Great big salads full of contrasting textures, flavours, and colours will always be one of my favourite choices for dinner. After a long day spent chatting with customers and being generally very extroverted I find a half an hour spent carefully preparing a salad and all of its components both calming and re-energizing. I can preoccupy myself with something as tediously minute as slicing a cucumber at uniform lengths or quartering cherry tomatoes and eventually I begin to feel back in my own body again. I’m not suggesting everyone take this long to make a salad at the end of the day, but for me it’s therapeutic. I like to make this salad on a big platter rather than a bowl, as you can layer the ingredients and display them beautifully in an organic presentation. You could make this vegetarian and omit the chicken; you could also add Kalamata olives (with or without pits), large rustic croutons made of day old bread, sundried tomatoes packed in oil, capers, or thick curls of Parmesan cheese.

greek salad with lemon chicken:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 Tbsp. olive or grapeseed oil

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. salt

Pinch of freshly ground pepper

 

1/2 of a red onion, sliced into the thinnest half moons you can manage

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

 

4 cups of green lettuce (I like romaine or iceberg), torn into bite sized pieces

4 cups of spinach, sliced into thin ribbons

1 cup of sliced tomatoes, I often use cherry or grape tomatoes outside of season but any flavourful kind of tomato will be delicious

1 cup of sliced cucumbers, with the skin left unpeeled if possible

1 green pepper, sliced thinly

2/3 cup of crumbled feta

 

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

1/3 cup of olive oil

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste

1. For the chicken: place chicken in a shallow baking dish and cover with remaining marinade ingredients. Allow to marinade for 10 minutes or up to several hours. Bake at 360 degrees for 40 minutes or until no longer pink inside. Set aside while you prepare the salad.

2. Combine the onion and the lemon juice in a separate bowl, allow to sit for at least 10 minutes.

3. Layer the lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, red onion, and feta on a large platter.

4. Slice each chicken breast into several pieces and arrange on top of the salad. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and drizzle over the salad and chicken. Allow people to help themselves.

These past 2 weeks have been so happy for me; my mom and my sister have finally moved here from London, Ontario and are starting a very brave and new beginning in Vancouver. The vast majority of their things were shipped across the country in boxes and this included all cooking and dining essentials, resulting in their presence for dinner almost every night. It feels so amazing to have dinner with my family, something I haven’t been able to do in almost 4 years. My sister has been picking the music some nights while I make dinner and this Koop song has been a favourite, it reminds me of a trip hop version of the “To Catch a Thief” score – beautiful and romantic, while slightly dark and creepy.

Koop – Jellyfishes