Greek Salad

Salad season is upon us! This Greek salad, and dressing gets better with time. One of my favorite salads ever, yep EVER.  If it's salad season, it means it's summer, right?  You rarely crave a nice crisp and refreshing salad when the snow is falling. Unless you are lucky enough to live in an area where it doesn't snow.  Then I don't know, winter salads may be a thing, I live in Canada and it gets, cold, not crazy cold, but not December salad weather.

Along with salad season, summer also means longer days. It stays light until almost 10 pm around here. It means I am going to bed when It's not quite dark out. I mentioned work has been pretty crazy, and I have been stressed. Stressed and not sleeping. Raj was kind enough to share a sleep seminar that has helped immeasurably. Well… so far at least, 2 nights in a row I have had a restful sleep. It is amazing the things you can or can not cope with when you haven't slept well. I feel for new mothers, sleep training babies or shift workers, erratic sleep schedules suck.

I feel like my 2 nights in a row has made me a new person.  I was suffering, I couldn't concentrate, I had a headache all day and night. I would go to sleep and get anxious if I couldn't sleep right away, then the anxiety would inhibit my ability to sleep, and I would be watching the clock. Calculating, “oh, I'm only going to get 6 hours sleep, make that 4.5, shoot, 3”.  Or I would fall asleep right away and then wake up at 4:30 or 5 am, anxious, thinking about what needed to be done.  I would start sending emails, you know, just a couple to get them out of the way. And then be anxiously awake from there, falling back asleep 1 hour before my alarm would go off.

It's hard to be charming, funny, and patient when that's going on. An employee would roll into my office asking for this or that, it literally would take everything I had not to trivialize their complaints. Or, tell them where to go, (away… far far away).  This even crossed my mind once or twice.  Generally I think I cope fairly well with stress, but not sleeping: apparently not. My staff and suppliers would take one look at me and ask if I could take a day off soon.  It might have been the moaning and drooling in my sleep-deprived zombie state.

The big push is over, the store is open and mostly stocked. Now I need to direct my focus back to taking care of myself. I may even leave work early on Friday! I know… awesome!  Watch some World Cup, while eating Greek salad. Or a nap. Maybe both!

See all of our Paleo Greek Weeks recipes here.

Greek salad

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• Author: Holley - www.ThePrimalDesire.com

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Description

Greek salad, a dressing that gets better with time. Use it as a salad dressing or as a meat marinade.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 long English cucumber diced
• 2 fresh tomatoes diced
• 1 cup kalamata olives pitted
• 1 pepper seeded and diced (any color bell pepper, we aren't racist)
• 1/2 cup banana peppers
• 1/2 large red onion diced
• 4–6 Greek pepperoncini pickled peppers (yes alliteration)
• 1/2 cup raw goat feta (hard to find in Canada, ours was pasteurized, Omit if you are cutting out dairy)
• Pinch of salt
• Dressing
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil
• 1 tbsp parsley fresh chopped
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp capers diced
• 1 tsp sun dried tomato diced (soaked in hot water for 20 min to soften)

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Instructions

1. Combine dressing ingredients and set aside.
2. Dice cucumbers, peppers, tomato and onion, combine in a bowl.
3. Add banana peppers, and olives.
4. Pour dressing over salad and toss thoroughly.
5. Sprinkle with salt.
6. Cover with grated cheese if you are so inclined, omit if not on the dairy wagon.
7. Garnish with the pepperoncini peppers and serve.

• Category: Salad
• Cuisine: Greek