Chicken Gyros

I am always trying to mix up dinner and not make a bunch of repeat meals.  I'm usually pretty good about keeping it fresh and then sometimes I feel completely uninspired.  I happened to be scanning through my email the other day looking for a chicken recipe I hadn't made yet.  I came across this recipe for chicken gyros I had bookmarked from another blog.  Does anyone else out there have a massive quantity of recipes in your email form other people's blogs that you are wanting to make?  Between my email, cookbook and magazine recipe collection it's hard to imagine that I will ever make everything I want.  But I will certainly try!  These gyros were yummy and totally hit the spot and were a huge hit for hubby and I.  I would love to tell you that Julian shared our enthusiasm but he did not.  He did however eat his with the pita, lettuce and mayonnaise so more like a wrap for him.  Sometimes you gotta let them have it the way they want it.  Enjoy!

Chicken Gyros
Recipe from Sunday's with Jennie blog


Ingredients:

• 1.25 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp. Olive oil
• 2 tsp. red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp. greek yogurt
• Juice of 1 lemon and lemon zest of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried parsley
• salt and pepper

Directions:

Whisk together all of the ingredients of the marinade together.  Put chicken in a large ziploc bag and pour marinade over, covering the chicken.  Refrigerate for one hour. 

Preheat the oven to broil.  Set chicken pieces on aluminum foil lined baking sheet and place on oven rack that is 6 inches below the broiler.  Broil 7 minutes per side, flipping once.  You may need to vary your cooking times based on the type and size of chicken.  I ended up cooking mine twice as long and had to change sheet pans as some of the garlic from the marinade was burning in the oven.  

Remove chicken from oven and lest rest a few minutes before cutting into pieces.  Meanwhile warm up the pitas as per package instructions.  We had ours with tzatziki, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and feta.  Assemble any way you wish, recipe for homemade tzatziki below. 

Tzatziki Sauce

Recipe from That's so Michelle

Ingredients:

• 1 c. Fage Total 0% greek yogurt
• 1 tsp. fresh dill
• 1 cucumber
• 1/2 of a lemon
• salt

Directions:

Peel the skin off the cucumber and cut into smaller pieces that will fit into your food processor and pulse until the cucumber is like mush.  Pour the cucumber puree into a strainer to reduce the water content, adding a pinch of salt will help draw out even more water.  

In a large bowl add your cup of greek yogurt, dill, cucumber puree and the juice of a lemon, a dash more salt and pepper, then mix thoroughly.  The longer it sits the better the flavor will be.

I found the Tzatziki to be to chunky for me, so I dumped everything back into my food processor and pulsed it until it was a smoother texture.  I am sure this is personal preference, but I liked the texture much better after doing so.  I also added a good amount of salt as well.