Father's Day and Other Things

Well, Chris's first official Father's Day was a lot of fun. The celebration sort of stretched out for the whole weekend because pretty much nothing went as planned! We were going to go out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate, but then we were driving around town Friday night and were decidedly hungry and so we ate out Friday instead.

Chris was very nice to hold Will in the Bjorn for me; I'd been on-the-go with Will all week and my back had begun hurting from carrying him around for a couple hours every day. On Sunday I was going to make Greek burgers and chocolate cake--and I did, only after a little morning drama with a screaming baby who refused to open his eyes. We took him to the after-hours care facility at the clinic he goes to (how convenient is THAT?! A $20 co-pay instead of an ER bill) and the doc said he had an infection in the tissue surrounding his right eye. He's on antibiotics till the end of the month. But you wouldn't know anything is wrong. Such a smiley, happy baby; he was pretty much himself by the end of the day. So I was able to make dinner as planned and very tasty it was, too, if I do say so myself (and more about that later). As it was Father's Day, Will wore his Giants onesie and he looks exceedingly handsome in it:

Ok, I don't know why this is sideways; it's not sideways as stored in the computer; for some reason it's the blog upload that's rotating it, but you can still see how studly he looks. Chris says he think that if my mom were a baseball fan, she's probably be a Giants fan, because San Francisco is her favorite city and she LOVES the color orange. And speaking of handsome, here's how he looks today:

But I digress. Back to Father's Day. A couple weeks ago, I bought a t-shirt for Will to wear that says, "I love my dad," but in all the sick-baby chaos, I forgot to dress him in it, so he wore it the day after Father's Day. And the day after that, he wore his Star Wars, "My dad rules the galaxy" onesie as pictured in a previous post.

So the weather has been all dreary here, but one day last week, the clouds parted just long enough for me to notice how stunning the light was shining on the valley. These pictures really do not do the light justice, but I've been meaning to post pics of our amazing view anyway, so here it is:

Check out the zoom on our camera!

So I'm constantly trying to train myself to be more frugal and a large part of that is getting myself to eat leftovers. I try to re-invent the main ingredient of the dish and so this week I invented Greek soft-shell tacos. I know you're thinking, "Um, Becca....That's called a gyro." No. Just be patient and read on. So I made the Greek burgers as mentioned before. Here's my recipe:

Burgers:

1 package lean ground turkey

GOYA seasoning (I'm sorry to say I didn't measure how much I put in; probably around 2 tsp)

1/4 C. crumbled feta cheese

*Mix all these together, including crumbled feta. Shape into patties; refrigerate for about an hour so the coldness of the meat keeps the burger together. Grill until each side is very well caramelized. Serve on buns with red onion, baby greens, more feta, and white sauce.

White Sauce

1 1/2 C. plain yogurt

1 T. minced garlic

1 T. dried onion

2 T. lemon juice

*Blend all these together in food processor. Allow to sit for several minutes so onion has the chance to develop. I think the next time I make the burgers, I'll add about a 1/4 c. of feta to the white sauce so the cheese stays on the burger better.

So just this was very tasty. I also picked up a caprese salad from the Smith's olive bar to serve as a side. But, as I said, the Greek burritos are what were really amazing. So the next day, I heated up a tortilla and then chopped up the burgers into good-sized chunks and let them cook even more on the stove top on high heat. THEN, I added the tomatoes and mozzarella from the caprese salad, allowing them both to caramelize; made sure some of the flavored olive oil got poured on the skillet. I spread the white sauce on the tortilla along with some baby greens, the meat, cheese and tomatoes. So. Good. I would not even bother with the Greek burgers anymore and just cook the ground turkey down like you would ground beef for tacos--except that it's such a great two-part meal. So I think this will become a staple around the Tingey household. It'll feed two people for two meals.

Another recipe I made lately is from my friend Clare, who brought these to me shortly after I had my baby. Also incredibly tasty (and very versatile--this is the way I made it):

Black Bean and Spinach Burritos/Enchiladas (yields about 5 burritos):

1 can black beans (do not rinse/drain)

1 T. minced garlic

1 T. dried onion

Dash of celery salt

Dash of cayenne

1 t. cumin

*Heat all these on stovetop until onion is developed.

2 C. shredded cheddar

1/2 bag of mixed baby greens, well chopped

*Fill tortillas one at a time by lining with cheddar, then a few spoons-full of black beans. Fold over and rest in a 9x13 baking dish. Approximately 5 enchiladas will fit in a baking dish unless you really roll them tight and squish them together. Sprinkle the remaining cheddar over top tortillas and bake until cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream on the side (though they really don't need it). When Clare made this, she used wheat tortillas and that was also very tasty; I had white on hand, so that's what I used. Also very tasty. She used only spinach but I like the diversity of greens and I chopped them up fine while she left her greens chunky. I think she also said she occasionally makes some kind of sauce to pour over top, but I forget how she said she made it. You can season the beans any way you like, I suppose. This is just what I instinctively threw together and I must say it worked out VERY, VERY well. And it would have been a super quick meal to prepare, too, if I hadn't cooked some Spanish rice along with it (wasn't too great so I'm not sharing the recipe I got online).

I've talked enough for one post. :)