Food Network Chefs’ Top Mediterranean Recipe Videos

These Mediterranean-inspired dishes are made for warm-weather eating—light, bright and full of fresh veggies and herbs. From Katie Lee Biegel’s Mediterranean Shrimp to Sunny Anderson’s Easy 7-Layer Gyro Dip and Ina Garten’s Pastitsio, you’ll find these recipes comforting and full of flavor!
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00:00 – Intro
00:06 – Molly Yeh’s Falafel Waffles with Creamy Lemon Yogurt Slaw
03:57 – Geoffrey Zakarian’s Mediterranean Orzo Salad
10:30 – Ina Garten’s Dinner Spanakopitas
14:39 – Bobby Flay’s Greek Grilled Shrimp and Calamari
17:54 – Katie Lee Biegel’s Mediterranean Shrimp
22:19 – Jeff Mauro’s Greek Lemon Chicken and Orzo Casserole
25:15 – Ina Garten’s Pastitsio
33:56 – Ree Drummond’s Mediterranean Artichoke Dip
37:28 – Ina Garten’s Greek Salad
40:44 – Sunny Anderson’s Easy 7-Layer Gyro Dip

Get the Recipes:
Molly Yeh’s Falafel Waffles with Creamy Lemon Yogurt Slaw – https://foodtv.com/3WyGmM6
Geoffrey Zakarian’s Mediterranean Orzo Salad – https://foodtv.com/3NlhSU7
Ina Garten’s Dinner Spanakopitas – https://foodtv.com/3MM14Vq
Bobby Flay’s Greek Grilled Shrimp and Calamari – https://foodtv.com/3K2kCli
Katie Lee Biegel’s Mediterranean Shrimp – https://foodtv.com/2TNMp12
Jeff Mauro’s Greek Lemon Chicken and Orzo Casserole – https://foodtv.com/3mkshFE
Ina Garten’s Pastitsio – https://foodtv.com/3W5Hn0P
Ree Drummond’s Mediterranean Artichoke Dip – https://foodtv.com/3RqYiHx
Ina Garten’s Greek Salad – https://foodtv.com/3mRURZT
Sunny Anderson’s Easy 7-Layer Gyro Dip – https://foodtv.com/3DJWlB1

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Food Network Chef’s Top Mediterranean Recipe Videos

[Music] I am a total sucker for any food that rhymes, which is why I love these falafel waffles. They’re crispy on the outside, and I’m going to top it with a really crunchy sllo. So, I’m starting by making my falafel mixture. I just pile everything into a food processor. One yellow onion, coarsely chopped. And then the main ingredient of falafel, beans. This is 1 and 3/4 of a cup of dried chickpeas that have been soaked overnight. One egg, three cloves of garlic, and then I like a super herby falafel, so I’m adding one cup each of fresh parsley and fresh cilantro. And they make them pretty and green. For my spices, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons each of ground coriander and ground cumin. I like to add a touch of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. I’ll zest in this lemon. And then I’ll also squeeze in 1 tbsp of lemon juice. So about the juice of half a lemon. So this will add more brightness and it’s also going to react with some baking soda to help make the inside of the falafel fluffy. I can hear it fizzing as it reacts with the lemon juice. 1/4 cup of allpurpose flour will bind these together so that the waffles don’t fall apart. And then I’ll season with 2 tsp of kosher salt. Okay. This looks great. First thing I’m going to do is grease the waffle iron pretty well with my spray. It’ll also help with the crispiness. And then I’m going to use a scant one cup of mixture. I’ll spread out this mixture almost to the edges. Press it down and allow this to cook for about 5 minutes. I’m smelling those spices toasting. This looks crispy, ready to come off the waffle iron. It smells delicious. I’m putting this onto a wire rack so that the bottom can stay crispy. It won’t get soggy. And it’s important to re oil the waffle iron before making another one. Awesome. I can’t wait to eat these. But first, I’ve got to make a colorful crunchy slot to go on top. So, while I do that, I’ll keep these in a warm oven. I’ll start with the dressing. 1/4 cup of whole milk Greek yogurt. Six tablespoons of tahini, which is a smooth sesame paste. 3 tablespoons of olive oil to bring a little more richness. 2 tbsps of honey for a hint of sweetness. A bunch of lemon juice to brighten it up. 2 tsps of cumin. A pinch of cayenne. And I’ll season with kosher salt. I’ll whisk until it’s smooth. And then I’m going to toss my veggies in this dressing. But first, I want to remove some of it so that I can drizzle some on separately to make the waffles extra saucy. Okay. And grab my veggies. I’ve got a rainbow here, some sliced red cabbage. So good and crunchy. One carrot, three radishes, thinly sliced, and half a red onion. This rainbow needs some greenery. I’ll coarsely chop up some cilantro and parsley. Okay, I’ll toss this all together. The waffle smell is haunting me. I can’t take it any longer. Ready for the waffles? Hello. [Music] They smell awesome. Okay, this onto a plate. I’ll pile on some sloth. I’ll drizzle on some sauce. Extra creamy richness. Stick some herbs on top. Nestle in a lemon wedge. And finish with a sprinkle of flaky salt. That’s a waffle. I’m gonna dig in. Squeeze it with lemon. Shove on some sloth. Here I go. Mhm. Holy buckets. Well, I’m making a new twist on pasta salad. But there is no such thing as a new twist. It’s all been done. There is. You’re going to want to hold the mayo. This is my Mediterranean orzo salad. Feta. Yes. I’m in. I’m in. Help me, Jeff. I love it. I can’t help like in crumble this. Oh, crumble. Dice that medium like medium dice like Sunny did. Yeah. Okay. Small dice now. And then put a little salt in it. Keep that separate from this. Put it in a separate bowl. Okay. First thing first, orzo. Uh, it’s not really a grain. It’s a wheat based pasta. I love it. It’s one I think it’s not You don’t see it. It’s one of my favorite mouth feels of all time. A big old spoon just eight minutes in salty water. As salty as the as Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is fresh water. Salty as the sea, y’all. Yes, y’all. Yes, y’all. Plenty of salt. It’s going to boil for about This has been on for about 4 minutes. Takes around 8 minutes. You don’t want to You want to have it al dente, but it’s going to be served right away. So, you’re not cooking it anymore. So, you got to cook it. You’re serving it right away. So, it’s like a warm pasta salad. Oh, wow. Okay. Dressing first, Jeff. Great job for the dressing. Simple. Very simple. Lemon juice. A good amount of Chardonnay vinegar. Whoa. What if you uh don’t have Chardonnay vinegar? A little honey. GZ and you ask him. White wine vinegar is fine. You can use white wine vinegar. Um garlic powder, mustard, and a lot of dill. I love dill. Dijon mustard. I think when it comes to a pasta salad, you have to really add a lot of flavor in that vinegrett. You do. A little tahini. Like we say in the house, tahini. Wow. So good. and some salt. And it’s got to be a little bit of olive oil. It has to be vinegary. So, I’m a 50/50 person. 50 vinegar, 50 uh oil. I don’t like the 3 to one. It’s too oily for you. This is another reason why you don’t want a cold pasta salad. No one wants cold olive oil. You know what I mean? It does. So, we’re going to taste that and see if we have enough acidity and salt. Let’s take a look. What made you use tahini? I just I think it’s a great It coats this really nicely. It’s a little luxurious flavor on on the top to give like a creaminess since you’re not using mayonnaise. That’s going to give you that creamy moment almost. Let’s taste this, Jeff. Great job, buddy. Is this enough? Do you want me to? Yeah. A little salt and chop up some dill and put it in there, too. I’m such a mayo girl, but when it comes to pasta salad, I’m not. Yeah. I like And when your guests are coming up, if you’re serving it, just do it like an hour before. Let it sit together outside. And you can do it like in a flat tray or a bowl. Well, I’m doing it in the bowl today, but if you put it on a larger tray so it gets cool. Well, we talked about that when you’re also serving a salad like that, it’s time sometimes best to lay it out on a tray than in a bowl because things start to settle. Let’s take a look. So, it takes, like I said, 8 minutes. What do you think of that? It was hot though. I did burn my tongue. We have success. Yay. That quick. It happens quick. Let’s do it. Bring it together. Strainer. This is where you do Put it in a strainer and put it down the drain. Yeah. Normally pasta, we’ve been telling people for nine years doing a show, don’t save the water. Yeah. Really get the water off and just it sort of steam. Get that steam out of it. You see that? Mhm. Huh. Okay, this is the fun part. I’m adding some red onion. And I’m going to save some. I’m going to see if it’s enough. I’m going to taste it. Pepperonchini. I was wondering what was olives. Olives make everything great. You go to the refrigerator door and you get all your stuff out. I’m going to mix the secret when it’s warm. And this is going to actually cool down the pasta a little before I add the next ingredient. So, I’m not making it too wet. You see, if it’s too wet, it becomes soupy. So, I didn’t add a lot. I’m just going to taste it now to see when I’m going to add how much more of this I’m going to add. See? Yeah. Then you got the salt from there too. Then the feta. Wow. The feta is going to semi melt. I love this. Okay. That’ll give a creamy element as well, right? Oh, I’m taking two things from this. Warm and tahini. Yeah, cuz I use tahini all over the place, too, but I’ve never pasta saladed. No. Okay. So, that basically is the salad. And Jeff, will you bring that? Let’s put a touch more of this in. Just a touch. Listen, this is cooking, right? You got to taste as you go. Taste as you go. It’s not an exact science pasta making. So good. Let’s go. Okay. Come on. Bring it. Yeah, let’s go. Okay, let’s go. I’m coming. Shut down everything here for you. Thank you. Jeez, I know there’s really no substitute for tahini, which is basically ground up toasted white sesame seeds, but what would you Anything or just leave it out? You leave it out if you don’t have it. It’s fine. Looks good. Cucumbers going. Cucumbers right on top for a little texture. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. So you have the cold and the warm. This guy a little uh would you hold that for me, son? Thank you, son. More. More. More dill. Lemon juice. The dill. Lemon juice. Cheesy. Yes. You just bleached some of my wig. I did. I saw that highlight. I was worried bleach your wig. I gave you some highlights. Now, this was like you could have this as your entree. You could have this with a piece of grilled salmon. Grilled shrimp salmon. Grilled shrimp. Yes. Be so good with that. Put me up. G. Okay. Come on. I did a lot. That’s good. When when it’s so tangy. I love the dill when I put I taste the tahini. It’s It the tahini is adding something. It’s um it almost makes it savory vibes. The tahini is something else. It’s so in there. Yeah. This is uh Listen, it’s punchy, man. It’s punchy. Yeah, it’s it’s acidic, which is perfect. You know, you’re thinking about summertime. You’re eating burgers. This is acidity on 10. I’m team texture, so the crunchy from the cucumbers and dill and cucumber just goes together for me, right? with the feta, but the tahini, that little undertone, it’s there. It’s like it’s not in your face, but you know it’s there if you’re a tahini person. If you’re a tahini file, is that a thing? Fantastic. And with grilled salah, grilled fish, this is like This is delicious. Fatty fish. Yeah. I’ve got 1/4 cup of olive oil, cup of onion that I’ve let sauté for about 5 minutes, just until it gets really tender. You don’t want it to turn brown. I’m going to add three scallions. Just let them cook for another few minutes. I’ve got frozen spinach that I’ve defrosted. You need a huge pot of fresh spinach to make this amount of spinach for the dish. Okay, right into the bowl. I used two 10 oz packages of frozen spinach defrosted. Okay, let’s see how the onions and scallions are doing. Just want them tender and not too brown. This is one of those really versatile dishes. You can put anything you like in or take anything out. If you don’t like feta, you can just do it with spinach, but sort of a classic Greek combination. Just give that a little stir. Okay, next is four eggs. Just beat them lightly. This is what’s going to bind it all together. 3 tablespoons of dried breadrumbs. In this case, I actually use the storebought dried breadrumbs. You want want them to absorb a little of the moisture from the spinach so the spanicopas don’t get watery. 3 tablebspoons of freshly grated Parmesan. I actually grind it in a food processor. It gives it just the right texture. One teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Two teaspoons of salt. Want to make sure it’s really well seasoned. 1 teaspoon of pepper. I have 3 tablespoons of pine nuts. I sauteed them dry in a pan just on very low heat about 5 minutes until they’re really nutty and golden brown. So it’s about two cups of feta about 12 ounces and just give it a big toss. So spatopa is a really a savory strudel. I use strudel dough which is pho and wrap it around the filling. So this is pho dough. Good news is you don’t have to make it. It comes in the freezer and I just defrost it overnight in the refrigerator. It’s very flaky. So I’ve got one piece of pho dough. We just brush it with butter. I melted a quarter of a pound of butter for all of this. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Just lightly. And if it tears a little bit, don’t worry about it. And then I’m going to put dry breadrumbs. Sprinkle it with dry breadrumbs. Just enough. Not really thickly, but just enough so the next piece of pho dough slides right on. If you don’t do the breadcrumbs, what happens is it’ll just stick and you’ll never get it to slide on. And again, butter gets easier as it gets thicker. Sprinkle it with breadcrumbs. Another layer of pho dough. I’m going to do four layers. Brush it with butter. The last one you actually don’t have to have breadcrumbs on because you’re not putting another layer of pho dough on top. So now I’m going to turn it this way lengthwise and cut it right down the middle in half. If I were making appetizers, I’d cut it smaller than this. They end up triangles. and I’ll show you how it works. So, exactly 1/3 of a cup of filling. That’s the perfect amount. Just on one corner on the bottom and just fold it right over in a triangle. And then fold it straight. And by the time you’re done, you’ll see it’s completely enclosed. And then I’m just going to put it right on the sheetpan. My friend Dwire and I are giving a housewarming party for our friends, the Green Walls, who just moved into this fabulous house. Well, it’s a surprise. They know what they’re we’re having a party, but what they don’t know is what we’re having for dinner. And we’re going Greek. First, I’m doing spanicopas. And Dwire is doing a nice Greek fruit dessert. I’m brushing them with butter so they get nice and brown and absolutely delicious. And then, you don’t always have to do this, but I like to. So, I’m going to sprinkle it with a little coarse salt. I just think it looks like it has more flavor. And actually, it does have more flavor. into the oven 375 degrees for 30 minutes. These are going to be big puffed delicious spanicopa triangles. So, you know, this is what squid looks like. Okay. And uh they’re actually very easy to clean. Now, basically, you take you you separate the head from the body. Okay. We’re going to cut where the tentacles meet the eye. You just have the the head, so to speak, but it’s just basically the tentacles. All right. And then with the body, what you want to do is actually peel it and the skin comes right off. When people are frying calamari, very often you’ll see them uh, you know, cut these into rings like this. Okay. But what I’m going to do is actually I’m I’m just going to make a slice like this and open it up so it’s like a calamari steak. I score it with a knife so it doesn’t actually shrivel up. Okay. And there’s our calamari. What we’re going to do is make a very quick marinade for both the squid and the calamari. We’re going to use uh some lemon juice and some olive oil. And I think we need some garlic for this too. Definitely. I just kind of like to be up the garlic with my knife a little bit and then take some kosher salt and then just kind of crush it with the side of my knife. So, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil. All right. All right, we’re going to put some of the shrimp and the squid right in here. Just let it sit there for a couple of minutes. Not a long time. We don’t want to marinate the fish for too long cuz then it actually breaks down its texture. All right. So, we have we have some of the shrimp. And then we’re going to also take some of the calamari. And then we have the squid steak, so to speak. Let’s go to the grill. Okay, we have a nice hot grill here and we’re going to put the shrimp right next to the shrimp. Everybody’s going to have their own department and we’re going to take our squid heads and then our squid steaks. And be careful. You just want to lay these on very carefully. Okay. Well, the shrimp are probably going to take about uh 2 and 1/2 minutes on each side. Okay. They’re pretty thick and we want them to be cooked all the way through. Uh the squid heads are probably going to take about uh maybe 30 seconds on each side. and the squid steak, so to speak, will probably take about uh 10 to 15 seconds on each side. And and they go very quickly. We’ll take a look at our our shrimp. You see how beautiful they are? All right, so we’re going to take uh these squid steaks are done. Okay, these are ready. All right, now we can plate this beautiful salad here. We’re going to leave it right on the skewers. Just lots of squid, lots of shrimp. And uh let’s just grill a couple of lemons straight onto the grill. All right. So, while those lemons are cooking, we can take our beautiful smoked tomato and black olive relish. Kind of just drop it right on top of our our shellfish here. And then we’re just going to take a little bit of Greek olive oil. So, we got our our grilled lemons. [Music] I just take one and I just kind of squeeze it right on top of the This is amazing. I’m Katie Lee and here’s what I’m eating now. A Mediterranean shrimp cheat sheet dinner. Gus, we’re going somewhere today. You got your passport ready? This shrimp cheat sheet dinner packs in all the flavors of the Mediterranean. But before I show you how to do it, be sure to subscribe to Food Network. Let me show you how easy this is to make. So, I’m gonna start off with a little marinade. And I’m saying a marinade because it’s not even going to take any time to marinade. It’s just going to all happen magically. So, olive oil, white wine, garlic, and just give that a nice little whisk, and season it up with some salt and pepper. One of the things I love the most about a cheat sheet dinner is that there’s not a lot of clean up. I’m essentially only washing this bowl and a pan. That’s exactly how I like it. Okay, now I’m going to add to it my vegetables. So, I’ve got some articho carts, air coat bear, that’s just a fancy name for skinny green beans, grape tomatoes, a red onion, black olives, and some capers. Give it a good toss. So, I was inspired to make this dish by some of my travels to the Mediterranean. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there and I’d like to go back, but for now I’ll just be eating calamata olives and feta cheese and pretending. Okay, this looks great. And I’m just going to put a little bit of oil down on my pan. And this goes right on. It’s that easy. And then spread it out. It’s important that it’s not overcrowded because then it will just start to steam. Now, they’re going to go into a hot oven, 450 degrees for about 10 to 12 minutes. In the meantime, I’m going to get started on my shrimp. Same bowl that I used for the veggies. So, I’ve got lemon juice, lemon zest, some garlic, crushed red chili flakes, and dried oregano. Now, I like to take this and put it in the palm of my hand and kind of crush it up, and it releases the natural oils that are in the oregano and just makes it a little bit more flavorful. Give it a whisk and add in some olive oil, some salt, and more pepper. And while the veggies continue to cook, the shrimp is going to marinade. It’s important not to let the shrimp sit too long in the lemon juice because it will actually start to cook the shrimp like a ceviche. Gosh, this smells good. All that garlic and white wine. Okay. And you can see how it’s kind of shrunk up a little bit. I’m going to add those shrimp right on to the tray. And now I’m going to just take all this good stuff that’s in here. We don’t want to waste any of it. And give it a good drizzle over it all. I’ve got some baguette here. Put those right around the edges. And I’m just going to drizzle each piece with a little bit of oil and give it a little sprinkling of salt. And now back into the oven. And while those are cooking, I’m just going to take a stroll down memory lane of some of my favorite vacations. Oh, poolside in Miami and on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Look how little you were then, Gus. You were just a baby on a road trip through Big Su. Oh, so sweet. Gus, where are we going to go next? We need a vacation. Oh, goodness. I’m so glad it’s time to eat. I’m just going to top it with feta cheese. Oo, look at that. It’s going to give it a nice creamy salty bite. Give it a final little drizzle of this bread. And I’ve got a New Zealand Svenon Blanc to go with it. I went to New Zealand a couple years ago on a girls trip and just fell in love with this wine. It’s a really nice pairing because it’s very acidic. So, it goes really nicely with that feta cheese and the shrimp. I’m going straight in. Give me all that garlic. Oh gosh. You know, just taking a bite of this, it makes me feel like I’m on vacation. And one of my favorite things when I’m traveling is getting inspiration for cooking when I come home. It’s like I can have this little escape right here in my kitchen. And you can, too. All right. I’m taking it to Breeze and we’re making uh a version of one of my favorite soups growing up going to Greek Town in Chicago. If you’ve ever had like the lemon egg soup, ova lemono it’s called. Uh and this has got all those similar flavors but in casserole form. I am using orzo. Okay. So my sauce is based Jeffrey if you can hand it to me. I got some chicken stock and some fresh lemon right there. And my protein is going to be chicken. And then of course my starch will be orzo. So, let’s make the sauce. So, we’re pouring a couple cups of good chicken stock in here. Low sodium. Uh the zest and juice from a couple lemons, right? Cuz that you want that strong lemony flavor. A little cornstarch to kind of help thicken it up there in the oven when it th you know when it when it cooks. Beautiful. So, now we got a little fresh garlic in there. Another uh traditional flavor of that uh you know, Greek style lemon soup. A little fresh dill. Oh, yeah. Put it in there. It’s going to be bananas. to bump up the fat in here. Just a little bit of melted butter. We’re just going to whisk this together. We got our sauce. It was It was that easy, right? A lot of stuff we already have in the house. Of course, a little salt and pepper. So, let me get my starch here, which is that orzo, if you don’t mind, right? And this this cooks a lot quicker than rice a lot of times. It’s It’s actually not a grain, it’s a pasta, so you want to make sure you don’t overcook it. It can get mushy. We’re just going to put it all on the bottom there. We got this beautifully seasoned sauce in here. We’re just going to pour that directly on there. All right. And all kind of settle. No need to get too crazy with trying to get in there even. Just give it one little stir. Which we’re just using four whole chicken breast. About two lbs. And we’re going to season this with a little coriander, some black pepper, and some salt. We’re going to mix that up and just hit every side of that chicken with it. Coriander is so under underutilized, mang. It’s just so floral and green. It really is. We’re just going to nestle it right in there. This is going to be good, Jeff. Jeff, it’s going to be good. It’s going to really look nice, too. Great presentation cuz I see those lemon slices. Yeah. You know what I’m going to do with these lemon slices? We’re going to kind of shingle these in here. And it’s good to go in the oven. 375 for about 35 minutes. All right. A little bit of fresh parsley on top there. Maybe a little lemon on the side if you want to squeeze some extra lemon. That looks so pretty, Jeff. And you can obviously this is perfect for a family of four. But if you want to like kind of cut it. This is a classy casserole. And you’ll see it’s got the creaminess of that soup without the egg in there. Right. What’s wrong with eggs? No, nothing. I’m just like we didn’t have to start cooking eggs in it. Oh, I see what you just got to It was simple. Beautiful. Is that for me? I’m I’m have a nice Right. This smells lemony. That’s bright. Lemon orzo. Perfect. on point. Exceptionally cooked and also it made you see this. It just made its own sauce. It’s like perfect. Fantastic. Really delicious. I bet Jeffrey thinks I’m going to make a twist on chicken. Well, you know what? I’m going to rock his world. I’m going to make pastitio, which is like a Greek lasagna. So, the first thing I’ve done is sauté one and 1/2 cups of onions in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. What I’m going to add is one pound of ground beef and one pound of ground lamb. It’s the lamb that makes it so Greek. No chicken anywhere. Just put it right into the onions. And this is going to cook for about 8 to 10 minutes until the meat is really browned and completely cooked through and the onions will be nice and caramelized. What I was looking for is a dish that’s like lasagna where you make the whole thing in one dish. It goes into the oven and you just serve it. The entire meal is one dish. And I started doing some research and I realized the Greeks have something called pastitio, which is really a lasagna, but it’s baked with tomatoes and spices like cinnamon and oregano in the bottom, ground meat and pasta, and then has this big thick layer of bashimal and cheese on the top. It’s absolutely delicious. So that’s basically what this is. It’s like a Greek lasagna. I use two kinds of meat, beef and lamb. And I just think that gives it great flavor. And what I’m doing here is just browning the meat for about 8 to 10 minutes along with the onions just until it’s cooked. And then I’m going to add all kinds of delicious spices. Now I’m going to add half a cup of a dry red wine. I always add coaton cuz it’s what I like. I always pick something that I can drink and cook with. And the good news when Jeffrey goes to the store to get me dry red wine, he knows I like coton. Just cook that down a little bit. Okay, that’s the ground meat and the red wine. Now, I’m going to add lots of delicious flavors. First thing is garlic. Big rough chop. You can add as much as you like. Then I’m going to add cinnamon, which is a really classic Greek combination of lamb and cinnamon. It just gives it a nice pecant flavor. Usually cinnamon here is used for sweet things, but I love it in savory things. I’m going to put a whole tablespoon in. Okay, next is dried oregano. That’s classic Greek, too. I actually like dried oregano rather than fresh because oregano is so strong. Sort of overpowers it, pinch of cayenne pepper, as big a pinch as you like. It’s hot, and about a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves. I love the flavor of thyme, so I use fresh thyme leaves and just sort of approximate it. So, this is ground meat, onions, garlic, and lots of seasonings. It’s going to make a delicious base for the pastitio. Give it a big stir. This is going to cook for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, I’m going to get some tomatoes to put in. Okay, so going to use one whole can of crushed tomatoes in puree. It’s really thick and it’s going to make a fabulous sauce. This is a good one to use for crushed tomatoes. And the thick puree actually makes a much thicker sauce. So you always want to find tomatoes in puree. Pour that whole thing in. Get all of it. Two teaspoons of salt. 1 teaspoon of pepper. That’s just going to simmer away for about 40 to 45 minutes until it’s thick and spicy and delicious. Then I’m going to add some pasta. Oh, this ground meat looks just incredible. It’s thick and it’s rich and it just looks delicious. Okay, next I need some pasta. So, I’ve got a big pot of boiling water, lots of salt, so the pasta has good flavor. And what I’m using is something that’s called, and I’m sure I’m pronouncing this wrong, kungeti, which is small shells. You can use any kind of small shells, but these are really good ones. 3/4 of a pound. So, it’s most of the box. Give it a big stir. And that’s going to cook for about 8 minutes, but check the box that you’re using and make sure you’ve got the right amount of time. You want to just undercook it because I’m going to put it into the sauce and then I’m going to bake it. And so, it’s going to cook a little longer, but it’s going to really absorb all the flavors of the meat and the spices. Small shells are wonderful because they sort of distribute themselves through the sauce. It’s going to be so good. And now I’m going to make the cheese sauce. The first thing I need to do is heat up some milk and cream. I’ve got 1 and 1/2 cups of milk and one cup of cream. What I’m doing is I’m making a bashamel, which is a white sauce. And while that heats up, I’m going to make the r. I’ve got four tablespoons of butter that I’ve melted in a pan. It’s about half a stick. I’m going to add 1/4 of a cup of flour. It’s just allpurpose flour. And just dump it all in at once. Point of this is actually to just cook the flour a little bit so you don’t have that raw flour taste in it. Just cook it for about a minute. So the butter and flour are perfectly cooked. They’re not browned. Just for about a minute. I’m going to switch to a whisk just to make sure I get a nice smooth cream sauce. I’m going to pour the milk and cream in, whisking it. No lumps here. And then later, I’m going to add lots of cheese, parmesan, and yogurt. So, pastitio is like a Greek lasagna. And it’s got meat and shells and delicious tomato sauce on the bottom and a nice cheese sauce, bashamel, on the top. And it’s all baked together. So, it’s an entire meal in one dish. Okay. So, this is nice and thick. And now I’m going to add some flavors. 1/4 of a teaspoon of nutmeg. Teaspoon of salt. Teaspoon of pepper. Next, Parmesan cheese. I’m going to put about 3/4 of a cup of grated Parmesan into the sauce. And then save 3/4 of a cup for the topping so it gets nice and brown and crusty. Okay. Give it a big stir. And then I do one other thing. I put a half a cup of the meat sauce with the tomatoes and the spices right into the cheese topping. I just think it flavors it and it makes it pink and I think it looks fantastic. This is going to cool for about 10 minutes. Okay, cheese sauce is cooled. Now I’m going to put the pasta right into the tomato sauce. So these are the shells and just mix it all together. Oh, this looks fantastic. big baking dish, any size. Just make sure it’s big enough. Okay. And just pour it all right in. This is the bottom layer. And then the top layer is all that beautiful bashame with cheese and yogurt. Smells delicious. Really can smell the cinnamon. Okay, just smooth the top. And now the sauce, if it was just a sauce, would sort of seep through it. So I’m going to add two things that are going to make sure it’s a layer on top. The first one is eggs. So, I’m sort of making the bashameal sauce into a custard. Two eggs. And this is why you want to cool the sauce a little bit so it doesn’t cook the eggs. So, it just thickens it. Okay. Just stir the eggs right into the hot bashame. And since it’s basicio, I say that three times. I’m going to add Greek yogurt. 2/3 of a cup. It actually makes it a little thicker and it adds that nice tang that yogurt has. So, I’m just going to eyeball 2/3 of a cup. And just stir it all in. And now when it bakes, it’s going to bake right on top of the layer of the meat and tomatoes and shells. This looks fantastic. Okay, so I’m just going to pour this on top. to smooth it right over the top of it. And just to make sure there’s enough cheese and to brown the top, gonna add threequarters of a cup of Parmesan cheese right to the top. Just sprinkle it evenly over the top of it. I mean, does this look delicious? I don’t think Jeffrey will be disappointed. Okay, into the oven, 350° for an hour, and it’s going to be hot and bubbly, and he’s going to be very happy, guy. And that’s pastio. Our good friends in town are having a holiday party and I’m going to take a delicious Mediterranean artichoke dip. It’s sort of a play on traditional artichoke dip. I’m going to take it warm and just put it right on their buffet table. I’ve been chopping up some canned artichokes. I left some bigger chunks and then cut up most of them into smaller pieces. And that will be the base of the dip. I’ve got a whole bunch of other things to add. Some green olives and some colamada olives. I’ve got a couple cloves of garlic that I minced. And this is a super easy ingredient, jarred pimentos. I drained off most of the liquid and I’ll just add them all in there. I’ve also got a bunch of minced parsley. And now for the creamy cheesy ingredients, which I think are the best part. Gonna add a good cup of mayonnaise. Just squirt it right out. Add about a/4 cup of sour cream. Now for the cheesy, about half a cup of Parmesan. Some Monterey Jack cheese cuz it melts nice and creamy. And this is one of the plays on regular artichoke dip. Some feta. Just add some chunks and it’ll break up as I stir everything together. Salt and pepper come next. And another ingredient that isn’t very standard with artichoke dip, hummus. I’ll add about half a cup. Since this is Mediterranean artichoke dip, I thought it would be a really cool thing to add with all the other ingredients. Now, I’ll stir all this together. I’m going to put it into a baking dish. Oh, it smells delicious. This is one of those dips that really has stood the test of time. It’s one of those things that disappears when it’s on a table at a party. Before it goes into the oven, just a little more cheese on top. Some parmesan and the rest of the Monterey Jack. Okay, I’m going to get this into the oven. It’s going to bake at 350° for about 25 minutes till it’s hot and bubbly. And while it does, I want to show you something else. mini bagel chips. So delicious. Perfect thing to go with the dip. Let me walk you through how to make them. I added two teaspoon of finel seeds to a mini processor with a teaspoon of dried oregano, 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of dried mint, half a teaspoon of salt, four a teaspoon of pepper, and pulsed until they were finely ground. Then poured them into a bowl. added half a cup of olive oil and a4 a cup of melted butter. Stirred it all together, then brushed it on 10 mini bagels I’d cut into four horizontal slices and then baked them at 350 for 8 minutes. I’m going to let them sit on this rack and crisp up a bit. It’s going to take about 20 minutes while the dip finishes baking. [Music] Oh, look at that. Cheesy and bubbly and absolutely perfect. I’ve got the mini bagel chips in a cute little basket and I’m going to cover the dip so it’ll stay warm and then I’ll go ahead and head to town. I think this is going to be a real Christmas time hit. When I think of Greek food, I always think it’s casual, it’s fresh, it’s outdoors. This is going to be really nice. My friends, the green walts know I’m bringing dinner. They don’t know what I’m bringing. So, I’m going to surprise them. So, I’ve got Greek lamb with saidziki. I thought Greek salad. This I can make in my sleep. So, first the vinegrett. Half a cup of olive oil. That should be about right. 1/4 of a cup of red wine vinegar. I always like to use a good red wine vinegar. Just smell it. You’ll know if it’s good. Half a teaspoon of good Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of oregano. You know, usually I use fresh herbs, but in the case of oregano, I think it’s really strong. So, what I do is I take dried oregano and then crush it between my hands and it really releases the oils in it. It’s one of the few herbs I think is actually too strong fresh. Oregano, teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of pepper, and of course, garlic. I’ve got two cloves of garlic, minced. Just whisk it all together. Okay, that’s good. Next, the vegetables. First thing is one hot cucumber. Then just cut the cucumber in big thick slices. Next, one red pepper large diced and one yellow pepper large diced. I think they taste so much better than green peppers. Okay, next tomatoes. I’m just going to cut each tomato in half. Just toss it right in. In Greece, they usually chop large tomatoes into chunks, but I like to use a box of really good cherry tomatoes. Just cut them in half. They’re so sweet and intensely flavorful. [Music] Okay, that’s the tomatoes. Next is red onion. I actually use red onion because I think it’s a little sweeter than yellow onion. Half a cup of calamata olives. They’re Greek olives. And of course, a Greek salad demands Greek olives. They’re already pitted. And next, the vinegrett. Just toss it all together. Just pour on enough so that the whole salad is moistened. That’s about the whole thing. That should be it. Just give it a big toss. All these gorgeous vegetables. It’s going to taste so good. And the last thing I’m going to put in is feta. Obviously, classic Greek ingredient, but I don’t want to mix it too much because then it it’ll get crumbled. So, I’m going to do big chunks of feta. For salad like this, I like to try and cut all the pieces in about the same sizes. I just think it gives it a really nice look. So, it’s about two cups of feta. It doesn’t get any more delicious and it’s great for a big party. That’s the Greek salad done. The lamb’s marinating. Spanicopas are ready to bake off. That satziki is done. It’s time to head over, pick up Dwire and her husband Michael, and head over to the green walls. Delicious, isn’t it? Easy seven layer euro dip. Wow. Ah, there it is. So, I’ve got an 8 by8 here. That’s going to be the conveyance for the dip. Um, yes. Um, the very first layer is going to be some hummus. So, I’m going to start spreading this in here. But, right in my pan. Can you smell? You know what this is? Juicy. I know. LMB. Yeah. A little bit of ground lamb. You know, Euros usually have that shave meat. I’m just doing ground lamb. A lot easier. You want a cuc? What do you want? Yes, please. With those cucumbers, just make very thin mandolin hand slices. That’s a English cucumber. less seeds. Um, and if you want, you can take off the peel. I do sometimes. Now, in my pan here, I do sometimes. Yeah. It lets you know what it is, you know. But so, in my pan here, I’ve just got that ground lamb, some oregano from my patio, a little bit of salt, pepper, olive oil, and then I took an onion and I grated it on a box grater to just get the pulp. I didn’t want to see the onion. I just wanted to taste the onion. So, I’ve got that nice and brown in there. And that’s going to be my second layer on the bottom here. Just run-of-the-mill hummus. If you can find the red pepper hummus or garlic hummus, your favorite flavor, get that. Spread it in the bottom. Okay. Now, put this into a plate here. I find uh ground lamb kind of fatty. Yeah. Do you know what I’m saying? So, it’s quite all right to put this to a paper towel line plate. Spread it out. get a little bit of that fat off of it before we get it into our dip. So then you’re just going to get the lamb right over the top. So now this is layer number two. Were you guys counting? Yeah. So this is two. There’s seven layers. Seven layers. Okay. Welcome Jeffrey. Seven layers. I I knew he didn’t know what a seven layers. Oh my god. So did not. I just can’t see you at a tailgating party. Jeez. I’m You know what? You got to come hang out with me. You’re getting much better. Now press this down. Now just so you know, this is everything I like about a Euro. You know what I’m saying? And it’s got all the things that I like in it. Okay. So, you’re going to press that down over the top of that feta cheese that you crumble yourself. You can get it pre- crumbled, but just crumble it yourself. Butter texture on that. Hold on. That’s three. Yeah, that that’s three. Going to move that around in there. This looks delicious. It’s so good. Okay. Tomatoes. Beautiful. Yeah. Just get them over the top. So good this time of year. This is basically lasagna. Yeah, it is. Now, some of our cucumbers and then, you know, I like to make sure if you’re going to scoop and dip. I love that you slice them instead of diced them. Well, you can you can dice as well. It depends on how you want to eat it. Sometimes I’ll make this. It looks like put this out on Well, I’m going to cover it up. Yeah. But I’ll put it out on the table and it’s just kind of like get your pa pocket and fill it up. But I’m going to send this over there with some chips and it’s good to spoon out. Just make sure you can get it on your chip and have all the flavors involved. So, we’ve got the hummus. That’s We’re on nine. We’ve got the lamb. We’ve got the feta. That’s three. We’ve got the tomato. Four. We’ve got the cucumber. We got two more layers left. Yes. So, this is just satsiki sauce. Okay. Storebot is four. Storebot. Yeah. If you want to, you can punch it up with some dill, but no need to because because at the very end, GZ is going to come over here. Make it rain. Yeah. Make it rain. Dill, baby. Interesting. So, the dill is its own layer. The dill is its own layer. So, Jeezy, if you could please make it rain. There it is. Look at that. Donnie dills. Mhm. You know me and dill. You love it. We love our dill. I love I’m finger going to smell good for the rest of the day. Here you have it. Oh, party. My seven layer dip. How about it? All right, we get to get in. Yeah, you can scoop in, get some on your uh plate if you like or just family style dig in. Can I try the lamb? Yeah. First of all, it’s very hearty. It is. I mean, you eat it and you’re not like at the party hungry. So, you start with the creamy hummus. The hummus and the meat on the bottom is really creamy. Foundation. Thank you. And then you graduate because the tomatoes are diced. They’re juicy. They burst. They kind they’re they’re that dividing line. And then you get the creamy dill and the juicy cucumber on top. I love this. This is better than a seven dip. It really is. It’s lighter and it’s just more exciting to eat. Honestly, today I’m going to put a little heat on one of my all-time favorite dips, hummus. So, the base of the hummus is going to be chickpeas. And that’s what’s going to give it a little bit of body. So, first things first, I have two cans of chickpeas. As you can see, I’m draining. We don’t want to get rid of this liquid at the bottom cuz we’re going to use that a little bit later. Trust me, you don’t want to get rid of it. So, you just want to drain it. And all we’re going to do is add this right to our processor. So, get that in. We’re going to add some flavor to this. I’m going to add some tahini. Now, if you’ve never used tahini, basically what it is is toasted ground sesame, right? Very, very deep and rich in flavor. I’m going to use some adobo sauce. And basically what this is is dried red chilies. And it’s going to give it a little smokiness, but also give it a little heat as well. Add a little bit of cumin to this. Cumin has smoky notes as well. Very rich, aromatic. I’m going to add some garlic salt. Basically, what garlic salt is is garlic powder and salt mixed together, but this one has some parsley in it. And that’s just going to take the flavor to the next level. So, we’re going to add this in. And by adding this, we don’t have to add any salt. All right. So, that goes in. We’re going to add some lemon juice to this as well. That’s going to make it bright and fresh. So, remember, always test. If you can’t really squeeze it, let you know that the juices really haven’t come out yet. So, let’s go ahead and roll this out. So, now you can see the difference, right? lets me know that those juices are ready to come out of this lemon. So, let’s go and give this a cut. Remember, we’re going to cut this in half. Going to use my juicer here. If you don’t have one, you can just squeeze. Just make sure you keep the seeds out. Let’s go ahead and give this a squeeze. So, I didn’t get as much juice as I wanted out this half. So, I’m going to use this other half as well. Let’s get rid of this lemon here. get you in and give this a good squeeze. That should be more than enough juice. So, I’m going to add some pepper to this as well. A little bit more. Perfect. So, what I’m going to do at this point, I just want to blend it just a little bit to kind of mix everything up. Let’s give it a couple pulses. So, remember I said don’t get rid of that liquid, right? So, this liquid is going to loosen this up a little bit because we’re looking for a silky smooth texture to this. So, I’m just going to add a little bit. Going to eyeball it here. [Music] Just a little bit more. Good. So, you just want to check it. At this point, what I like to do, I like to take my lid off. I just want to get in here and kind of start checking it out. Give it a little taste. That’s good. We need a little bit of fat in here. So, I’m going to add some olive oil to this. Right while the blender’s going, just add your oil. Perfect. Just let it go. Good. Let’s check our consistency. It’s coming together nice. We got that reserved liquid as a safety to make sure we get the consistency. Still a little thick. I want to be a little bit thinner than this. So, we’re going to add a little bit more liquid. All right. Here we go. Just a little bit more. A little bit more of this liquid. That should be perfect. [Music] So, let’s scrape down these sides. Make sure everything gets incorporated. You don’t want to see any lumps of that chickpea. Should be nice and smooth. I think about one or two more pulses and we will be ready to rock and roll. All right, here we go. Final pulse. That’s it, my friends. It’s time to plate this hummus up. All right, here we go. Get rid of our blade. What I’m looking for with my texture, it should be nice and creamy, but not too thin. And this is perfect. This is exactly what I was looking for. I want it to have some integrity, right? I mean, we’re talking about a dip, so it should be hardy enough to if you stick a chip in here, a peter chip or something like that, you don’t want it falling off. It should be able to hold right to that chip. Don’t leave any behind. Now, and what I like to do is just finish it off with a little bit of olive oil. Just for another flavor bomb, going to add a little bit of chili lime seasoning right on top. All right, friends. I hope you enjoyed making this hummus with the kick. I think it’s time for us to give this a try. How about we get some chips in here? Let’s see. I’m like so excited. See what I was talking about? It should hold right on the end of that chip. That’s the consistency you’re looking for. The tahini gives it a nice nuttiness. Has a little bit of the kick from the adobo, but that lemon juice just rounds it all out. This is absolutely the perfect dip. Hope you enjoyed yourself. I’ll see you next time. I love a chicken schwarma euro. Oh my gosh. You know when you go to the Greek restaurants or the Mediterranean restaurants and they have like the chicken schwarma and they’re slicing it off that rotating thing. Love it. So I’m going to make a quick marinade for my chicken schwarma. All right. I got some Greek yogurt here. Some minced garlic. Juice of half a lemon. Have some smoked paprika. Some cumin. Also earthy, smoky, some coriander. Just a little bit of that goes a long way. Some turmeric for a little color. And some cardamom. I love the way cardamom smells. It’s so aromatic. So, I’m going to use just a pinch of salt and a little olive oil. I’m going to add my chicken to the marinade. I’m using all white meat breast and I’m also using thighs. And I like to mix it up. Dark meat to me tends to be a little bit more juicier, a little bit more flavor. And white meat in general is just, you know, really great to grill and cook. All right, so I’m going to let this marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours. All right. So, I’ve got my chicken that’s been marinating for quite some time now, and I’m just going to grill it off. All right. I’m going to put a little bit more salt and a little pepper on my chicken while it’s grilling. Okay. Some black pepper. So, while that grills, I’m going to make my taziki sauce. Now, that is a very simple yogurt, cucumber, and lemon sauce. And I love to add fresh dill to it. So, I have a cucumber here that I am going to grate. And I like using English cucumber because you don’t have to peel it because the skin is really soft. I’m going to let the cucumber sit on this towel and soak up some of that water. Now, I’m going to add my Greek yogurt, full fat. Going to add the juice of half of this lemon. I’ve used a lot of lemon today. I love lemon. Got some garlic, some minced garlic. A little cayenne pepper. A little heat. About a/4 teaspoon of that. Going to chop up some fresh dill. I like tons of dill. Give it a rough chop. Few pinches of some salt. A little sugar to help balance out that acidity in here. And a little olive oil. Okay, I’ve added my grated cucumber. And I’m just giving it a mix. Let me flip the chicken. Ooh, pretty. Look at the color. All right. So, I’m going to build my euro now. Okay. So, I have my chicken here. I’m going to kind of cut it up so it looks like that shaved chicken schwarma you get in the restaurant. Oo. Woo! We got my pa. I’ve kept it warm in the oven. I’ve wet a paper towel and I locked it in there with foil so it creates like a steam bath. Keeps it nice and moist. You see that? Beautiful. So, what I like to do first is put a little taziki sauce down. Add some of that chicken. Going to add some sliced red onions, some tomato, and some pickle. Oh, look at that. That’s a euro for you. Close it up and roll it. I’m so excited. Yeah. So, we’re going to make a Greek pa sandwich is basically This is like a little bit of a girro gyro, however you want to say it. This is ground beef. Okay. We have some vegetables. So, it’s basically a it’s basically a hamburger sandwich with yogurt on top, some crunchy vegetables. Love it. For me, we’re going to start with a very simple dressing. Very good olive oil. Very cheap red wine vinegar. Mustard and honey. Shake. Shake. A lot of salt and pepper. You got it home. Okay. Uh, shake that up. And then I just have hamburger meat. Dy 20. Yeah, the good old hamburger meat. Grated onion. I like the grated onion. I It gets in there more. And one ingredient that we cannot be without is cinnamon in our meat or lamb. Oh, interesting. Very Greek. Yeah, I like that. I just love the It’s I love a chili with a cinnamon stick in it. It’s an incredible flavor. uh cumin, uh garlic powder, and some fresh parsley. We’re just going to mix that up. Obviously, salt, good amount of salt. This really needs to sing. And we’re going to put a pan on a fire. We’re going to get that going. So, we’re not We could make meatballs with this or skewer it and grill it if you wanted to. Kebab, but I’m not going to do that. Just going to fry it. You’re just going to put it right in. Oh, cool. But we’re campfiring and I like that. I love it cuz usually you think like, “Oh, I got to cook those onions first. for this. It’s like the chili you make. You throw it in. Throw it all together. I smell that cinnamon in there. Good. Right. I smell that cinnamon. Yeah. It reminds me like the What is it? Musaka. I’ve been saying it wrong my whole life. I’ve been saying musaka. I think it, you know, depends. Can you do me another favorite job? Oh, Lord have mercy. Will you run to the oven? I have some pa. That’s Whoa. Run to the oven. Oh, you’re there already. Take the pa out and what you brush it with oil and a little zatar. Yes. Zatar, white sesame seeds, some oregano, some We love Oh, I just smelled the cinnamon. I made a little whipped feta, uh, garlic, dill, sour cream, like a little tiki, but not really. Do you want them whole or you want it cut? Well, you don’t want nothing. I want I want you to cut them in half. Okay. So, you just you want to get this cooked. It’s not We’re not doing like a a bolognese. We’re not looking for that at all. While that’s cooking, we’re going to just going to make our little vegetable medley. So, I have cucumbers finely diced. I have beautiful lettuce. Could be iceberg. It could be celery. Whatever you want. Red onions. You smell the lettuce. I love the smell of lettuce. Want to know what it is? Come on now. What’s that? Mint. Okay. Parsley. Dill. Come on now, Jesus. Bring the flavor. Okay. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Ready for it. And this goes along with your little picnic or your trip to the to the How dare you call it little This is not a little picnic. This is Yeah. Tell me you’ve never camped out without telling me you’ve never camped out by making a whipped feta sauce. I never I am never camping out on cucumbers and zatara. Hey, he said it was a picnic. I love it. So look at this. So the reason why So what’s nice about this is it’s not we don’t want to get it too brown cuz that’s not the texture you want. You want the texture that you’ve got when it’s almost like a dip. Soft. Yeah. Yielding. It’s soft and yielding. See, I’m lazy. I love this. I would then just hit it with that feta sauce and then the cucumbers over the top and family style serve it and you have your own pa and just scoop out. He’s going to make beautiful bespoke sandwiches. I think even if you put all that in there, you wrap it up. Maybe put this on the side and just wrap it. So, this is what I do. I put it in the toe first. Yeah. Put it in the toe. I put a little of the crunch in the bottom. I like that. So your good stuff doesn’t fall off the top. And I I put the beef here. And then I put a little dollop of this. Yeah. Okay. And then you got this. Feta again, J. That’s feta. Uh sour cream, little dill, some garlic. Okay. So that yogurt if you wanted to do you can use yogurt. Yeah, sure. You are. So Jeff did a great job of warm. I want you to have your experience. But I’ll take the next one. Cheesy expeditiously. That crunch from all those veggies in there and the creamy feta, that nice tender beef with the cinnamon and the garlic and the herb. It’s unexpected, right? The cinnamon with the beef. It’s so good. This is like eyes roll back in your head. Good. I mean, I kind of just want like a fork and eat it like a a big plate of salad. We’re coming off the rails here, Jeffrey. Look what you’ve done to everybody here. Really good, Jeffrey. Here we are talking about campfires and picnics and everything. Man, I’ll eat this breakfast, lunch, dinner. You You at a wedding serve this to me at a baby shower. I don’t care. A baby shower. A baby shower. This is so good. The meat is delicious. You know, we got a huge waft of the cinnamon, but when you taste it, it’s a nice undertone. It’s not in your face. You need more than you think. Yeah. You need more than you think. Do what Jeezy. Listen, just follow the recipe exactly how Jeezy wants you to. All about that salad. The salad crunch at the top. The whipped feta. I’m doing that. I am doing your whipped feta dip. A shrimp sheet pan pa. So, I’ve got mushrooms, yellow squash, red onion, and asparagus. And I’m drizzling with olive oil. I’m going to grab salt and pepper. You know the drill. And then I’ve got some Italian seasoning, which is also kind of like Mediterranean seasoning depending on what’s in it. The the bottle actually said Mediterranean/AItalian seasoning. So, they’re not exactly the same, but there’s a lot of overlap. All right. And then I’m going to use tongs just to stir everything together. So, I scooted them all over to one side. And now I’ve got some colossal shrimp, which is actually known as U15 shrimp, meaning they’re under 15 shrimp per pound. And spreading them out. And then I’m actually going to sprinkle just a little bit of salt and pepper on the shrimp. But this is basically the beginning of the recipe. And it’s going to get more interesting from here. A little bit more Mediterranean seasoning. And then let’s go get this pan in the oven, Paigy. So, this is going to go in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes or so. And when I put these in, I’m also going to add some pa that I have wrapped in foil, and it’s going to warm at the same time everything else cooks. All right. All right. While the shrimp and veggies finish cooking, I’m going to make a delicious lemony yogurt sauce for the pas. So, it starts with yogurt. Plain Greek yogurt to be exact. All right. So, lemon juice and then a whole bunch of lemon zest. This is very lemony. And some fresh dill chopped. So, Paige, look at this. M. Can you wrap your head around this or what? Isn’t that pretty? Okay. And then a little bit of salt and pepper. And give it one more stir. And then you know what time it is, Paige. Let’s go get the shrimp and veggies out of the oven. And the pa. We can’t forget the pa. All right. Check it out. That looks so good. And I’m going to grab the pita bread, which is nice and warm and soft by now. Boy, it smells good in this kitchen. I love food like this. Don’t you? Oh, yeah. Look at this. Okay, those shrimp are huge. I have a lot of things going on. Well, it’s colossal shrimp. Hello. All right. So, I’ve got some more lemon and I’m going to squeeze it over the shrimp and the veggies and stir with tongs. And there’s some juice in the bottom of the pan. And that’s just perfect because it makes everything just much more delicious and succulent. And then everybody can build their own. And this is how you build it. Woo! Warm. So, I’ve got this delicious lemony yogurt sauce. So, I’ll put a nice generous quantity in the warm pa. And then a couple of pieces of lettuce and some tomato. Just shove in there as much as you can. And then I’m going to start with veggies first. And then a couple of these massive shrimp. I’ve never seen anything like this. They’re big and beautiful and shrimpy. Big, beautiful, and shrimpy. And then feta. M. I love the combination of the roasted veggies, the cooked shrimp, the cool feta, and the sliced mixed olives, and then you’ve got that lemony yogurt down inside. Mom, I had to. I’m sorry. Ooh, that is really good. M great combination of ingredients. M when I think about making a marinade for lamb or anything actually, I think about what what’s commonly used with it. I don’t need to like reinvent the wheel every time. And when I think of lamb, I think of garlic, rosemary, and maybe some lemon. All kinds of Greek Mediterranean flavors. So, I’m going to start with four big cloves of garlic. And instead of using the big food processor, I love this little mini chop. Just so convenient. I need 3 tablespoons of fresh rosemary. And fortunately, I have a lot of it in my garden. Just peel it off the stems. Give it a big chop. There’s something about the combination of lamb and rosemary. They just go together. So, why fight it? I mean, if you wanted to do lamb and tagon, the lamb would really sort of overpower the teragon, but rosemary has that same kind of really like strong flavor that would stand up to it and compliment it. My friend Frank’s coming over. I know he loves lamb, so that’s good. So, that should be about three good tablespoons of rosemary. You don’t have to cut it up so finely because I’m going to chop it up in the mini chop. Going to add a little oregano, one and 1/2 teaspoons, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 3/4 of a teaspoon of pepper, and just give it a chop. Look how convenient this is. I love it. Sure beats chopping it up by hand. So, I’m just going to mix the marinade right in the dish that I’m going to marinate the lamb in. So all of this just goes right in. And then I’m just going to add classic marinade ingredients. So first I have freshly squeezed lemon juice. About a half a cup. Really important for it to be fresh. Half a cup of olive oil. It’s like making a vinegrett actually. Lemon juice, olive oil. Just pour it in. And then to add to the flavor, I’m going to add red wine to it. But you know, you really want to make sure it’s a really good red wine. This is a good coatron. Half a cup of red wine. I’m just going to stir these guys together. Just all the herbs and the lemon juice. So, what I’ve done is I’ve taken a rack of lamb and I’ve asked the butcher to cut it into individual chops. I’m just going to put each one right in the marinade. So, this is going to marinate for about at least 2 hours. If I have time to marinate it overnight, that’s what I do. So, this is two racks of lamb, which makes 16 individual chops. I think that’s enough for Frank and me. Okay, I’m just going to wrap these up, put it in the fridge, and then I’m going to get the grill all set up. [Music] Ready to grill the lamb. It’s been marinating in the garlic and rosemary, oregano. Just going to sprinkle it with salt and pepper just before I put it on the grill. Okay, these are going to cook really fast. Like four minutes on each side. I’ve got a grill that has pretty hot coals, but it’s just one layer. You don’t want to overcook these guys. Whoa. So, this is rack of lamb. And if you can only buy rack of lamb whole and you don’t have a butcher, you can just cut it into chops yourself. It’s quite easy. It’s frenched, which means that the bones are cleaned off. Where’s Jeffrey when I need him? Okay. Hot mint. Hot fire. Oh, I can really smell the garlic and rosemary and the lamb’s going to be just delicious. This going to be so good with the yogurt and mint sauce. Yum. Because there’s so much oil in the marinade, I actually wouldn’t pour more marinade on it. Otherwise, you’ll have like an inferno. I mean, do these look delicious or what? I think the thinner ones are done. I’m just going to put them on a platter and then let them rest. I’m going to cover them with foil, let them rest for about 10 minutes, and then all the juices get back into the lamb. These look so delicious. You know, by the time you get the small ones off, the bigger ones are ready. So, it’s a good system. Boy, that is one gorgeous platter of rack of lamb. Cover it with foil and just let all the juices get back into it. What you want to be sure is don’t ever put it back in the marinade and don’t use the marinade as a sauce because it had raw meat in it. Cover it like that. Cover it really securely so it stays hot. And while that rests, I’m going to get the rest of the meal ready. [Music] When I was thinking what kind of sauce would be good with a lamb, I thought classic Greek flavors again. So, yogurt, mint. This is going to be delicious. I’m making a mint and yogurt sauce for it. First, I need a half a cup of chopped mint leaves. You know, I’m going to chop up the leaves. I can certainly measure a half a cup of leaves, but it’s a whole different measurement when they’re chopped leaves, and I think it’s much more accurate. And I want the flavors to be exactly the right proportion. Okay, I’m just going to give it a big rough chop and then measure it. So, the base of the sauce is yogurt and then it’s got all kinds of things, mint, dill, scallions to give it a little heat. It’s going to have lots of flavor. So, that should be about half a cup. Right into the food processor. Two tablespoons of dill. Dill, just run your knife along the stems. The stems of dill are tender, so it doesn’t really matter. So, I’d say that’s about two tablespoons chopped dill and six scallions. Just going to give them a rough chop because they’re going to cut up in the food processor. This is not the place for dried herbs. You want really that fresh sort of zing of fresh herbs. Put it right in. Now, for a little heat, just a little pinch of red pepper flakes. Just give it a little punch. Tablespoon of olive oil. Going to make a paste which I’m going to add the yogurt to. A little bit of lemon juice. About a tablespoon. We’ll squeeze it right in. Okay. Nice squeeze of lemon. Just give it that fresh lemon hit. And just grind it up until it’s coarse paste. And that really releases all the fresh herb flavor. So I’m just going to add 7 oz of yogurt. This is Greek yogurt, of course, since we’re making Greek lamb, which is really thick yogurt. Teaspoon of salt. Half a teaspoon of pepper. Think Frank’s going to like this for lunch. And just give it a pour. So, that’s about as easy as the sauce gets, doesn’t it? Just want to make sure it tastes great. I love all the green herbs in it. It’s just fantastic. It’s really tangy from the yogurt and the mint is so clear and all the herbs. Oh, this is just delicious. Going to be really good with the lamb. So, because it’s a really thick sauce, instead of pouring it over the lamb, I’m going to put it under the lamb. I’ll show you. Just going to put it right down the middle of this plate and then put the lamb right on top of it. Lamb’s resting when it’s done. It’s just going to go right down the middle of this platter. Well, how good does this look? Salad’s done. The sauce is done. All I have to do is plate up the lamb. So, I’m going to put the lamb on with their little legs crossing. Let’s see how this goes. Just like that. Just rest them right on the sauce. Oh, they’re so juicy. Grill some lamb and a man shows up. Works every time. So, it’s grilled Greek lamb with some fabulous sauce. It’s got a yogurt and mint sauce. So fantastic. You ready for a little dinner? I am indeed. Outside in the garden. What do you think? As long as we’re talking about the garden. That sounds great. Can I And one more. One more. Yeah. Just like that. And maybe a little lemon on the end. Just in case. Does that look good? Beautiful. Okay, you take the lamb. I got it. I’ll take the tomato salad. Perfect. We’re going to imagine ourselves in Mikos. All right, we’re going to start with the lamb cuz we need to get the lamb on the fire. Now, I didn’t ship this awesome grill from Atoria Queens for nothing. We’re going to put one on here with live charcoal and I’m going to actually put one on the gas grill on the rotissery there. And we’ll see how we can compare them, see how how it goes. All right. So, we’re going to start by making our marinade. And I’m actually going to start with some some white wine, some fresh lemon juice. We’re going to have a nice sort of heavy garlic flavor here. So, what I’m doing here is I’m crushing the garlic and it’s going to break up the skin so it’s easy for the garlic to actually come out of the skin. Okay. And I’m just going to pop it right into our blender. Okay. So, we have a bunch of garlic in there. Now, rosemary is very strong herb, but we want that. We want we want some strong flavors on our lamb. Okay. And then we have some fresh oregano. I don’t have an oregano bush. I mean, to me, oregano is the most prevalent fresh herb when it comes to Greek food. All right. Then some Greek olive oil. I’m going to take my zestester and zest away. Can’t have enough lemon. Some black pepper. Let’s blend this up. Okay. So, I’m going to take half of it and marinate the lamb and then save half of it and base it while it’s cooking. Okay. So, this is a butterfied um leg of lamb that’s boneless. I asked the butcher to take the bone out. I mean, you can roast a leg of lamb with the bone in, but I think for the rotisserie, I don’t think you want the bone in because it won’t be able to spin on the rotisserie. I’m going to season this with salt and pepper on both sides. This is a dense piece of meat, so don’t be afraid to season it really well. And I’m going to take my marinade and pour the marinade right over it and really get the marinade in there. You really want to let this marinade at least for about 8 hours or, you know, even better, overnight. It’s really just going to soak up all this flavor. After it marinates, I actually want to tie it so that cooks nice and evenly. Okay, so first of all, just want to make sure it’s, you know, nice and uniform. And then we’re going to roll it up like a log, just like that. Okay, we’re going to start by going underneath it here. And then just sort of creating a foundation knot right here. All right. And then we’re just going to I put my finger in here to create the spacing. There we go. Just like that. Okay, that’s what you want to see. Let’s get this on the rotisserie. So, it’s nice right in the middle. Just clamped it on both sides. And now this is going to spin. Just make sure you keep uh you’re adding charcoal so that so it gets nice and hot. All right. All right. I’m also going to do one on the gas grill. So, again, we’re going to start with the clamps. [Music] All right. I’m put this on the the gas grill. All right. There we go. Gas, charcoal, new school, old school, both of the same lamp. So, we’ll see what happens. So, this took about 2 hours to cook. Then we let it rest right on the rotisserie there. Just has a really beautiful crust on the outside from all that the basting. And you want to slice this very thinly. This is what I like to do when nobody’s looking. So much flavor. Really moist, tender. Beautiful. And then we’re going to take our our red wine lemon vinegrett and just pour it right over there for some uh for some extra moisture. It’s really going to bring out the flavor there. You know what I do is I just rip off a little bit of this pa. Grab some lamb. I’m so happy right now cuz I’m about to eat this some of the zatiki. That might be the perfect plate of food. It’s going to light up your taste buds and you’re going to feel great afterwards. What’s better than that? But the kudigra or however you say it in Greek is the lamb.