Greek Vegetable Salad

I like cooking in themes. For instance, if I am making Italian, the whole meal will be Italian, or Mexican, on in this case Greek. Once again, I was inspired by using up some of my leftovers and planned the rest of the meal around them. “The Queen” and I always get very creative when re-using our leftovers.

We have a friend staying with us for while and someone had given him some of their leftover lamb chops. I also had some hummus to use that my neighbor had given to us. Well, at the moment I am cooking for three, and there was no way I could stretch just one lamb chop three ways. I’m good, but I’m NOT that good. 🙂 So, I used that lamb chop and sliced it into thin strips and mixed it with some leftover steak, also cut into thin strips. Gyros were made with the meat. You’ve seen me do this before, a number of times. Quick and Easy Gyros, California Gyros OK. The main course is set. Now I just needed a side dish or two to go with it. I made a delicious Greek vegetable salad and some French fries to go with the gyros. I made this delicious and filling meal at home, using up some of my leftovers. Had we gone out to eat, a very similar meal would have cost us about $50 or more for all three of us.

I used to make salads very similar to this all the time back when I was the Sous Chef for a catering company and had to feed the crew. This colorful salad is simple, easy-peasy and healthy because it is full of a variety of vegetables.

Greek Vegetable Salad

1 cucumber, seeded and quartered

1/2 red bell pepper, diced medium

1/2 green bell pepper, diced medium

1 cup mixed olives

1/2 red onion, diced medium

2 tomatoes, diced medium

1-2 tsp garlic

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 TBSP lemon olive oil, optional

1 TBSP lemon balsamic vinegar, optional

1/2 cup yogurt

1-2 tsp fresh ground black pepper, or to taste

Dice all the vegetables at a medium dice and toss together. A quick and easy way to remove the seeds from the cucumber is to cut the cucumber in half and run a spoon from the top of the cucumber to the bottom, right down the center. All the seeds will come out in an instant. I LOVE heirloom tomatoes, so I use them whenever and wherever I can. They were perfect in this salad. I also like to mix the colors, so I used one red and one yellow. Everything was so fresh and delicious.

Combine the yogurt, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic and pepper together and mix well.

Add just enough dressing to the vegetables to coat them without having them swim in dressing. Toss well and refrigerate until ready to enjoy. I used the rest of the dressing in the gyros, along with some more tomato slices, that I sliced very thin and some red onions, also sliced very thin.

This simple salad will go well with just about anything, but as I said, I like to cook I themes, so I paired it with my Greek gyros and some red wine on the side. Simple perfection. It was like we were dining in Greece. 🙂

Good food doesn’t have to be fancy or hard to make. Often times, the simple foods are the best foods. So, remember the K.I.S.S. rule – keep it simple (stupid). 🙂 Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.