This salad is a healthy and well rounded meal. You have your veggies, your proteins, your dairy, your healthy fats, and add some broken up oven pita bread chips and you have your grains & crunch!

This is a wonderful salad for lunch or a casual dinner with family and friends. If you have this then you will have plenty of room (calorie wise) for dessert 🙂 . You can also add cucumbers, peppers and/or artichoke heart quarters, if you like, to ramp up the Greekness 🙂 !

You will need:

• 1 head romaine lettuce, cleaned and chopped
• 2 small chicken breasts, grilled with salt and pepper and sliced
• 8 slices bacon, cooked crispy, and crumbled
• 1/2 cup sliced red onions
• 10 grape tomatoes, halved
• 4 medium boiled eggs, quartered
• Flesh of 1 avocado, sliced and coated in some lemon juice
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
• Olive oil and lemon vinaigrette

Steps:

1. Arrange the chopped lettuce on a large platter.
2. In a pattern of your choice, top with chicken, bacon, red onions, tomatoes, eggs, avocado, and feta cheese.
3. Drizzle with Greek vinaigrette, enough to your liking, or serve vinaigrette on the side so everyone can choose how much they want.

Kali Orexi!

This dish was one that I learned to make while at Bangkok Cooking Academy in Thailand. Very simple and a lot of flavor. They are always the first thing to go when I make them! I think pork is one of the most flavorful meats as it is, but add the Thai flavors to them…amazing!

Traditionally, they serve it with glutinous rice (aka sticky rice or sweet rice), but you can just make some jasmine rice to go with it, or lay it on top of some fried rice, if you don’t have any and/or don’t want to pay for it…it’s a pretty expensive rice. But they are a gem just by themselves!

They use coriander root in this, but if you can’t find it where you live just substitute cilantro stems, that is just further up in the root 🙂 . Also, if you don’t have palm sugar you can substitute brown sugar, although the palm sugar has a very distinctive taste and a little sweeter.

When making the spicy dipping sauce, you see that it calls for “sticky rice powder”. To make this you need to lightly toast glutinous rice in a pan until golden, about 10 minutes, make sure the rice is evenly distributed and shake the pan every couple of minutes so the rice re-distributes and becomes golden on all sides. Once done, let it cook to room temperature then grind it up with a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder…there you have sticky rice powder!

You will need:

• 1 pound pork loin, cut into thin slices, against the grain (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick bite sized pieces)
• 2 coriander roots OR 10 two-inch sized pieces of cilantro stems (just the stems, not the leaves)
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 teaspoon white peppercorn
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup coconut cream
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar (or brown sugar)
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce (or just regular soy sauce)
• 2 teaspoon Maggi sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce (such as Tamari)
• 3 tablespoons canola/vegetable oil or sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon corn starch or arrow root
• 2 teaspoons baking soda (optional, as tenderizer)
• Chopped green onions or cilantro leaves, for garnish (optional)
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 teaspoons ground chili powder
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar (or brown sugar)
• 4 teaspoons sticky rice powder
• 1 small shallot, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons Thai coriander, thinly sliced

Steps:

1. Make the marinade paste by pounding together the coriander root or cilantro stems, garlic, and peppercorn in a mortar. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle you can use a small food processor or crush well in a thick plastic storage bag with a wooden rolling pin. You want it all to break down into a paste.
2. Put pork slices, the paste, and the rest of the ingredients, through the baking soda, into a bowl and mix well.
3. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours.
4. Thread the pork onto skewers and grill, on medium heat, on your grill, a grill pan, or in a non stick skillet, until slightly charred on both sides and cooked through.
5. As you are cooking, brush some additional coconut milk/cream on the pork occasionally to keep it moist.
6. Plate and garnish with some chopped green onions or cilantro leaves.
7. Serve with dipping sauce. To make the spicy dipping sauce just mix well all the dipping sauce ingredients (from fish sauce to Thai coriander) above, no more than 15 minutes before you eat.

Kali Orexi!

These drinks are a refreshing flavor bomb. I created them last year (2020) when our football team went to the Super Bowl, and won….Way to GOOO, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS!!! Don’t you like my made up name?…Chiefaritas? I think it’s catchy!

I made these non-alcoholic but, if you prefer, you can add some tequila in them (as much as you like)…to give them a greater kick, just don’t drink and drive!

The KC Chief colors are red, yellow (gold), and white so I picked fruit colors that would give me this color theme, as well as taste good together. The red strawberries, the yellow pineapple and the white coconut. Depending on your teams colors, you can tailor this drink to match them. Blueberries for blue, cantaloupe or oranges for orange, honeydew or green grapes for green, etc. If you want deeper colors, like a burgundy or dark green then you can also add some veggies in it to change the color…a little bit of beets or spinach would do the trick, or use some food coloring, but not too much…you don’t want to change the taste. Have fun creating your drink and colors, your imagination is your friend!

You just need:

• 16 ounces of frozen whole strawberries
• 1 cup of frozen pineapple chunks or an 8 ounce can of 100% pineapple juice
• 8 cups of your favorite regular margarita mix
• 1/2 cup of coconut milk
• Unsweetened shredded coconut, fresh pineapple chunks, fresh strawberries, lime slices and/or granulated sugar, for garnish
• Pretty small glasses

1. Add half of the strawberries, pineapple chunks or juice and margarita mix to a blender (If you have a humongous blender then do it all).
2. Let sit for 5 minutes so the margarita mix slightly softens the frozen fruit.
3. Blend well until everything is a smooth slush, then add half of the coconut milk (or again, all of it if your blender is very large).
4. Blend one more time until all combined and serve in pretty flutes that have been rimmed with lime and dipped in granulated sugar (optional), or other clear glasses. If it seems to thick you can add a little more margarita mix, as needed, and re-blend…but eventually, as it sits for several minutes it will become less thick on it’s own.
5. Sprinkle some shredded coconut on top and add a piece of fresh pineapple, strawberry and/or lime section onto a cocktail skewer and lay on top of glass or just cut them and stick on the actual glass. Enjoy!

Stin ygeia sou! (to your health!)