What's for lunch?

Tomorrow I will be serving my critique partners lunch at my house as we plow through our latest chapters in our WIPs (work in progress). We rotate houses every week, and it's fun to experience each other's cooking.

Ingrid is a fantastic cook. She watches the Food Channel all the time and experiments on Ann and me. I asked her to make the Strawberry Shortcake Cake from Pioneer Woman's website last week. Ingrid knocked it out of the ballpark. Oh! If you could only have tasted it! The last time Ann hosted, she made comfort food for us with a warm chicken salad with crushed potato chips on the top layer. Gotta love anything with potato chips, right?!?

When it's my turn, I tend to look for low-carb or low glycemic index foods. My body reacts violently to sugar and flour by gaining major pounds in a short period of time, so I try to keep myself stable with less carbs. This week I will be serving an easy Greek salad, crusty bread, sliced watermelon, and fudge brownies (yes, I still eat dessert! A girl still has to enjoy life!).

In my current WIP, my hero's heritage is Greek, so in honor of the Pello family. Here is a simple Greek salad.




Greek salad, or horiatiki, is a rough country salad of juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumber, sliced red onion, green pepper, crumbly feta cheese and plump kalamata olives. Serve this delightful combination as a side dish or as a light meal with some crusty bread.

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1½ tablespoons lemon juice

1 clove garlic—minced

½ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon sea salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and extra for garnish

3 tomatoes—cut into wedges

¼ red onion—sliced into rings

½ cucumber—sliced into thick half-moons

½ green pepper (capsicum)—julienned

4 oz (120g) feta cheese—cut into small cubes

16 kalamata olives

PLACE the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano in a small jar with a screw-top lid and shake to combine. PLACE the salad ingredients in a large bowl. POUR the dressing over the salad and toss gently to combine just before serving. Garnish the Greek salad with a little freshly ground black pepper.