It’s time for a recipe on this blog, wouldn’t you agree?

One of my favorite side dishes during the summer is called “Tarator”. It may seem similar to the Greek dish known as “Tzatziki”, but I promise you that it is truly Albanian! Bulgarians and Macedonians are also known to make this dish (also considered a ‘cold soup’), so I’ll let them argue over Tarator’s true origins.

It is easy to make and is refreshing in the summer time due to the cool tasting yogurt.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups of plain yogurt (fat free or light is up to you!)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 medium sized cucumbers, grated
• Salt to taste (1/2 tsp)
• 1 tbs olive oil

Other additions if desired: Dill as a seasoning and walnuts for crunch.

Directions:
Pour the yogurt into a mixing bowl and stir until it is smooth and creamy. Add the minced garlic cloves & shredded/grated cucumbers one at a time and mixing them together. If the dish seems too thick, you can slowly add a half cup or 3/4 cup of water. **In Albania, the yogurt is not as thick as American yogurt, thus to make this dish more “Albanian” add water as desired. Add some salt (1/2 tsp) stirring all the ingredients together. Pour into 2-3 bowls. Pour a dollop (don’t you just love that word?) of olive oil into each bowl to finish, but do not stir it in.

Serves 2-3 persons.

Preparation time is about 10 minutes. Make sure you have some tasty fresh bread to dip into this sensational summer side dish.

Let me know if you try this and what you think!

I was preparing one of my favorite meals for TCLH the other evening, “Bread, Cheese and Tea”. It’s one of my favorite meals to make, because, quite literally, it only takes 3 ingredients, the aforementioned. And, as icing on the cake so to speak, TCLH considers this one his favorite meals as the combination of flavors brings back a strange kind of nostalgia from his childhood under Communism.

Well, there I was, after laboring in the kitchen for hours minutes to cut 2 chunks of goat (or ‘feta’) cheese, boil the mountain tea, and take the fresh sliced bread out the bag and place them onto our plates. As I’m setting them on the table, TCLH remarks upon seeing the nice square size of goat cheese on his plate—“This one piece would feed our whole family of 5 for three days under Communism!” Though it sounded like a mock complaint, I calmly said in my defense “Aren’t you glad things have changed?”

His comment was a good reminder that it’s easy to take things for granted—even a nice-sized portion of goat cheese. That day I decided that I want to be more intentional in thanking God for the little things in life, even as mundane as Goat Cheese!

What “Goat-cheese” like things do you take for granted or are thankful for?