Half Assed Kitchen

Tzatziki

We've found our new favorite meal! Falafel with tzatziki. Tzatziki is a Greek yogurt-based sauce containing cucumber, salt, olive oil, and various other delicious additions. When we first began looking for recipes, we found that most of them insisted one drain the yogurt through a sieve or cheese cloth, then drain the cucumber, then, once the tzatziki is mixed, refrigerate for four hours to marry the flavors.

We say, Pfffft.

Use Greek Yogurt, if you can, and no draining is necessary. Same with the cucumbers. Drain who? Also, we served our tzatziki right after whipping it up and it was fine. Better than fine. It was marvelous.

We picked up a bag of frozen falafels from Trader Joes, served them with the tzatziki, pita bread, hummus, kalamata olives and sautéed chard sprinkled with salt and lemon juice. The result was a super satisfying and swoon-worthy meal.

Effort required for the tzatziki: Truly 1/2 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it:

(We used a slightly modified version of Ina Garten's recipe)

1 eight-ounce container plain yogurt, preferably Greek

1/4 cup sour cream

1/3 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped finely

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Dribble white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic (we used the pre-jarred stuff)

1/2 teaspoon dill (we used dried, but fresh would be fabulous)

Bit of mint (optional)

Mix all ingredients. Taste and alter to fit your preference. Serve cold with warm falafels or simply with pita bread.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Shoofly pie

Lately, we've been in the mood to bake a pie. It had to be easy, made of ingredients we had on hand, and extremely tasty. For years, we've heard about shoofly pie, a molasses-laden, Pennsylvania Dutch staple, and have wanted to try it.

Today was the day. We decided to use the recipe from the blog Not So Humble Pie. It turned out to be a good one. One bowl for dry ingredients, one for wet, and a pie pan and you're set. The whole thing took ten minutes to put together and about 35 to bake.

If you're a molasses fan, we hope you'll give this a whirl. It's sweet, rich, and spicy. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Effort required: Truly 1/2 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

Store bought pie crust (or your favorite crust recipe)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 Tablespoons shortening (or butter)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

3/4 cup King Syrup or Golden Barrel Table Syrup (if you don't have this, use 1/3 cup molasses, 1/3 cup corn syrup--light or dark--and 2 Tablespoons honey)

3/4 cup hot water

1 well beaten egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Unroll crust into pie pan and flute edges.

In one bowl, mix flour, shortening, and spices with handheld pastry blender or fork. In a separate bowl, mix syrup (or molasses, corn syrup and honey), hot water, egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Spread 1/3 of the flour/crumb mixture across bottom of crust. Pour 1/2 of molasses mixture on top of crumbs. Add another 1/3 of crumbs, cover with rest of molasses mixture and top with remaining 1/3 crumbs.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes.

Let cool at least 10 to 15 minutes before eating.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.