Greek Salad

This is the grand finale of salad week!  Four salads in five days.

I hope you're impressed.

Don't count on it ever happening again.

Here's the story of this salad: pre-children, I went to Greece.  I loved Greek salad.  I made it my personal mission to eat Greek salad at least once per day every day for ten days.  It was awesome.

Every Greek salad I had in Greece had a few things in common: a thick slice of feta on top, lots of tomatoes and cucumbers and onions, and no dressing.

The lack of dressing is my only issue with authentic Greek salad.  I'm too American to eat a salad without dressing and I'm not afraid to admit it.

So I took inspiration from Barefoot's Greek Salad and whipped an oregano vinaigrette for my Greek salad.  But otherwise I stayed true: lots of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions and slabs of feta cheese.

You'll want to make this soon, since veggies are in season and feta is always in season.  At least at my house it is.

Oh, and I'm tired of salad now.  So we're having pie tomorrow.

Greek Salad

Inspired by Barefoot Contessa

1 seedless cucumber, quartered length-ways and chopped into bite-size chunks

1 pint grape tomatoes, sliced in half

1 red bell pepper, seeded, stemmed and chopped into bite-size chunks

1/2 red onion, cut in half and sliced very thin

1/2 cup kalamata olives (optional but authentically Greek)

8 oz. chunk feta cheese, cut into 4 thick slices

Dressing:

2 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Toss the vegetables together in a salad bowl.  Whisk dressing ingredients together and pour over the vegetables, tossing well to make sure the veggies are coated in dressing.  Lay the feta slices on top of the salad and serve immediately.