Homemade Lamb Burgers "a la Purple" | You've Got Meal!

Take that for a title, internet! Honestly I had no idea what to call this other than lamb burgers, but it does have a powerful purple touch because of the veggies used. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For 400 grams of minced lamb meat, prepare an infusion of spices: smoked paprika, ground ginger, cardamom, garlic powder, salt, pepper.

Also, mix in the burger meat a small amount of olive oil  and 1 egg or 2, this will help bind the lamb together. The rest of the burger components are red onion, beet, fries and a yogurt- garlic sauce that I will get to a bit later.

The onion and the beet I’ve cooked in the oven (just clean them, wrap them in some thin foil with some olive oil and salt, cook the onion for 20 minutes and the beet for twice more- I had a big beet) . This will give you sweet, juicy vegetables that bright up the plate. Oh, and the fries you just make them by frying potatoes, I think J.

We also served the burgers with sime small tempura zucchini, that turned out really nice, semi-crunchy and fresh..

A quick note here: I didn’t have and I was too lazy to go buy, but some crispy iceberg salad and fresh tomatoes work really well here.

Now, the sauce:  greek yogurt, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, finely chopped mint. Mix everything together, balancing the oil and the lemon juice.

Place all the components in a warmed bun, grab a cold beer (a chilly Spitfire works for me with these burgers) and remember summer. It’s only 6 months before it comes back again….. L

Enjoy,

Thassos, Greece- Day 4

Our fourth day in Greece is going to be all about food, so, considering the type of the blog, it should be just as the foodies like it.

Naturally, we started our day at the beach, taking advantage of such a beautiful weather.

For lunch, we came back to a tavern we already visited once. We had again some fried eggplant, so you can imagine how good it was.

To make sure we will remember that garlic salad we mentioned, we got it also as a separate dish. If you are concerned about the garlic smell, don't be. The  yogurt and the olives actually decrease the garlic flavor and make it less pungent. It is just delicious, maybe we will recreated one day on this blog.

I also had some homemade chicken soup, so soothing and comforting.

After some walking on the beach and a bit of getting to know Golden Beach better, we decided to try another nearby village for dinner.
Ever since our bus trip we had our eye on Skala Potamia, which is the closest to Golden Beach and it seemed more "alive". We had already heard of a nice restaurant there, Theagenis, which was supposed to be really easy to spot, nice food, good prices and live music. You can actually walk from Golden Beach to Skala Potamia, but we went by bus and, in 10 minutes maximum we were there.
It proved to be more developed than Golden Beach, way more shops and taverns.

We did some shopping and encountered 3 little adorable kitties (of course), walked alongside the fishing boats until we reached the pier.
We arrived at the tavern right on time for the start of the live music program, around 20:30.

The tavern is really nice, the live Greek music is the main attraction, but the food is also very tasty, the service was really good and the pricing ok, similar to other taverns on the island, that don't offer the same service.

We started our dinner with Mezes, a plate of  mixed traditional appetizers. It turned out to be a great way to get to know more about the Greek cuisine. There were some wine leaves stuffed with rice, tzatziki salad, garlic salad, fish roe salad, eggplant salad, and some sort of a potato salad. Everything was delicious.

For the main course, I went for red mullet, but I was surprised to find lots of tiny fishes on my plate instead of one bigger piece. The dish itself was very tasty, I must say. As we got used to by now, in most Greek taverns, they give you really big servings.

Talking about big servings, Mr. G. ordered a lamb stifado and got more that he thought. It was actually a leg of lamb on a plate. It turned out to be delicious, Greek lamb stifado is a sort of lamb stew with small, whole shallots, tomatoes and served with potatoes and rice.

Besides the big serving something else is a tradition in Thassos, you always get a complimentary (usually sweet) treat, at the end of the meal, before they bring you the check. It is not much, usually some ice cream, small piece of cake, but it always puts a smile on your face. At Theagenis it was baclava.

We walked back to the villa after dinner. We tried to walk on the beach as much as we could, but being really dark and not knowing the way at all we feared that there might be a dead end somewhere so we got back on the main street. We also spotted Captain, a restaurant that serves great sea food, that our guide recommended in Skala Potamia.

There you go,  a day filled with sun, sand, water and great food.

xoxo,

Thassos, Greece- Day 2

If it is just a bit cloudy you can spot the Athos Mountain from the beach

In our second day in Thassos we decided to go to the capital, Limenas or Thassos Town for some gift shopping. First we sun bathed a bit and drank our morning coffee on the beach and then got into the bus and arrived in Limenas around 2 p.m.

Limenas is a nice city and it is definitely the place to shop for gifts for your loved ones.

Nice entrance guarded by lime trees

We didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing because we were hungry and really wanted to check out the gift shop street, which turned out to be pretty big.

We had lunch at a really laid back restaurant on the shore with the traditional white and blue accents.

We had "a nice talk" with some kitties and some nice food. Mr. G. had Kleftiko, a traditional greek dish and I had some simple, fried sardines.

Kleftiko (Stolen Lamb) is made with slow-cooked lamb, sealed in a paper or foil pouch. The slow cooking and the wrapping make the meat tender and full of flavor. At this restaurant is was served with roasted potatoes and rice.

The sardines don't need many explanations, but deserve the attention because it is such a simple dish, perfect to be enjoyed at a seaside tavern.

We said goodbye to the cats and went shopping. We got some olive oil, some pine honey (people from thassos are very proud of their Thassian pine honey), some Retsina (Greek wine) and some other knick-knacks.

In a hurry to catch the last bus to Golden Beach, we took some photos of places we had to see on another day. And we actually came back in one of the next days because there was so much of the town we felt we missed.

The bus that takes you through different villages and to Limenas really comes in handy and it is affordable. For 2 Euros you can go from Golden Beach to Limenas in about 30-40 minutes. The downside is that the last bus from Limenas to Golden Beach was at around 6 p.m. so you actually have to sacrifice a day at the beach for isiting the capital.

Hope you enjoyed Day 2,

Grilling Weekend

These days we haven't cooked that much beacause we were mostly out visiting friends and family. This weekend we put together a quick barbecue style family lunch.

We served everything with garlic grilled mushrooms and spring salad.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!