Zur Rose

Greek Food

We took a little road trip on Saturday & drove into Holland to visit a Christmas Market that is underground in a cave. By far, it is the most unique Market we've visited & we all loved it. The Christmas Caves (there are actually two) are located in Valkenburg aan de Geul in the Netherlands. It's not far from USAG Schinnen & the Geilenkirchen area. The town itself is picture perfect, when all lit up at night, it's total eye candy.

This is a picture of MiniMe in front of the Cave.

I know. This is supposed to be a food blog. And, it is. I'm just explaining why I didn't cook dinner. We found a Greek restaurant & pigged out on gyros, souvlaki, frites, rice, tzatziki & salad.

Here's a picture of MiniMe enjoying her Kinder Ouzo.

She said it tasted just like Sprite!

Pork Gyros & Garlic Potatoes

Food Category: PG-13, bordering on Food Porn
Difficulty: Easy

Pork Gyros

• season thinly sliced pork loin with prepackaged Greek seasoning
• or a combination of: oregano, crushed garlic, salt & pepper, paprika, mint
• in a tiny bit of evoo, sautée one thinly sliced onion until tender crisp
• add pork and continue to stir fry until the meal begins to crisp
  

If you need the basics of cooking gyros, try this recipe.

The Rose's Garlic Potatoes

• wash, peel & thinly slice potatoes into circles
• deep fry until golden brown
• drain excess oil & season with salt or pommes frites seasoning (all purpose seasoned salt)
  
• top with fresh minced garlic & chopped parsley

Tzaziki

• line a colander with paper towels & place over a bowl
• place approx. 20 oz of low fat plain yogurt on the paper towels
• refrigerate for several hours to drain excess water from yogurt
• mix 3 parts drained yogurt with 1 part light sour cream
• crush 2 cloves of garlic & mix with a bit of salt to make a paste
• add paste to yogurt/sour cream
• finely grated 1/2 cucumber, and drain all excess liquid by squeezing between paper towels
• 2 splashes of red wine vinegar
• 1 splash of olive oil
• few shakes ground black pepper

If that is way too confusing for you, this looks like a decent alternate recipe. I don't know for sure, but I'm going out on a limb here and declaring it not as good as mine.

Salad

• mix of red tipped lettuce & spinach leaves
• sliced red onion
• cherry/grape tomatoes
• sliced Greek peppers
• Kalamata olives
• seasoned crumbled feta
• sliced cucumbers
• Greek salad dressing or other oil/vinegar dressing

Flat Bread

I used warm Naan bread because I can't find decent pita bread. Any kind of yummy flat bread would work great.

The Rose, located in Giebelstadt, Germany, is my absolute favorite restaurant in the World. For those of you who have eaten there, you know what I'm talking about. I've been on a mission for several years now to duplicate some of our favorite menu items.

So far, I've totally mastered the tzatziki & the garlic potatoes. If you are located in Germany, you can find frozen Bratkartoffeln at any store. Deep fry those. This is exactly what The Rose uses to make their food porn potatoes. If you must use real potatoes (like me) use small ones with a diameter no bigger than 2 inches.

My gyros tonight were made with pork loin that was packaged with gyros seasonings. Any commissary in Europe should carry them. It's the stir fry pork loin, gyro style w/onion. If you are in the States, you probably have lots of options for pulling this tasty meal together.

Just make sure that you take the time to drain off all excess water from both the yogurt & the cucumbers. Tzatziki is supposed to be very thick & creamy, not runny & watered down.

This meal is wonderful with an opening shot of Ouzo, followed by a medium Greek red wine. My favorite is Imiglikos. That's a #80 on The Rose's Menu.

If you want to lighten up this meal, skip the potatoes or make oven fries instead. The tzatziki is made with a low fat superfood, and you just can't go wrong with that. The salad is a bowl of total health & the pork is a lean white meat. Skip the bread or serve with the low fat, whole grain flat bread. This meal could be very Bum Lovin' under the right circumstances.

HausFrau Wisdom: To remove obnoxious odors (like onion & garlic) from your hands, rub them over a stainless steel sink or carefully along the flat side of a knife.

Leftover potential: Tossing leftover meat & tzatziki in with leftover salad makes a great entree salad for lunch. We never have leftover potatoes. If you do, you might want to seek counseling. Seriously.

The only way to add to my perfection would be if BB Lady would come over tonight locked and loaded with a warm pan of baklava for dessert.

That's a hint. We are all awaiting your recipe over on Strudel.