Day 2 of our childless vacation.

Well we have been in Gettysburg since yesterday. The internet has been spotty so we will have to see  how many pictures get post. My packing for the kids did not go the way I planned so one of our family trips will have to be my post on packing for special needs.  Justin and I got to go visit with friends we have not seen in 2 years and ate at our favorite Greek restaurant. I think that has been the highlight so far. I was going to take a picture of our food then remembered about it half way through my chicken souvlaki and at that point it was to late. If you are ever in Frederick, Md you have to stop at Athens Greek  Restaurant and Pizza. In a little while we plan on starting our hiking and hopefully a ghost tour.  :D

Steak Solvaski

Marley was upset with me that she has ben getting a ton of "not yummy dead cow". Steak is expensive and I want to work with a tight budget to save some for my dream house. I hear a lot of steak salsbury but have never had it and decided to make up my own thing. So here is my Greekish cubed Steak.
                                                               

I started buy making roasted potatoes. I washed and chopped the potatoes. Tossed it with oil and seasonings. Normally I use salt, pepper, paprika, basil, oregano, and thyme.

Now for the steak, put salt pepper and basil on both sides. Add a small amount of butter in a hot pan and cook the steak. 

Set the steak aside and start mushrooms. 

Sautee the mushrooms with onions and garlic with parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the left over sauce from the chicken solvaski. (If you refrigerate the leftover sauce the grease will harden and easy to separate.) Add the steaks and cook until until the potatoes are done. 

Two pieces of cube steak is $4, a giant bag of potato that gets me 4 meals is $5 and mushrooms are $3.50. Each meal comes to about $3 a person.

Chicken Solvaski

We moved to Maryland 4 years ago for work which was a horrible idea but some good came out of it. We found a prefect little Greek restaurant and it became out go to for eating out all the time. We would order 4 meals because if you bought 3 the 4th was free. Justin would order a gyro and the kids and I would order Solvaski with a falafel meal. Each meal came with the most amazing salad and rice. Out of everything in Maryland I really really miss our little restaurant. They even delivered now I have nothing like that local to me and my delivery man ( which is Justin) complains and his job is moving further from the only greek place we found. So now it is time to take action and learn how to make our own Greek food. I made chicken solvaski for the third time.

So for ingredients:  

• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika or paprika
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or grated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt + 1 teaspoon pepper

Now mix everything together to create a marinade. Leave the chicken in the marinade for a few hours. 

 I cooked the chicken in the marinade at 350 for about an hour and a half. 

Then I made white rice using chicken stock and added butter and lemon with parsley with sautéed green beans.

I have been working with limited funds so this meal cost me maybe $2.00 per person. We have been buying chicken thighs for $4 and it has about 10- 12 thighs in it. Each person gets one and the bag of green beans was $.99 rice is also nice to keep in the pantry. Save the marinade/ chicken stock for the next meal. (Please keep a close eye on the bottom of the food entries for more budget saving tips and tricks.)