The Greek, goes Mexican

I have fallen in love with Greek food, and I love it even more because it falls within my diet guidelines. Mostly. I'm sure Gyros aren't within my carb restrictions, but OMG I love them!!!

I happened to be surfing the net the other day and found a recipe that sounded like it might be good, so I thought, why not give it a try. So tonight I made it, with my spin of course, and also a slight detour because I ran out of time. 

I'm calling this Greek Chicken Tacos, only because I didn't have the time to make the pitas and had to use what I had on hand. Turns out to be pretty damn good.

So the first thing you are going to need is chicken. The recipe calls for 2lbs, and I honestly don't know if I used two lbs, but I did use 3 boneless, skinless breasts. Your going to cut these bad boys into bite sized pieces, and place in a bowl. I cut mine a bit large and had to chop them in half when they were cooking.

Next, in a small bowl your going to mix in 5 TBLS lemon juice, 4 TBLS red wine vinegar, 3 TBLS olive oil, 2tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, about 1/4 tsp sugar.

Now take 7 TBLS of that mixture and drizzle it over the chicken, add 4 medium garlic cloves minced, and stir it all up. Cover and refrigerate for 2+hours. I just used a plate to cover it. 

Meanwhile your going to make some Tzatziki Sauce. I must confess I made this yesterday, and used a different recipe. If you have your own feel free to use it. Otherwise here's the latest one that I used. I will warn you, it makes a lot, so unless you really like it and can find other uses for it, I would halve it.

Your going to need some of that awesome plain Greek Yogurt, or you can do it the hard way and take regular plain yogurt and strain it. I'm lazy so I bought a 32 oz container. 
You cant forget the other main ingredient...cucumbers. Your going to need two of those bad boys, and you need to peel them and remove the seeds, then dice them. Take the cukes and place in a strainer and sprinkle with about 1 TBLS kosher salt. I didn't have that so I just sprinkled regular salt. Place something heavy on them and let them drain for awhile. Let me just deviate for a moment...I just realized that cucumbers smell like summer time. Back to the recipe, so we have Greek Yogurt, and cucumbers, we need about 3TBLS lemon juice. I used 3 and I thought it was a bit too much, so next time I will be using 2.5 TBLS. Then we are going to chop up some garlic. The recipe calls for 1 lg clove, but we like lots of garlic, so I used about three medium ones. We want to chop it up as fine as possible without it being a pain in the rear end. Find some fresh dill and use 1 TBLS, or 1 tsp dried. Sprinkle some salt and pepper. Throw this all in a food processor, or blender and get that all creamy. Let chill for minimum 2 hrs. 

Damn, I was going to take pictures of these when I made DH's, but I forgot...as usual. Will work on getting some pics as soon as possible.

So take that chicken and cook up till no longer raw. I added some liquid smoke, as the original recipe called for grilling the meat. Once cooked, drain the liquid and brown it up a bit.

So we need some topping for the tacos. I used lettuce and tomatoes. I drizzled the remaining marinade from the chicken all over it. I wanted to use Feta cheese but all I had on hand was shredded Mozzarella/provolone cheese. 

Now we need something to put this stuff in. I used corn tortilla shells, as the flour shells contain too much sodium for my diet. 

I used the taco chells be because I ran out of time to make the pitas. I fried the shells up a bit and stuffed it with a bit of hot meat, some shredded mozzarella cheese. 

Get it all gooey melty. Put the marinated lettuce and tomatoes, and then top with the Tzatziki sauce and now it's time to enjoy some yummy goodness! 

Ingredients for chicken:
2 lbs chicken cut into bite sized pieces
5 TBLS lemon juice
4 TBLS red wine vinegar
3 TBLS olive oil
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp sugar

Ingredients for Tzatziki Sauce:
3 c. Greek yogurt
2.5 TBLS lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
2 med. cucumbers peeled and seeds removed,     diced
1 TBLS Kosher salt for salting cukes
1 tsp dried dill
salt and pepper to taste



Fixings: lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, or feta cheese, and whatever your imagination comes up with.