Greek Tacos

The other night I made Greek Tacos - and since Blake said it's one of the top three things I've ever cooked him - I thought I would post the recipe. It's my play on a Real Simple recipe and something off the Food Network website.


Ingredients:
4 tomatoes, diced
1 small red onion, diced
1 cup crumbled Feta
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted & chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons Extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup Greek yogurt, substitute plain if you can't find Greek
1 small cucumber, shredded, water drained
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lemon juiced
2 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh dill

Romaine lettuce, chopped
Pita bread (substitute tortillas if you have them laying around)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into pieces

Heat oven to 200° F.

Wrap the bread or tortillas in foil and place in oven to keep warm.

In a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes, onion, Feta, and olives.

In a large bowl, combine the oregano, thyme, pepper, vinegar, and the lemon juice. Slowly add 4 tablespoons of the oil in a steady stream, whisking constantly until incorporated. Pour 2 1/2 tablespoons of the vinaigrette over the tomato mixture, toss, and set aside.

Add the chicken to the remaining vinaigrette, toss, and set aside. Heat EVOO in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Transfer the chicken but not the liquid to the skillet and heat, turning occasionally, until cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the yogurt, cucumber, garlic, vinegar, lemon and dill.

Assemble: pita bread, chicken, tomato mixture, romaine lettuce, and yogurt topping.

I recommend serving with this. And I can never find orzo so I just use brown rice. Enjoy!

PS - Don't judge me bc I used the word EVOO!

Just workin' on my fitness

February 21 we're doing this.

And March 1 Lauren and I are doing this. (Please be impressed I've never run in my life!)

I'm really not looking forward to the swim - don't the girls above look cold?!? Plus - I found out this weekend that there are alligators in Lake Houston. Ah! I'm going to be swimming VERY FAST!!

Sunday

And what did we do on Sunday? Oh just got a gator high-centered in a sand pile. The usual.

Blake had to work a Garden Show on Saturday and when it was all said and done he brought home the equipment that they were showcasing at the show - a skidsteer and a gator. So on Sunday we got all bundled up and decided to go off roading! Everything was all fine and dandy cruising through open fields and feeling the wind in our hair until Blake decided to go up a sand pile in the empty lot next to our house.

You can see what happened.

We shoved some timber under the back wheels and put it in neutral and some neighbors helped Blake push it back. Great way to meet the neighbors!

Saturday

Just when you think it's time to pack up your winter clothes - someone decides to throw an Ugly Sweater Party!! Oh fun. John Peters, one of Blake's friends from John Deere AND neighbor (added bonus) invited everyone to break out their ugliest sweaters to come party down. I went to Goodwill the day of just to make sure our outfits were extra ugly.

What do you think?

We had a great time seeing some other John Deere people, Kyle and Jackie, and meeting some of John's neighbors.

A while back, John went gator hunting, and fried up some of his catch for his guests. He served it with four dipping sauces and it was DELISH. All the boys were teasing him that he's going to make a good housewife someday. Poor guy. John you're a catch and you're going to make some girl VERY LUCKY one day. :)

Here John is two-stepping with a party-goer. Look at that sweater - it's not ugly at ALL. FOR SHAME.
More dancing - Marlin and Ivey - John's hilarious and very kind next door neighbors.

Thanks for such a good time John. But I say you need to work on the ugliness of your sweater for next year!

Friday

Here it is Friday and I'm posting about stuff we did last weekend but oh well!! Better late than never right?

First - when I went to go download pics from this past weekend -I still had a few stragglers from our costume party and some candids of Blake in fancy goggles.

Did I mention that Lauren HAND MADE her costume?

Opening a 'Our First Christmas Together' ornament that Ben and Lauren Greek bought us. Cute! They also gave us a wine stopper that says 'Let it Flow! Let it Flow! Let it Flow!' {As in let it snow.}

And then here's Blake in one of his Christmas presents. He's always crying when he chops onions so I bought him onion chopping goggles.

Snazzy eh?

Now all he needs is one of these.

Alright so back to Friday.

My mom and I both got haircuts by Celeste and then all three of us went to go eat at a new restaurant on Main St in League City - Avo's? Not sure. But it was a cute Italian restaurant right next to Helen's Garden.

Then that night, we had Jason and Christy, Jeff and Jennifer, Christy's mom Beth, Christy's brother and gf Tommy and Liz, and Liz's brother Carlin... whew... all over for pizza and game night. We had fun eating, playing games and drinking all of Beth's wine! :)

This is the first game we played - Mad Gab. I HATED IT! Beth and Liz won and Tommy and Christy came in a close second. I think Jason and I got 2 points total. It was brutal.

According to Wikipedia: Mad Gab is a game created in which there are at least two teams and 2 to 12 players. Each team has two minutes to sound out three puzzles. The puzzles, also known as mondegreens, contain small words that, when put together, make a word or phrase. For example, "These If Hill Wore" when pronounced quickly sounds like "The Civil War." There are 2 difficulties: easy and hard. The faster the puzzles are answered, the more points the players score.

I was awful and I think the only person more awful than me was JEFF. At one point when it was his turn he was saying 'North America' in plain English and he STILL didn't know what the answer was. I guess we aren't audio learners.

I was just waiting until it was time to play THIS!

Best game ever! We played girls v boys and the girls won - naturally.

Thanks to everyone for coming - can't wait to do it again!

January Birthdays

Ok so one of my New Years Resolutions is to keep up with everyone's birthdays this year. (I think that's one of my resolutions every year but oh well! We'll see how long this one lasts.)


Blake's close friend from Tech who he shared a lot of classes with (they were both Restaurant Hotel Management majors) Tahira celebrated her birthday on the first. Tahira's always a lot of fun to be around and she's living it up it San Fransisco working at the Four Seasons. Here she is with some other RHIM majors who came to our wedding. Including Mr Matt Tucker on the right who's a daddy of a big 6 month old cutie Trace!
Our niece, Miss Madelyn Davis, will celebrate her birthday on the 10th. I wonder what kind of theme her birthday will be this year? Madelyn's mom is a teacher and she's always coming up with creative ideas for the kids parties. Madelyn's always laughing and giggling every time we see her - here she is all dressed up before our wedding.

It also just so happens that that stud sitting next to her, Mr Teagan Davis, her brother, celebrates his birthday this month on the 24th. But he's so photogenic that I had to put up another pic of him. We had fun this Thanksgiving with all the nieces and nephews when they came to our house and we all played kickball. Uncle Blake had no problem throwing the kickball at the when they were running the bases and it was pretty funny!Blake's Pops will celebrate his birthday on the 24th. Pops is quite the cajun chef... he makes homemade hogs head cheese... now that takes talent. He's also a great gardener and taught Blake most of what he knows about gardening so Blake is ready to give him some competition this year with his first garden in our backyard. In the words of Iron Chef, we'll see 'who's cuisine reigns supreme!' Our good friend Jeff, pictured below with his girlfriend Jennifer who just moved to Houston (SOUNDS SERIOUS!) will be another year older this month. Up until we bought our house, Blake and I have either lived with or in the same apartment complex as Jeff. We just can't get enough of him and him corporate trash talk I guess.



Happy Birthday to everyone!