Greek Salad

I don’t know about you, but I know we are getting pretty darn excited about summer. As many of us in Wisconsin are in the same boat, we were blessed with a pretty mild winter, and spring has sprung, but let’s face it, we all wait for summer. Summer means a lot of things to us. Everything from watching baseball games, to biking with the kids, the constant smell of a grill, the sounds of lawn mowers, and visiting a farmers market for fresh ingredients. We can probably all keep that list going, but since I focus on recipes, I thought I would share a salad that just screams summertime.

The Greek salad. Maybe to many of you, this might not sound like summertime, as it does a visit to your local Greek diner. It’s a salad that is probably on every menu of a classic Greek diner, and it is a salad that I really like a lot. This salad, like many, has that punch of freshness in every bite, and it is a salad that can be tweaked to your liking. This is my take on a Greek salad.

Ingredients:

• 16 cherry tomatoes, halved
• Kalamata olives, seeded and sliced in half
• 1 cucumber, peeled, cut into bite size chunks
• 1 rib of celery, cut into bite size chunks
• 1/2 cup Feta cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 tsp dried oregano, crumbled
• 1/2 one green onion, thinly sliced
• pinch of cracked black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil, drizzled

That’s it. A bunch of ingredients most might of us have in stock, especially when it comes to cucumbers and celery. The rest, well, I think one should have feta cheese in the refrigerator, and who doesn’t love kalamata olives? Well, my wife actually doesn’t like olives, but that is ok. She still loves this salad, and she just scoots the olives to the side.

Every bite is packed with those bright flavors you expect in a Greek salad. Tender bites of pretty much every vegetable with the crunch of the celery, and that feta just begins to meld with the olive oil. It’s good, refreshing, and good for you to boot. Hope you enjoy!