Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas salad

A quick and delicious lunch on a day where you'll eat your weight with dinner:
GREEK SALAD!

Make sure you have:
1 pt. grape tomatoes or 3 large tomatoes
3 small persian cucumbers
1/4 large red onion
feta cheese (big block in the brine is best)
fresh mint (totally worth it)
olives (kalmatta are yummiest)
red wine vinegar
lemon
olive oil
salt & pepper

And then:
  • Thinly slice the onion and place in a small bowl.  Add enough red wine vinegar to mostly cover, about 1/4 cup.  Set aside.
  • Chop tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta into bite sized pieces.  Add to a large bowl and add salt & pepper.  Roughly chop or tear a good handful of mint and add to the bowl.  The salt will start bringing liquid out of the tomato and cucumber, so you are likely to use only part of the wine vinegar from the reserved onions.  
  • Add the onions to the rest of the salad, reserving most of the vinegar .  Squeeze half of a fresh lemon over the top
  • whisk olive oil into the reserved vinegar, then start by adding half of this dressing and tossing the salad.  Add remaining dressing as needed
  • Pour yourself a glass of white wine and sit down and gaze at the tree and reflect on how awesome your life is.  Or at least marvel at how damn yummy the salad is.  OH, and how good the pecan, bourbon and chocolate pie will be for dessert!