Salata Horiatiki (Country Greek Salad)

     If there is any one salad I love above all others, it is the Greek salad. The combination of flavors is wonderful. There are a ton of variations on this salad, but this one from The Best Traditional Recipes of Greek Cooking is one of my favorites because it is Too Damned Easy.  It comes together in minutes and is a visually impressive dish. I, personally, would add anchovies to this, but the Wife isn't a huge fan of the little fishies, so I generally leave them off. Other than that, there isn't much I would change here. This is a winner as-is. As always, notes are in blue.

Salata Horaitiki (Country Greek Salad)
via The Best Traditional Recipes of Greek Cookingby Maria Mavromataki

Ingredients

• 3-4 tomatoes
• 2 medium cucumbers, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 5 ounces black olives
• 2 medium green bell peppers, seeded and cut into big pieces
• 2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt, oregano
• 7 ounces feta cheese, cut into chunks (our ALDI only sells crumbled feta, so that's what we used)

Directions

1. Wash and slice the tomatoes in quarters and place them in a bowl. Add cucumber, onion, olives and peppers
2. Dress the salad with the vinegar, olive oil, salt and oregano
3. Add feta, toss and serve

Good times!

Too Damned Easy Utilitarian Tuna Salad

     Everybody should have a couple recipes in their personal repertoires that are super easy to put together. Something that takes virtually no effort. I'm talking something you should be able to do blindfolded.

Like this, except cooking blindfolded would be an actual useful skill.

     For me, one of those recipes is tuna salad. I picked this recipe up from watching my mom make it. It's not exactly like hers. My mom makes it with a bit more Miracle Whip, so it's creamier. She also likes to put in a chopped hard-boiled egg. This particular tuna salad does very well on sandwiches and leaves plenty of room to mess around with the recipe. Add, subtract, do what you want. If you don't already have a go-to tuna salad recipe, this should be a solid template to work from. As always any notes will be in blue.

Too Damned Easy Utilitarian
Tuna Salad

Ingredients

• 1 rib celery, diced small
• 1/2 large or 1 medium sweet onion, diced
• 3 cans tuna in water, drained
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip, or whatever ersatz mayo substitute you enjoy)
• 1 teaspoon pickle relish
• 1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1 chopped hard-boiled egg, optional
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir until all ingredients are combined (that's it. There is literally nothing more to preparing this recipe).  

Good times!

Monday Recipe: Pistachio Basil Pesto

     Sometimes all you need to put together a nice meal is a good jumping-off point. Some simple ingredient that can be used for dozens of different purposes. One of my favorites is pesto. Pesto is so simple and versatile. Now, you could be lazy and go buy a pre-made pesto from the store, but there's really no reason for that. Pesto is super easy to make. It only has a handful of ingredients and you don't need to actually cook it.

     I like this recipe a lot because I'm not a huge fan of pine nuts. I do, however, love pistachios.  Fair warning, if you make more than one batch at a time, you're likely to develop repetitive stress disorder from shelling all those pistachios. You could just buy them already shelled, but that's a bit more expensive. A two pound bag of shelled pistachio costs a dollar more than a four pound bag of unshelled. And shouldn't "shelled" mean the shell is still on, not off? Just saying.

     There's a lot you can do with this pesto. If you want to be lazy, just toss it with a little melted butter and pasta. Add some shrimp. Crust a piece of salmon. Or tofu. Throw it in some tomato soup. Eat it straight from the container with a spoon. 

     For the life of me, I can't remember where this recipe came from.  I either picked it up from Bon Appetit or my good friend Rachael Ray. 

     I don't have a picture of the pesto handy, so I'll include a grainy screencap of Pesto from the Animaniacs. Try to imagine him tossed with shrimp and rotini. Good times!

mmm...delicious

Pistachio Basil Pesto (via Bon Appetit or Rachel Ray)

Ingredients

2 garlic cloves

½ cup shelled pistachios

2 cups loosely packed basil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup Parmigiana/Romano cheese

Directions

• Pulse garlic in food processor until chopped
• Add pistachios, basil, lemon juice and salt. Pulse until nuts are finely chopped
• Add olive oil gradually through food chute and process until well combined
• Add cheese and pulse 2 or 3 times

Makes about 1 cup.

Per tablespoon: 70 calories, 7g fat

Monday Meal: Teriyaki Salmon and Broccoli Packets

     Last week I promised I would post a simple, mid-week recipe. I will do that here shortly. I'm a huge fan of this type of recipe. There's a minimal amount of ingredients, it's super-easy to make, and cleaning up is a breeze. I need that from a mid-week meal. Most of the time, when I get home it's a battle to simply not pile the wife in the car and go out to eat. As awesome as that would be, it would get expensive. We'd also both weigh about 350 pounds each.

With our combined gravities, we shall control the tides!

       That's one of the benefits of this recipe. It is very low in calories, especially if you don't serve rice with it. The sodium is probably a bit high from the teriyaki sauce, but not bad.  If you're watching the money, any brand of teriyaki is fine. When available, I use Soy-Vay.  I find the flavor is better than anything else that I've tried.  As far as cost, if you're willing to buy frozen, it's possible to buy a pound of salmon for under five bucks. The packs usually come in four individually packaged fillets, which I find terribly helpful. Take what you need, everything else stays in the freezer. As for the broccoli, don't feel tied down to that vegetable. I often substitute slices of squash or zucchini. You could pretty much put in any vegetable and it would be fine.  I'm giving you the recipe for a single serving, since they're packaged in foil individually. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 4 ounce fillet of salmon 
• 1 heaping cup broccoli florets (frozen is fine)
• 3 tablespoons teriyaki sauce 
• Square of tinfoil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Lay salmon (if it has skin, skin side down) on a large square of tinfoil
3. Spread broccoli over top of salmon
4. Pour teriyaki over broccoli and salmon
5. Fold foil into packet around ingredients, making sure it's going to hold in the sauce
6. Cook 20-25 minutes or until fish flakes easily
7. Serve over steamed white rice (if you want)