Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Egg Soup)

It’s Day Three of The Garden’s Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are sharing soup recipes.  Soup in the summer?  I know.  I get totally obsessed with soups in the winter, but hardly ever have them in the summer.  But guess what?  I have an awesome summer-friendly soup for you today.  It is super light and lemony and perfect for summertime.  It was March when I made this soup, but it was during that weird March heatwave, so it was like 84 degrees that day.

Have you ever heard of Avgolemono?  Click on that link to read all about it, but the gist of it is that it’s a Greek soup made up of lemon juice and eggs.  Orzo is cooked in chicken broth, then a mixture of lemon juice and eggs is added to thicken the broth.  Meat is optional; I chose some shredded chicken breast for mine.  Topping it off with fresh dill finishes it perfectly.

Avgolemono


6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup orzo, dry
Salt 
5 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Fresh dill


Directions:
In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.  Add the orzo and cook until tender but still al dente, about 7 minutes. Season with the salt and reduce heat to low; let simmer.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine.


Add the mixture back to the simmering saucepan. Stir just until the soup becomes opaque and thickens as the eggs cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  


Serve warm.


Makes 4 servings.

I know that the dill is technically the only garden produce here, but if you live in Florida, you could count the lemon too. 🙂  This soup is just so perfect for summertime that I had to share.

Be sure to check out all the other great soups below and come back on Friday when I will share with you a delicious summery dessert.

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Improv Challenge: Greek Roasted Potatoes with Feta and Lemon

It’s time again for the Improv Challenge.  The premise of this challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

This month the assigned ingredients were potatoes and cheese.  Oh man, what can’t you make with potatoes and cheese?  My first thought was some kind of baked cheesy potatoes, but then I saw a recipe for Greek Roasted Potatoes at Cinnamon Girl Recipes and I couldn’t wait to try it.  Then I realized that it qualified for this challenge.  I was happy to have a reason to try this amazing dish for myself.  I made a few changes; here’s my version.

Greek Roasted Potatoes with Feta and Lemon

Ingredients:

6 cups potatoes, 3/4″ cubes (about 2½ lbs.)

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp dried thyme

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp salt

1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°. Lightly grease 2 large baking sheets with oil.

In a large bowl toss potatoes with oil, thyme, oregano, and salt. Spread out on baking sheet, flesh sides down, and bake 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown on one side.  Carefully turn potatoes so they lie on another flesh side.  Bake another 8-10 minutes or until golden brown on that side.  Turn once more and bake until potatoes are cooked through, another 8-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, marinate the feta in the lemon juice and oregano.

Remove potatoes from oven and place them in a serving bowl.  Top with lemony feta and toss to combine.

Makes 4-6 servings.

These potatoes were phenomenal.  They were roasted perfectly, which I have had problems doing in the past.  Brushing the baking sheets with oil helped the potatoes to not stick so much.  The type of potatoes I used probably helped that too.  They were Klondike Rose with golden flesh.  They are not very starchy, so they don’t stick as badly.

I used fresh oregano instead of parsley because we don’t really like parsley.  I also used much less lemon, because I didn’t want it to be too sour.  

These potatoes roasted so perfectly that I will probably use this method (with different seasonings) the next time I want to roast potatoes.

Come back next month to see what fun thing I will make with peanut butter and jelly!

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Secret Recipe Club: Oregano Roasted Potatoes

This is my second month participating in the Secret Recipe Club, a group of food bloggers who secretly make  one of someone else’s dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  I really had fun last month, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else’s recipes.  It’s a great way to “meet” other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

This month I was assigned the blog Through The Bugs On My Windshield.  Like last month, this was a new blog to me.  The author is Suzanne, a woman who likes to cook, likes to travel, and loves her family.  Her blog is a mixture of recipes, travel pics (hence the name), and old (and new) family photos.  It’s really quite interesting!  While browsing Suzanne’s recipes, I found a few that I would like to try.  She has a really tasty looking Chicken Broccoli Stir-Fry, a gorgeous Cipollini Onion and Potato Pie, and probably because fall is just around the corner, her Roasted Pumpkin and Seeds was very tempting too!  But in the end I decided to go with a potato dish, her Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, a dish she nicknamed “Little Pieces of Heaven”.  I don’t care for rosemary very much, and I was planning on serving these potatoes with a Greek-style main dish, so I decided to use fresh oregano instead.

Oregano Roasted Potatoes


Ingredients:
2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1½ tbsp fresh oregano
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp kosher salt


Directions:
Preheat oven to 425°.


Wash and dry potatoes, dry them, then cut into quarters. Place them in a large bowl.


Add olive oil to and toss to coat the potatoes. Add the salt and toss again.  Combine the oregano, shallot, and garlic and stir well until the potatoes are evenly coated. 


Line a large pan with non-stick aluminum foil and place the potatoes on the pan.  Make sure they are all in a single layer.


Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, until the wedges become golden brown, flipping them over every 20 minutes or so. 


Makes 4 servings.

I really didn’t change much else about Suzanne’s dish.  I love that she included shallots; I love the flavor they bring to the dish.  The combination of oregano, shallot, and garlic is amazing on potatoes.  

Suzanne recommended using non-stick foil, which I have never used before.  I didn’t have any in the house, so I just used regular foil.  I did have some problems with the potatoes sticking, so I will second Suzanne’s recommendation and will look for that non-stick foil the next time I go to the store!

Even with that problem, the potatoes turned out great.  My husband couldn’t get enough, my three-year-old loved them, and since they didn’t contain dairy, my one-year-old gobbled them down too.  They were a huge hit.  I served them with my Spinach and Feta Turkey Burgers, so it was kind of like a Greek version of burgers and fries night!

Thanks, Suzanne, for a great dish!

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Spinach Feta Turkey Burgers

I tried a new burger recipe last night.  I saw these burgers on A Zesty Bite and knew I had to make them.  We had put feta on top of burgers before, but I never thought to put them inside the burger.  Genius.

The picture isn’t so great, because I find burgers very difficult to photograph.  This is one of those who-cares-what-it-looks-like-because-it-tastes-so-awesome recipes.  Although, it is kind of pretty in person.  You can’t go wrong with vibrant green flecks running through something.

Spinach Feta Turkey Burgers


Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
1 egg
1 tsp Greek seasoning
¾ cup feta, crumbled
¼ cup frozen spinach, thawed and drained
4 hamburger buns


Preparation:
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and thoroughly combine.  Divide into four patties.


Heat a large pan over medium-high heat.  Place patties in pan and cook for 5-6 minutes on each side, until cooked through.  Serve on buns.


Makes 4 servings.

The burgers are really good.  They are super duper moist.  I topped mine with mayo and thinly sliced onion.  Red onion would have been prettier, but I didn’t have any.  Tzatziki sauce would be really good on these burgers, I think.

My husband said these are quite possibly the best burgers he’s ever had.  He loved how juicy they were.

The original recipe called for fresh spinach, and I’m sure that would be good too, but I didn’t have any on hand.  Frozen spinach is something I always have, so it was easy to pull it out of the freezer and use that.  While I cooked these on the stovetop, I think they would be great on the grill as well.  In fact, I was kind of wishing I had done them that way.

I made a special side dish to go with these burgers, but I can’t tell you about it yet because it’s this month’s recipe for the Secret Recipe Club.  Come back Monday morning to read all about it!

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Potato and Beef Moussaka

Moussaka is a layered Greek dish traditionally consisting of eggplant and ground lamb. I saw this potato version in Cooking Light magazine a few years ago and had to try it. I’m not a big fan of eggplant, so making it with potato caught my attention. I made it with ground beef instead of the lamb because that’s what I usually have on hand. I made a few other changes to it and this is my amended recipe.

Potato and Beef Moussaka

Ingredients:

Olive oil

2 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into ¼” slices

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 lb. ground beef

1 cup tomato sauce

½ tsp salt

1½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 zucchini, sliced ⅛” thick

⅓ cup feta cheese

1 cup milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with olive oil. Add one-third of potato slices to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. Transfer potato to bowl. Repeat procedure with olive oil and remaining potato slices.

Recoat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, garlic, and beef to pan; cook until beef begins to brown. Add tomato sauce, salt, cumin, and cinnamon; cook 5 minutes.

Arrange half of potato slices in a 9×13” baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange half of zucchini slices over potatoes. Arrange beef mixture over zucchini; sprinkle with feta. Top with remaining zucchini and then potato slices. Combine milk and eggs in a small bowl; pour over potato mixture. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden and set. Remove from oven; let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 6 servings.

In addition to changing the lamb to beef, I also increased the cumin and cinnamon and added the zucchini and feta. The zucchini is so thinly sliced that you don’t need to cook it before layering it in the dish; it will be perfect after being in the oven for half an hour. I definitely recommend using a mandoline for this recipe.

This dish is super tasty and we love it but I don’t make it very often. It is quite time consuming because you have to brown all the potato slices on the stovetop. The recipe says to do it in three batches, but I can never fit all of mine in three, so I end up doing four. To save on time, I brown the ground beef in a separate pan so that it can be ready to go by the time the potatoes are done. It is kind of pain, but the finished dish is worth it.

Definitely not the prettiest version of this dish I have ever made. I usually arrange the potato slices in a nicer pattern, but I was in a hurry when I made this last night and didn’t feel like messing with it.

Chicken Souvlaki Pita Sandwiches

I saw this recipe on a blog when I was working on my meal plan for April and added it to the list right away. My husband and I love Greek food (especially gyros), so I knew this would be right up our alley.

Chicken Souvlaki Pita Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 lb. boneless chicken breast

¼ cup olive oil

4 tsp Greek seasoning

Tzatziki sauce

Feta cheese

Spinach

Pita bread or flatbread

Directions:

Slice chicken into thin strips. Place in resealable plastic bag and add olive oil and Greek seasoning. Seal bag and squish it around until the oil and seasoning is evenly distributed. Place in fridge and marinate for several hours.

Grill chicken on grill pan or outside grill. (If you have a hard time grilling the thin strips on your outside grill, you can marinate and grill the chicken breasts whole and then cut into strips after cooking.)

Build sandwiches by layering chicken, tzatziki sauce, feta, and spinach on pita or flatbread.

Makes 4 servings.

This is really tasty and really easy to make. I wanted to make it with flatbread, but this stuff in the picture is all I could find. It’s some whole grain healthy brand of flatbread, and to be honest, it tasted like soggy cardboard. I was looking for something like the flatbread they have at Subway. So next time I think I will just use pita. That’s more traditional anyway.

I, of course, used Penzey’s Greek seasoning for this, but the blogger I got the recipe from used Cavender’s.

The blog I saw this on didn’t give any indication of what to serve with these sandwiches. I thought some kind of potato would be good with it. So I boiled some whole potatoes, cut them into thick slices, seasoned them with a lemon garlic seasoning, and pan fried them until golden brown. They were really good with the souvlaki. I looked up souvlaki on Wikipedia this morning and found out that it is traditionally served with fried potatoes on it!

Tzatziki Sauce

Tzatziki is a sauce made out of Greek yogurt and cucumbers. It is often found on gyros and other Greek food. This is the recipe I use to make it.

Tzatziki Sauce

Ingredients:

1 large cucumber, peeled and seeded

6 oz. Greek yogurt

½ clove garlic

½ tsp lemon juice

¾ tsp olive oil

Salt, to taste

Directions:

Grate or finely chop cucumber. Place in a kitchen towel and squeeze dry.

Put ½ cup of the cucumber in a medium bowl. Add the yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. Taste and add salt if desired.

Mix well. Refrigerate for at least a few hours before serving.

Makes 1½ cups.

There are many different recipes for tzatziki sauce. Some include diced onions along with the cucumber. It’s easy to change it up to suit your tastes.

I know that 6 ounces of yogurt seems like an odd measurement, but I wrote it that way because all I can find at the store is 6 ounce containers of Greek yogurt. If you have a whole cup, use a little more cucumber and lemon juice.

I serve this sauce with Chicken Souvlaki and my Greek Falafel Pita Sandwiches.

The first time I made this I grated the cucumber, but yesterday I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to go to the trouble, so I just finely diced it. Either way is good.

Greek-Style Burgers

This isn’t really a recipe, per se, but more of an idea of how to make burgers a bit more interesting. I am not a big fan of burgers, but my mother-in-law gave us some frozen hamburger patties and I wanted to use them.

Greek-Style Burgers

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef or 4 preformed hamburger patties

Greek Seasoning (I use Penzey’s)

1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1 fresh tomato, diced

sliced black olives

4 hamburger buns

hummus or tzatziki sauce

Directions:

Season ground beef liberally with Greek Seasoning and form into patties if necessary. Grill or cook the way you normally do burgers.

Top with the feta cheese, tomato, and olives. Spread hummus or tzatziki sauce on buns and serve warm.

Makes 4 servings.

Very tasty and a nice variation from the standard hamburger with american cheese. We weren’t able to grill these, as even though it was warm enough outside, our deck was still covered in a couple inches of snow.

I served mine with some sweet potato waffle fries.

*The waffle fries: I used a crinkle cutter to cut 2 sweet potatoes into 1/4″ slices, covered them with plastic wrap and microwaved them for 3 minutes. Then I put them on a baking sheet, brushed with oil, sprinkled with salt, and baked them at 450 for 15-20 minutes, flipping them over once. It’s an idea I saw in a parenting magazine.

Greek Style Roasted Chicken

I like roasting chickens in a rotisserie, but I felt like doing something a little different this month. I got this recipe from my favorite recipe website, RecipeZaar. I made a few changes; here is my amended recipe.

Greek Style Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

1 (2½ lb.) roasting chicken, gutted, rinsed, and patted dry

1 tbsp garlic-flavored olive oil (or 2 cloves garlic and regular olive oil)

2 tsp oregano

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp garlic powder

2 cups chopped fresh spinach

¼ cup crumbled feta cheese

1 slice whole wheat bread, cut into small pieces

¼ cup sliced olives

¼ cup melted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°. Brush chicken with oil. If not using garlic flavored oil, cut the garlic cloves and rub over the skin before brushing with oil. Combine oregano, garlic powder, and salt. Rub onto chicken. Combine spinach, feta, bread, olives, and butter. Slip fingers in between skin and breast, and lightly stuff the pockets on both sides. Lightly spoon stuffing into main cavity and neck, if desired. Place in broiling pan, breast side up. Roast for approximately 1½ hours, or until meat thermometer reads 160° when inserted into thigh, and juices run clear.

Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition Info:

Serving Size: ¼ of chicken and stuffing

Calories: 302

Fat: 25g

Sat. Fat: 8g

Cholesterol: 82mg

Sodium: 191mg

Carbs: 2g

Fiber: 0g

Protein: 18g

This was very tasty chicken. I am not a huge fan of stuffings; I usually prefer to make a dressing on the side, but this one really gave the chicken lots of flavor. The original recipe for the stuffing included ham and pine nuts, but I omitted them and added sliced olives instead. Make sure you don’t add salt to the stuffing; with the feta and the olives it is already a bit on the salty side.

The stuffing before going into the bird. So pretty!

The bird going into the oven. I tried roasting some red potatoes alongside the chicken, but that didn’t work so well. I tossed them with oil and Penzey’s Greek Seasoning and placed them all around the chicken. Even though the chicken cooked for at least an hour and half (if not two), the potatoes were still quite hard when the chicken was done. This surprised me. If anything, I thought they would get overdone. So if I try it again next time, I will boil the potatoes for a few minutes before adding them to the roasting pan.

A note on the cooking time: The recipe says an hour and a half, but that is just an estimate. The only way to make sure poultry is sufficiently done is to use a thermometer. Poultry should be served at no less that 160°. I use a probe thermometer that has an alarm on it. I put the probe in the dark meat because it takes longer than the breast. In this case, when the dark meat was done, I checked the temp on the stuffing and it was only at 130°. Make sure your stuffing is up to temperature too, because it can carry the same harmful bacteria the chicken does. So I put the chicken back in for a few minutes until the stuffing was 160°.

Zucchini Chicken Skillet

This is a recipe I got from BHG.com. They call it “Greek-Style Chicken Skillet” but there really isn’t much Greek about it so I renamed it for my personal recipe collection.

Zucchini Chicken Skillet

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Greek seasoning or salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1 ½ cups zucchini, sliced (1 medium)

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup water

10.75 oz. can condensed tomato soup

2 cups hot cooked couscous or orzo

½ cup crumbled feta cheese (2 oz.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 250°. Sprinkle chicken with seasoning. In a 12” skillet cook chicken in hot oil over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes or until internal temperature of chicken registers 170° on an instant-read thermometer, turning once. Remove chicken from skillet; keep warm in oven.

Add zucchini, onion, garlic, and more seasoning to skillet. Add the water; reduce heat. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Stir in soup. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes more, stirring once.

To serve, divide couscous or orzo among dinner plates. Place chicken on couscous. Spoon vegetable mixture over chicken and couscous. Sprinkle with feta cheese.

Makes 4 servings.

I liked this. It’s nothing fancy, but a nice simple meal that is perfect for a busy weeknight. I made a few changes from the original recipe. First, it called for salting the chicken before browning. I have some Greek seasoning in my pantry (Penzey’s) and I thought that would “Greek” it up a bit more. It added a lot more flavor than regular salt would have. I’m sure Greek seasoning is available in the grocery store as well. The only other thing I changed was to use the oven to keep the chicken warm. I didn’t think it would stay very warm just sitting in foil, so I turned the oven on low, covered them with foil, and put them in there while I finished the zucchini. That worked very nicely.

You’ll notice in the picture that I used couscous. I had every intention of using orzo (it’s Greekier), but discovered that I didn’t have any. Oops. So I used couscous. It was good with the couscous, but I will try it with orzo next time.

A reviewer on the website where I got it said to make it more Greek you could use canned diced tomatoes with oregano and basil in place of the tomato soup. That sounds like a good idea. I think I will try that next time. I think that if you make that change, use Greek seasoning, and use orzo instead of couscous, maybe you really could call it Greek-style!

Lena liked it too. I cut up the chicken and zucchini for her and she gobbled it all up.