Brielle's Avalon

OK, maybe it’s just Tzadziki, but people often seem to need to specify things and make sure we all know how something is used. I first encountered this when a friend in Florida had us over for dinner and made some lovely Greek food. I fell in love. Turns out, I’d had it before years ago at a little gyro place in Scottsdale that I still go to once in a while now that I’m back home. I looked it up and decided I could make it and it’d be good for using up leftovers. The guys agreed and we used it on leftover chicken, pork or beef for roll-ups depending on what we’d cooked/baked/roasted earlier in the week. Here goes:

1 cucumber, half a pint container yogurt, dill, mint, lemon, garlic and olive oil. The measurements are approximate, depending on your taste and mood.

Peel the cucumber.

Scoop/scrape the seeds out with a spoon. Give the peels and seeds to the chickens or add to the compost heap.

Grate the cucumber.

Salt it. Set it aside for a few minutes while you do something else, like take the peels out to the chickens. They can be amusing, so you can be excused for watching them for a bit.

Drain the cucumber in a sieve or linen tea towel. press as much of the moisture out as is easy for you.

Add about half the yogurt in the container.

Grate the zest off a lemon with the fine part of the grater.

If you need to, scrape the zest out from between the grater holes with the tip of a knife.

Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the yogurt.

Pick some dill out of the garden.

Squish it into a ball and chop it.

Pick some mint out of the garden.

Pull some leaves off the mint, roll them up, chop them and add them with the dill to the yogurt.

Mix well.

Oh, I forgot! Add garlic. You can mince it but a press like this is easier.

Squeeze through and scrape off with a knife.

Pour in a couple tablespoons worth of olive oil and mix well. Refrigerate until needed.

Spread on a tortilla or in a pita. Add meat (chicken tonight), lettuce, bell pepper, onion, tomato, cheese…anything you think might taste good. If using a tortilla or other soft flatbread, roll and eat. If using a pita, just cut it open and fill before enjoying your creation.