i don't love cooking...but i love eating.

I came to this new realization last week.

I've never hated to cook, but when I talk to people who do it for fun, I feel a little bewildered.

You LIKE chopping vegetables?
You ENJOY flitting from pot to bowl to skillet, stirring and sprinkling, occasionally burning your fingers?
You would RATHER make that sauce from scratch, using 14 different ingredients, taking up a full half hour of your precious time, rather than just buying Prego (which, in my opinion, tastes great)?

Cooking is a chore for me, something I have to do. It's a means to an end. I cook so I can eat. And so my family can eat.

But I'm never tempted to do microwave dinners or serve cereal for dinner. Know why? Because I love good food. I like expensive things, too, like pita chips, gorgonzola cheese, spinach, hummus, and avocados. I'm getting hungry as I type.

And so, I'm willing to spend the time and energy (and money) in order to make something absolutely delicious, that makes my husband say MMMMM and makes me look forward to those leftovers...

I've also discovered that I buy more groceries than most people. When I go to check out, I often get comments like, "Storing up for the winter?" or "Wow, you must have a lot of people to feed."

Nope. This will last 7-1o days, and it's really just for the three of us. (Well, we do like having people over for dinner, maybe once a week on average.)

Do we eat a lot? Yep.

Allow me to share my latest recipe treasure with you. I served these when my sister, Alyssa, was here a few weeks ago. It's a Mediterranean dish; we ate them when we went to Albania last year, and I loved them. This particular recipe is Greek (Sharon's Scrumptious Souvlaki's, from www.allrecipes.com), so we added french fries to the sandwiches to make them more Albanian.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds lamb, cut into 1 inch square cubes (I used pork)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup red wine (I used grape-cran juice)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried mint, crushed
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 4 cups plain yogurt
• 1 cucumber, shredded
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
• salt and pepper to taste
• 8 pita bread rounds
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tomato, thinly sliced

Directions

1. Place lamb in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup olive oil, red wine, 1 teaspoon salt, pepper, oregano, mint and garlic. Stir until lamb is well coated. Cover, and refrigerate 3 hours, or overnight.
2. Preheat grill, and lightly oil grate. In a small bowl, combine yogurt, cucumber, minced garlic and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season with dill weed, salt and pepper; set aside.
3. Thread meat onto skewers. Grill 10 minutes, turning once. (I used a big electric skillet instead of a grill, and it turned out great.) Lightly sprinkle pita bread with olive oil, and place on grill until warm, about 1 minute. (Or just put it in the toaster oven and skip the oil.) Serve meat on pita bread along with sliced red onion, sliced tomato and yogurt sauce. (And add french fries for an Albanian flair. Yes, IN the sandwich, not on the side. Yum.)

Hope you enjoy!