Smokie Stirfry

After a long day, or when I'm feeling lazy, I'll make a smokie stirfry for my family. It's very simple to make, and fairly inexpensive.  I will typically make enought to feed 5, in hopes there will be leftovers, but there hardly ever is! It only takes about 30 min, including prep time to cut the veges. I first started using this as tinfoil dinners while we were camping. Last weekend I made it with my friend's vegetarian faux sausage.

 

I use 1 pkg of smokies (about 3 per person), check the fat content on the labels because some have an insane fat %. Matt loves the cheese smokies, but those have an even higher percentage of fat. I purchase the ones with the least amount of fat, and add in 1/2 cup of cheese when the stirfry is almost finished. The smokies are nice because they are already cooked, so you only need to brown them.

1 red/yellow pepper chopped

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

a handful of carrots, chopped

half a stalk of celery, chopped

I start off by frying the onion with the carrots in the butter, as they take the longest to brown & soften. Then I add the rest of the mix as I'm finished chopping!

Tyropita

I just got back from dinner at my once again mentioned favorite local resturant, Park Towers. It's very home-y and a family type diner. I ordered the chicken souvlaki pita (one of my favorites) and tried these for the first time tonight. Tyropita is a greek layered pastry, made with layers of buttered phyllo pastry and a feta cheese-egg mix. I've been in love with feta cheese since eating my first Greek salad a few years back, and this is no exception! I love phyllo pastry, and combined with feta it's really delicious. It reminds me a bit of Ukrainian nalysnyky, although my mom/grandma used to make nalysnyky crepes as more of a desert food. Anyway, if you like feta cheese and flakey phyllo pastry, you might want to try this! It would make a good snack dish for parties, too.

Here's a recipe I found which I will be trying this weekend!

• 2 pounds of feta cheese, drained of any excess liquid and crumbled.
• Lemon zest
• Spinach (optional. Adding spinach makes these spanakopita)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 or more cubes of butter
• 1 pound of phyllo pastry sheets. Completely thaw the phyllo in the refrigerator and in its packaging if it was frozen.

 If you've made baklava before, it seems pretty similiar. You can make the tyropita in a large pan like baklava, or in individual pieces similiar to making perogi (which would be more time consuming but I think better, as I love flakey baked phyllo)