A salad is more about composing beauty and balancing interesting flavors than following a recipe. Sometimes the best salads are born of inspiration and availability.

Last Christmas I wanted to make something healthy and festive, so I thought something like this: “What do I have that is green or red?” I ended up putting together….

A Festive Greek Salad

• Romaine and spinach, washed and torn
• firm red apple, chopped in bite-sized pieces
• dried cranberries
• cucumbers
• crispy walnuts
• feta cheese
• (I’m thinking chopped red onion would be a great accompaniment, although not for the weak of heart)

I figured out a great way to tweak my homemade Italian dressing and make it Greek, and if the jar hadn’t fallen out of the van when we arrived at my in-laws’ house for Christmas dinner, it would have been just perfect. Luckily I had tried the dressing the day before, so I knew I had a winner to repeat for the next week’s get-together.

(In case you’re wondering, I was giving my in-laws salad dressing as part of their gift – I’m weird like that – so I adjusted their Italian to get a little closer to the Greek style and served it that way.)

Recipe: Greek Dressing

Ingredients:

2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 squirt Dijon mustard
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
1/2-1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp marjoram
1 clove crushed garlic
1 tsp lemon juice

Method:

Mix in order with a whisk.  Serve with Feta cheese over salad greens.  Can keep at room temperature. (The feta makes it definitively Greek. If you were serving all the dressing at once or within a day or two, you could add the feta to the oil and refrigerate. I wanted shelf stability, so the feta went into the salad itself.

Try your best not to smash it all over the pavement; it tastes best if it goes directly from the jar to the lettuce.

I am excited to find some new salad ideas over at Naturally Knocked Up, where Donielle is hosting the third course of the progressive dinner Whole Foods for the Holidays. (I hosted last week with appetizers.) We’ve been going through her spicy homemade dressing (the first link) like crazy at our house – it’s delicious!

Start planning your holiday menus and cookie baking sessions now with the online menu planner, Plan to Eat. You can use many recipes online plus input your own, then drag and drop what you like into any given week. I would think Plan to Eat could make the holiday planning a little less hectic, at least in the kitchen. Grab a 30-day trial or pay under $5/mo. for the service.

Lisa Byrne’s new Roadmap to a Happy, Healthy Holiday Season will do even more to help keep you sane during the holidays. She’ll keep you away from too much sugar and extra pounds, remind you of the meaning of the season, and help you sort through all those lists before your pile explodes.

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Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

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