish alongside my Chicken Shawarma Skewers (http://joyouskitchen.blogspot.com/2014/05/chicken-shawarma-skewers.html), or any type of grill food, really.

Creamy Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Tzatziki Dressing

Makes about 8 salad bowl-sized servings

1 1/2 garden cucumbers, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt, to taste

For the Tzatziki Dressing

1 (8 oz) container 2% milkfat plain Greek yogurt
1 - 2 cloves garlic, peeled*
3 - 4 extra large sprigs of dill
juice of 1/2 lemon

1. Pulse dressing ingredients in a blender until the dressing is smooth throughout.
2. Together with cucumbers and tomatoes, toss dressing in a large salad bowl.
3. Serve as a starter or a side with Greek style grilled meat.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback

*I like it with 2 cloves, but this makes the garlic flavor quite strong and the salad a little spicy

Chicken Shawarma Skewers

It's grilling season once again! These lemon-y, shawarma-spiced chicken skewers are flavorful and tender--perfect with fries or rice and a yogurt dressing. The skewers are more yakitori style than Greek kabob style and this makes them more moist. Best of all, it's an easy, healthy dinner on the grill with an easy cleanup!

Chicken Shawarma Skewers

2 chicken breasts (approximately 1 lb total)
4 chicken thighs, fat somewhat trimmed (approx. 1 lb total)
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 1/2 lemon
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 Teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 Teaspoon smoked paprika (sweet Hungarian paprika)
1/2 Teaspoon ginger powder
1 Teaspoon cinnamon
6 spice cloves, ground in the mortar
1/4 Teaspoon allspice
1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

1. Soak 12 skewers in water.
2. Grate zest of 1/2 lemon into a flat-bottomed bowl or storage container.
3. Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and lay over lemon zest.
4. Add lemon juice, spices and olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss to coat.
5. Allow to marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes while you build your coals.
6. Set 2 skewers vertical and parallel on a dinner plate with the pointed ends facing the ceiling. Add a piece of breast meat chicken, piercing the chicken with both skewers. Add another piece of breast meat and push down next to first piece. Keep adding pieces until the chicken covers the skewers from about 3" from the bottom and about 3" from the top (see photo). Now repeat the process with all thigh meat pieces. Continue until you have about 6 or so skewers.
7. Brush grill with olive oil and add chicken skewers. Cook over medium-high coals for 3 minutes on each side, then flip it over a third time and cook for another 3 minutes. You can check for doneness by peering in between the largest pieces on a skewer.
8. Serve on or off the skewers.

I served this dish with baked potato fries and a cucumber, grape tomato salad with a tzatziki salad dressing. Yum!

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback!

Basil, My Grapefruitini, Please!

This post is a little...different. Different in that not only is this recipe easy, it requires absolutely *no cooking* and is a delicious, refreshing cocktail to beat the late spring, early summer heat. In fact, I'm sipping one occasionally as I type this!

Hopefully this works to cool you down, as well! This cocktail would probably be great with a lemon-y greek dish (or something with citrus flavors, like a simple lemon butter trout) and would also compliment a curry, particularly a coconut milk based Thai or Malaysian curry--particularly if made with Thai Basil.

Fizzy Basil Grapefruitini

(fills 2 6 ounce martini glasses)

Juice of one ruby red grapefruit

1/3 cup soda water

4 basil leaves, torn into large pieces

3 ounces gin

1/3 cup ice cubes

1. Add ice to your cocktail shaker and then scatter shredded basil over the ice. Using the handle of a wooden cook spoon, crush the basil gently into the ice.
2. When the basil smell starts to get strong and you begin to notice its liquorice scent, add all other ingredients.
3. Put the lid on the shaker and holding it down, shake to combine all ingredients. Count to five slowly as you shake.
4. Strain and serve with a basil bud and a little strip of grapefruit skin* as garnish.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback!

*If you wish you use a grapefruit skin garnish remove a part of the skin with a vegetable peeler prior to squeezing it for juice. I noticed my edges were uneven, so I trimmed it with a paring knife.

Crunchy Fried Chickpeas with Garlic

On the face of it this dish is exceptionally simple. It only has five ingredients after all, and two of those are salt and pepper. And it is simple, but the reason I felt compelled to share is because they are just too delicious! Pan frying allows the chickpeas to form a crunchy crust and softens and fluffs the rich, nutty insides. Adding garlic and salt paste toward the end just absolutely perfects it and makes the chickpea insides taste kind of sweet. For this reason and because we can't get enough of them, my fiancee calls them candy. We never end up with leftovers, no matter how many times I've multiplied the recipe. In fact, I recommend doubling the recipe (seriously, there just never seem to be enough) and it multiplies beautifully, so long as you cook it in small enough batches to have a single layer at the bottom of the pan with space in between chickpeas.

Crispy Fried Chickpeas with Garlic

1 can of chickpeas, rinsed under cold running water and drained

1.5 Tablespoons olive oil*

1 clove of garlic

salt, to taste

black pepper to taste, freshly ground

1. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil enough to cover the bottom of the pan and slightly creep up the sides.

2. When the oil is so hot that a tiny bubble or two starts to form,** add the chickpeas.

3. Shake the pan over the heat to coat the chickpeas, then leave them alone for 3 minutes, to allow that side to sear. Shake the pan to turn the chickpeas to a new side for searing and leave the dish alone for 3 minutes. Repeat one or more times, until the outside of the chickpeas has turned a darker color and has started to look crispy all around.

4. When the chickpeas have about 3 minutes more, toss some salt on a salad plate to cover with a very thin layer and crush a garlic clove into a paste using the back of a spoon or fork and bracing the garlic with the salt. When the garlic has been mashed into tiny pieces and the salt is incorporated the paste is ready to add to the chickpeas.

5. When your timer set for 3 minutes goes off, turn off the heat under the chickpeas and scrape garlic paste into the pan with the chickpeas. Stir to incorporate. Let dish sit in still-hot pan for another minute, then move to serving dish.

6. Serve while still warm.

I served it alongside a lemon and butter roasted chicken, a butter lettuce salad with a garlic-y dressing and some long grain brown rice (not pictured, but it was yummy together).

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback!

*Use enough to cover the bottom of your large saucepan. More may be needed. You want enough oil to pan fry in and get some crispiness creeping up along the sides of the beans

**I know olive oil has a low smoking point, but we're pan frying the chickpeas and olive oil is ok for pan frying.

Bacon Fat Roasted Potato Chips w/ Blue Cheese, Bacon Bits & Spring Onions

Ahh, leftovers. After I made those yummy scones I had plenty of Gorgonzola and a few spring onions lying around. What to do with it? Well, I had two large russets and a hankering for chips and this recipe was born! I hit upon rendered bacon fat as a means to make the chips a little bit more decadent and also because hello, bacon!

Good things start with rendering the fat from bacon!

I'm once again including the photo of the finished chips (from last post) to remind my readers of the deliciousness!

Bacon Fat Roasted Potato Chips w/ Bacon, Scallions and Gorgonzola

2 medium russet potatoes, thinly sliced*
6 slices of bacon, chopped into 1/2" pieces
2 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled finely
4 Spring onions, white & light green parts sliced finely
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In an 8" heavy bottomed skillet over medium-low heat, render bacon fat from chopped bacon.
2. Grease 2 cookie sheets with the bacon grease, lay potato slices singly in even layers. Brush bacon grease onto the tops of the potato slices.
3. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until edges start to brown just a bit.
4. In a bowl toss still-warm chips with black pepper.
5. Top with Gorgonzola, crispy bacon from the skillet and spring onions and serve.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I welcome your feedback!

*This is easiest with a madolin

Grilling Season + Upcoming Recipe

Happy Easter and general spring season, everyone! Just a quick update to let you know what we've put in the works this lazy Sunday.

The weather was fine so we decided to grill. There you see our juicy beef burgers grilling alongside zucchini squash and onions.

This Tuesday's blog update with include a recipe for these bacon fat roasted oven chips with gorgonzola crumbles, crispy bacon and spring onions

They were fabulous!