I can be your gyro, baby

The other day I noticed that my fridge contained, among other things, lots of cucumbers and a big carton of plain yogurt. In my mind, cucumbers + yogurt = tzatziki. And if you give a mouse tzatziki, he's GOING to ask for some pita bread and roasted lamb slices to make a gyro sandwich. (By the way, "gyro" is pronounced "hero", making my title all the more clever)

This morning I made Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is just regular yogurt that has drained over a coffee filter for 2 hours, letting out gross cloudy water and leaving behind thick, rich, tangy goodness. Tzatziki consists of said goodness mixed with diced cucumbers, garlic, dill and some oil and vinegar. It's kind of like what the Israelis at Gush used to eat for breakfast, execpt they used gevina levana. And it was gross.

However, despite the fact that my yogurt was labeled OU (no mention of D), I resisted the temptation to grill up some lamb to go with my tzatziki. I went vegetarian instead. Unfortunately, though, Morningstar has yet to come out with a lamb flavored product, so I decided to whip up my own. I found a log of vegetarian "ground beef" in my fridge, but I knew it needed to be doctored up. A lot. That stuff tastes like motor oil smells.

So I doctored. In went onion, spices, and lots of cholesterol and fat containing ingredients which I will not mention here; suffice it to say that they succeeded in turning the "meat" from atrocious to delicious in 5 minutes. The resulting paste was baked, sliced and grilled to golden done.

The result? The "meat" didn't quite taste like lamb, but it was definitely good. It was kind of like falafel. The tzatziki was the clear winner, though. I will be making that one again, fo' sho'