I’ve only recently discovered Greek salads.  Where have these things been all my life?  A lady that I work with lives a gluten free lifestyle, mostly because she has to for health reasons, and whenever our group at work orders pizza, there she is with her salads.  I always sat back and admired her discipline, while chomping down on my cesspool of puddling fat in the form of a slice of pie, while she ate her salad.  After a few months it occurred to me that I too had the option of ordering a salad.  I wanted to order a salad but found myself giving in to the temptation of pizza.

One day I decided “I’m doing this” and got a Greek salad.  And it was delicious.  What a fantastic way to consume mass amounts of veggies without sacrificing taste or walking away hungry.  I don’t eat a lot of salads and I’ve always blamed The Golden Girls for this.  Anyone remember the episode where Dorothy says that she had a friend that went to Paris and consumed a watercress salad, only to walk out of the restaurant and have a giant gargoyle fall onto her head and kill her – and here her last meal was a watercress salad?  So when I go to a restaurant, my last thought is “if I walk out of here and die, what is the last thing I want to eat?”  Thanks Dorothy.

If my last meal is a Greek salad, I would be content.  I wouldn’t go to heaven and say “seriously Jesus?  Yesterday I larged my value meal, you couldn’t call me home then?  Or what about tomorrow when I would have dipped into that king size Hershey bar?  That couldn’t have been when I kicked the bucket?”  No no, a Greek salad will do me justice.

I make my Greek salad a little differently than most because I’m not into olives (I’m a texture person and those things are just ewww) or pepperoncini.  Here is how I make my Greek salad (this is my first recipe that I’m posting…I’m glad I can lose my recipe virginity with all of you in attendance):

Ingredients for Heather’s Famous Greek Salad:

• Grab yourself a big bowl and if it has a lid, grab the lid
• Chop up 2-3 heads of romaine, add to bowl or if you’re using bagged, dump the bag into bowl
• Add a handful of broccoli slaw (I bought a bag of broccoli slaw without any dressing to use for eggrolls and had leftover from that recipe and I love it!)
• Throw a few rings cut off a purple/red onion
• Add 10 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• If you’d like additional crunchiness, throw in some croutons, any kind
• Add 1/2 cup feta cheese
• For the dressing, I added Garlic Expressions and put probably 1/4 cup on it (because let’s get realistic, who really puts 2 tbsp. of dressing on a salad?)
• Top bowl with lid, close tightly, and shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your booty

And voila, you have my famous Greek salad.  Whatever I don’t eat, I save for later because it will keep for one day in the fridge without getting soggy.  I don’t put croutons on mine so I can’t vouch for those but everything else is fine.  Sometimes I throw in a few extra things if I have some veggies I need to get rid of, i.e. carrots, cauliflower, green/red peppers.  Also, if you do use Garlic Expressions, the side effects are bad garlic breath but I find it totally worth it.  It’s also beneficial in keeping everyone away from you on those days when you just don’t want to be bothered.

It’s a great way to get at least 5 servings of vegetables and it’s a nice vegetarian meal.  Some places add chicken but I prefer to leave meat out of it because first and foremost, I don’t want to go through the hassle of cooking meat for my salad, and I try to eat at least 3-5 meatless meals a week.

I have been eating a ton of these salads lately and I always feel amazing afterwards.  I know that these ingredients are bringing tons of nourishment and an influx of vitamins to my body and you can’t go wrong with that.  As a side note, I do tend to buy organic produce as often as I can.  I don’t find the price to be that much higher than non-organic produce, regardless of what anyone says.  I do find the benefits to be abundant and that’s why I make the decision that I do to purchase organic.

I’m always looking for new variations to this salad because I don’t want to tire of it!  I’ve always preferred Mediterranean food and my cardiologist even recommends a Mediterranean diet!

How do you make your Greek salads?