I really love Greek food and although I have tried a few recipes over the years, I was never really that happy with the results. Well, this past week, I decided to “Go Greek” and try out some new recipes. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised and loved them all! Our meal consisted of:

• Greek Salad
• Gyros with Greek Marinated Chicken
• Tzatziki Sauce

Although I only made three dishes, it was quite a bit of work simply because there was lots of chopping to do. I needed chopped veggies for both the salad and for adding to the gyros. I decided to chop everything I needed and make a tray up earlier in the day. I then just added the veggies to the salad and gyros from the previously prepared tray. This certainly made dinner time much easier.

Yummy Greek Salad:

I am one of those people that prefer my Greek salad with Romain lettuce. This recipe is really all about the dressing! It was a “restaurant hack” and that’s probably why is tastes much like one that would be served when having dinner out. The flavour is great and I will definitely be making it often. As for the actual salad, I used the following:

• Romaine lettuce, washed and torn
• tomatoes (I used Roma tomatoes because I had them on hand, but otherwise I would have bought cherry/grape tomatoes)
• red onion, thinly sliced or diced
• Kalamata olives
• avocado, chopped (add right before serving)
• cucumber, peeled and chopped
• pepper, chopped (I used yellow and red because I had them both on hand)
• Feta (I honestly can’t even believe this, but I completely forgot to add my favourite ingredient because it was the one and only thing that I had not put on my tray. I thought I was so well prepared and it wasn’t until I finished my salad that I realized I had completely forgotten to take the feta out of the fridge. Dam.)

Greek Salad Dressing:

This recipe was adapted from Danielle’s recipe that I found on All Recipe’s. The recipe makes a huge batch because it is an actual restaurant recipe. I originally divided it by 12, but still felt it was too much. I took my 1/12 recipe and then halved that. So, if my math serves me correct….I made 1/24 of the original recipe. I only wanted enough for the dinner salad in case I didn’t like it. In the end, I had more than enough for the salad and enough left over for another smaller salad. Here is my scaled down version of the original recipe.

Ingredients:

2/3 tsp. is a bit tricky. I was so glad I have these sliding measuring spoons from Pampered Chef!

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2/3 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2/3 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2/3 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together (with the exception of the vinegar). Once mixed, add the vinegar and mix vigorously until the ingredients are well blended. Store in a tightly covered container at room temperature.