Greek Turkey With Feta And Spinach Recipe

Living with GERD, or Gastroesophageal reflux disease has been a challenge and long journey for me. Having to deal with consitit heartburn and acid reflux has greatly changed my daily diet. For months, I had to stick to a plan and very boring meal plan. Dinner time was stressful as all of the yummy spices were off had to be leaft off of my recipes. My husband and I had to find a way to reinvent our favorite recipes that were GERD-safe for me.

Some of the trigging foods for most people, not all people are:

Garlic, Tomatoes, Onions, Mint, Citrus, Pineapple, Coffee, Chocolate, Cheddar Cheese (Fatty Cheese) Chili Powder, Pepper, Clove, Nutmeg, Paprika, cinnamon, Dairy, Alcohol, Carbonated Beverages, High fat dairy products,

One of the dishes we enjoy is Greek Turkey Meatballs with Spinach and Feta. Now if it had all of the good tastey spices such as garlic, onion and pepper, this would be an amazing dish. Alas, it would also cause me heartburn if I cooked it that way. So my husband and I worked on changing the recipe around to fit my dietary needs.

Below is our recipe that we changed it to make it tasty and GERD-FRIENDLY safe to eat. Please note: If you know your triggers this will be very important in making sure the recipe is right for you.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground turkey

4 ounces crumbled feta cheese

1 cup chopped fresh baby spinach

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley (dry works just as well)

1 egg, beaten

1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs ( we use Progresso)

1 ½ teaspoons salt ( you can reduce if you are on a low sodium diet)

Pinch of pepper

1 ½ teaspoon oregano

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If GERD is not a problem for you, you can add these ingredients:

½ teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

Zest of ½ lemon

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Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 inch baking pan with olive oil.

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly. Shape into golf ball-sized meatballs using a spoon or cookie scoop. Place meatballs in a prepared pan, just touching.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until meatballs look brown and cooked through. If you like to use a meat thermometer, a minimum of 165 is good.

Serve with orzo or flatbread with tzatziki sauce.

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Recipe for Tzatziki Sauce:

1 “Fage” fat free plain greek yogurt

½ sliced cucumber

1 tablespoon fresh or dry dill

Directions:

Make this when meatballs are cooking.

Stir all of the above ingredients together and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. It will last for 24 hours.

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If feta, Tzatziki sauce, and orzo doesn’t appeal to you, you can easily turn these into Italian meatballs by changing out the following.

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Switch Out The Following:

Feta to Mozzarella

Orzo to pasta

Tzatziki to tomato sauce. (Rao's Homemade pasta sauce makes a Sensitive Marinara that has no onion and garlic, if tomatoes are not your trigger, this is a great alternative.)

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For me when I have wanted something different, I will have the Italian meatballs with parmesan cheese on top, no tomato sauce sadly. It’s a trigger for me.

One more piece of advice, if you do have GERD, try to have an early dinner. Its very important to stay upright for at least 3 hours. Believe, it can make a difference in having a more peaceful sleep that night.

I hope this helps people out there that suffer from GERD! I plan to post more GERD friendly recipes in the future.

Enjoy!