It was Greek to the kids

A concoction - I mean recipe creation - we made here tonight.  Here's the dinner size:

Brown 2lbs ground beef (not the e. coli. type!  Mom and Dad bought their beef direct!)
Add in generous quantities of oregano-fresh or dried
Add very, very generous (like 5!) cloves of minced garlic
Splash a little lemon juice in there...
Add a large, or two small packages of frozen spinach
Stir and fry together until it's crumbly...and not very wet!

Tzatziki:
small container of Greek yogurt
crushed garlic
peeled and cubed cucumber (precision alert!) about a generous handful
2 tablespoons of lemon juice

3 cups of cooked brown rice

Bringing it together:
Put half the cooked beef mixture into a casserole dish (9x13 or so)
Mix half the tzatziki with the rice, and layer on top of the beef
Peel and chop the rest of the cucumber, stir in with the rest of the beef, and layer that atop the rice
Using the other half of the tzatziki, crumble in as much feta cheese as  you like, and spoon, then spread over the meat mixture...bake until the cheese just begins to brown.

Serve it with your favourite kind of Greek salad.  Our family's is cucumber, yellow and red peppers, halved red grapes, tiny cherry tomatoes, and chopped fresh dill along with a fair amount of feta.

If I were really going to knock off a Greek restaurant dinner, I'd think about adding garlic style flatbread...some lemon potatoes, or some nicely heated whole wheat pita (which I couldn't eat-but would serve!)

If you can find grape leaves, the meat mixture-before cucumber version, is the stuff with which to stuff them, bake them, and serve with a lemon sauce.

More?  Baklava inspired dessert, which is a hybrid thing I created with apple pie in mind.  Using apple pie ingredients and phyllo pastry, and butter, not margarine!!! makes a delicious ending, especially with  a little vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.  Layer a couple of sheets of phyllo into a generously buttered dish, layer with the apples, cinnamon, allspice, and butter...more phyllo, folding it over top, more apple, more phyllo, etc...until you're out of the phyllo sheets.

Drink some red wine!  Done.

(I've been in Las Vegas...wine with everything!!!)

Cheers and chao!