tzatziki – Sheetar.com

One Local Summer 2011 – Week 8

By Sheetar 8 July 2011 8 July 2011

I’m late getting this one posted, but it was cooked during week 8, honest! We had an abundance of dill growing in the planter on our deck, so I decided to make some tzatziki, one of my summer favorites. It’s just cucumbers in yogurt with dill, but I LOVE dill like nobody’s business. Husband grilled up the chicken to perfection, and our guest, Abbie, slid all the vegetables (squash, onions, and bok choy) onto a skewer that also went onto the grill. Pretty basic, but it was DELICIOUS and we were able to put it together last-minute before dinner.

Chicken with tzatziki and vegetables:
Chicken – Mt. View Organics
Cucumbers – North Star Orchard
Dill – My Garden
Squash – North Star Orchard
Candy Onion – Smith’s Produce (Anselma Market)
Bok Choy – North Star Orchard
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Non local – olive oil, pepper, red wine vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer – Week 7

By Sheetar 30 June 2010 30 June 2010

Another week is on the books. Or Blog. I’ve always been a big fan of Greek food and gyros in particular. So, this week, with dill running amok in the planter on the deck, I decided to prune it back a little, make some tzatziki and work up some chicken gyros. This was also the first meal we had on our brand new patio, and what a way to start many summers of relaxing dinners! MANY thanks to Ryan Steckel of Steckel Building for his amazing work on the patio. We’re positively thrilled with the results. Onto the ingredients!

Chicken Gyro:
Pretty basic, when you get down to it. Pitas were homemade using this recipe and really were more time consuming to make than difficult – I did substitute one cup of flour for whole wheat pastry flour and used plain old bread flour for the other two. I decided to throw them on the super-hot pizza stone on the grill since it was just so incredibly hot this past week and I wasn’t going to heat up the house with any baking. Turns out, it worked out perfectly, once I got the hang of it. The thinner the dough is and the hotter the stone is, the better the pitas puff up and shrink back down. The chicken was marinated, skewered, and grilled while the pitas cooled a little, and the vegetables were in the grill wok on the next burner.
Bread Flour – Anselma Mill
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Anselma Mill
Chicken – Mountain View Organics
Oregano – Back deck planters (used in marinade for chicken with Olive Oil, Vinegar, and Lemon Juice)
Tomatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Onions – Smith’s Produce
Sharp II Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm. Used this as the base for the Tzatziki
Cucumbers – Smith’s Produce
Dill – Back deck planters
Non-Local: Salt, Sugar, Olive Oil, Yeast, Pepper, Lemon Juice

Vegetables:
These cooked up and were so tasty. The first zucchini of the year are always my favorite.
Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
Yellow Squash – Smith’s Produce
Carrots – Jack’s Farm
Non-Local – Salad Dressing as a marinade

One Local Summer

OLS: Week 2

By Sheetar 11 June 2009 11 June 2009

Week 2 of One Local Summer is cooked and consumed already.

I did say dill last week right? I should’ve said yogurt would be the theme of this week’s meal. Let’s go over what’s on that plate. In the front, Sugar Snap Peas picked up at Kimberton Whole Foods (KWF) in Kimberton, PA. They were labelled as being grown locally, but didn’t mention which farm. The skewered chicken, also found at KWF is from Eberly Poultry and was marinated in olive oil and lemon juice before being tossed on the grill. The sauce over the chicken is a sort of cucumberless tzatziki sauce using goat’s milk yogurt from Shellbark Hollow Farm and dill from the deck planter. In the back is wilted turnip greens from the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market with a few sun-dried tomatoes from last year’s garden (roasted and then frozen, thawed, dehydrated). Dessert is the same goat’s milk yogurt with some fresh Lancaster County farm-stand strawberries blended in.

Non-local ingredients: Olive Oil, lemon juice, spices (marinade for the chicken)

Now let’s go over why I LOVE LOVE LOVE this meal. First, my obsession with dill – it’s limitless. I pretty much believe that dill belongs in everything and I love the Oregon Herb bread that the Great Harvest Bread Company makes because the herb pretty much means dill. Sadly, I don’t think cucumbers are in season around here yet, but even without the cucumber, that tzatziki sauce was delicious. MMMmm dill. And the chicken with the marinade worked out perfectly – so soft and juicy and DELICIOUS. But, my new find of the week and a new favorite is that goat’s milk yogurt from Shellbark Hollow Farm. There’s something about the goat’s milk that gives the yogurt a little extra zip or zing or pizzazz. You should go and check out the website for Shellbark Hollow and watching the “awwwww” inspiring videos on the goat of the month page. I have a feeling that the goat’s milk products will be making a regular appearance in my diet now that I’ve found out how incredible they taste. And now, as I sit here and digest that wonderful meal, I’m already making plans for the leftovers.. Frozen Goat’s Milk Strawberry Yogurt anyone?