Greek Tapas

Greek Tapas are smaller dishes like appetizers that together make a meal. We saw many dishes like this when we were in Greece. And we can vouch for the athenticity of the Village Salad with Grilled Pita Bread. This was SO good! The kalamata olives and feta cheese just scream GREEK! The warmed pita was wonderful, too. Such a small step, but it made such a difference! This earned a coveted 5 stars!


3 vine ripe tomatoes, cut in chunks
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 European seedless cucumber, cut into bite-size chunks
1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chunked
1 small green bell pepper, seeded and chunked
1 cup Kalamata black olives
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (a couple handfuls)
1/2 pound imported Greek feta cheese, sliced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (a couple glugs)
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed in the palm of your hand
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Pita breads



Combine vegetables, olives, and parsley in a large bowl. Rest sliced feta cheese on top of the salad. Combine oil, vinegar, and oregano in a small plastic container with a lid. Shake vigorously to combine oil and vinegar and pour over salad and cheese. Season with salt and pepper and let the salad marinate until ready to serve. Serve with pita bread, blistered and warmed on a hot griddle or grill pan.





Baked Gigantes Beans: The picture is not pretty, because the dish was not particularly pretty. And while we tried to like it, because it's Greek, we just didn't. 2 stars.





Grilled Shrimp: Don't go by our recommendation on this. We completely bought the wrong kind of shrimp. And since shrimp is so expensive, we weren't going to fix the mistake. We bought cooked, peeled shrimp, not the uncooked shrimp in shell the recipe called for. Still, we like shrimp, so it was good. If we have time, we'll revisit this recipe to do it justice. 4 stars.





Greek Meatballs in Wine Sauce: Really, it's just Greek Meatballs. First off, ground lamb does not exist in our small town, so we made it with ground beef. The white wine was deleted. We think lamb would have made a nice tasting meatball. As it was, it was still good, if crumbly. 4 stars.