Slow-Cooker Beef Gyros

This was a pretty good recipe.  And a bit different from our usual meals.  I was a bit nervous about this, because the meat hadn't thawed completely before I put it in the crock pot, and I didn't want to overcook it, but it turned out pretty darn perfect.  Zak was great and made the cucumber yogurt sauce and chopped the onions and tomatoes.  It was all ready when I came home for work and pretty tasty!  We have lots of leftovers!

Meat

2 lb. boneless chuck steak

1/4 c. olive oil

2 Tbl. lemon juice

1 Tbl. minced garlic

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Dill Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

1 c. plain Greek yogurt

1 c. diced seedless cucumber

1 Tbl. dill

1/4 tsp. salt

Pita bread

toppings: lettuce, tomatoes, red onions

1.  Place beef in crock pot.

2.  Mix rest of 'meat' ingredients in a small bowl and pour over beef, turning to coat.

3.  Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours (until meat is tender, it was practically falling apart!)

4.  Mix sauce ingredients together, spread on pita bread.

5.  Top pitas with meat and toppings.

meat about to be cut up

cucumber sauce

yum!

Cranberry Bread

I remember my mom making this recipe a lot around Christmas time and giving them as gifts to her friends, people in the ward, etc. I am thinking of making this for some of my friends for Christmas, but wanted to do a 'test run' before. I played around with the recipe and it came out just delicious! Zak took some to work and it was a hit, so it looks like my plans will continue as scheduled...

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbl. lemon zest
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
6 Tablespoons plain yogurt
1-1/2 cups fresh cranberries, washed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together flours, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar; set aside.
3. Place sugar & lemon zest in a food processor or blender and process until lemon zest is finely grated.
4. Add butter and process until smooth; add eggs one at a time; mix well.
5. Add vanilla and yogurt and mix until smooth; transfer mixture to a separate bowl.
6. Place cranberries in food processor and pulse on and off until coarsely chopped.
7. Add cranberries to dry mixture, mix to combine.
8. Stir butter-yogurt mixture into flour-cranberry mixture and mix well.
9. Place into greased/floured pans and bake 50-60 minutes (40 for mini loaves) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
10. Cool on a rack for 30 minutes; remove from pans and continue cooling. Wrap well and refrigerate 24 hours before serving.

This bread freezes really well. This recipe makes either one big loaf or three mini loaves.

Banana Nut Muffins

I found this recipe online and decided to give it a try, since we had a ton of bananas about to go bad. They were easy to make and very yummy! I froze some, I hope they freeze well! I've been playing around lately with making recipes with whole wheat flour, applesauce...so far everything I've tried has worked out, and no one even notices!

1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbl. baking powder
1/4 c. salt
3 c. mashed banana
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. nonfat plain yogurt (I only had vanilla at the time, still worked fine)
2 eggs
3/4 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
1 -2 dash cinnamon
dash nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease muffin pan.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together banana, sugar, egg and vanilla.
4. Stir in the yogurt.
5. Add banana yogurt mixture to flour, stir until just combined.
6. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool before serving.
Makes 24 muffins.

Peach Gelato

Zak's grandparents stopped by a week or so ago and brought us a big box of softball-sized, juicy peaches (as well as some plums, a mouth-watering cantaloupe, and a huge watermelon). We both adore peaches (I have delicious memories of my grandpa making peach frappes when I was a kid, and then there was my aunt's peach cobbler, and and and...) and were thrilled to have so many of them. We ate plenty of them for breakfast (with strawberries and blueberries, mmm) and smoothies (so good), but what I wanted to try the most was a gelato-type dessert. Zak really wanted to make peach ice cream, as we liked our peach frozen yogurt, but weren't too thrilled with some parts of it. But I told him to trust me, because gelato is the number 1 dessert food of all-time, in the category of frozen desserts. He wasn't sure about it, but once again, he has learned never to doubt my culinary expertise, haha.

This recipe is so easy and simple, and what is best about it is that it captures the essence of the peaches. As opposed to an ice cream, where the cream is most of the flavor, the gelato showcases the flavor of the peaches. It is absolutely delicious, and while it may not be 100% traditional gelato, it's certainly good enough for me in Moscow, Idaho. Enjoy!

(P.S. Thank you, Grandpa & Grandpa Brown for bringing us all that yummy fruit!)

3 lbs. peaches, pitted & peeled (I used about 4 cups, since I had no idea how many pounds it was, seemed to work out fine)
1/4 c. sugar (or more)
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt [other variants include mascarpone or creme fraiche, I want to try them both]

1. Cut the peaches into very small pieces-the smaller they are cut, the faster they will freeze.
2. Arrange peach pieces in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet and freeze solid, about 2 hours.
3. Place frozen peaches in food processor with sugar, and grind briefly.
4. Add the yogurt (or other ingredient) and pulse until the mixture is smooth (we added some of the leftover peach juice and some vanilla as well).
5. Empty mixture into a small container and freeze again, about 20 to 30 minutes. The texture should be soft, but not too soft.


A small problem with this is that it freezes very solid, and then takes awhile to thaw. We had it in the fridge for about 3 hours after keeping it in the freezer all night, and it was perfect.

Honey Peach Frozen Yogurt

This week we made honey peach frozen yogurt because we had a bunch of peaches and we love peach ice cream. However, we decided to use vanilla yogurt instead of heavy cream so it would be a less fattening. This recipe was really simple and we added a few extra ingredients until it tasted how we wanted it to. Delicious!

3 c. peaches (peeled, pitted - - about 3 peaches)
1 (32 oz.) vanilla yogurt
1/4 c. honey
2 Tbl. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

1. Place all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.
2. Add mixture to ice cream maker and freeze according to directions.

Very simple! It did freeze rather hard, so it'd be a good idea to let it stand at room temperature for 5 - 10 minutes before serving. Also, we decided to blend all the peaches up because we hate having frozen chunks of peaches in the middle of the ice cream/yogurt, so if you want to blend half and have the other half cut up small, that would work too.

Oh, and I was a little exuberant with the food dye.