Greek Menu Plan

Photography by Colleen Green

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in this post but I was too busy making this entire Greek menu! I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and I did!

Why did I choose to make an entire Greek meal? After reading about Greek mezethes from Georgia A and writing last weeks post about how I love making authentic ethnic cuisine, I felt like creating a Greek menu plan of my own; and so here it is!*

“Appetizer (Meze): Egg Lemon Soup (Avgolemono) Side Dish: Mixed Roasted Vegetables (Briam) Main Dish: Chicken Souvlaki on a GF Pita Dessert: Honey Pie (Melopita)”

*I know this is a very humble menu compared to the huge meals they have in Greece! But trust me it was plenty filling for the six of us in my family!

---

So want to know how to make all these goodies? Than KEEP READING! :)

Appetizer (Meze): Egg Lemon Soup (Avgolemono)

I made this according to this recipe Food by Country but I cut the salt from 2 tablespoons down to 1/2 teaspoon and still found the salt excessive due to the high sodium content in the chicken broth, so I suggest if you're not using homemade chicken broth then to omit the salt altogether.

Side Dish: Mixed Roasted Vegetables (Briam)

I made this according to this recipe: Delicious Briam recipe (Greek mixed Roasted Vegetables) my only recommendation is that you use young small zucchini with a tender skin as the skin on a zucchini is much tougher than all the other vegetables skins and needs more time in the oven to soften up but that means too much time for all the other vegetables.

Main Dish: Chicken Souvlaki on a GF Pita

This one was great! I use this recipe for the Chicken Souvlaki this one for the GF Pita . The only changes I made to the the pita recipe was I substituted the cornstrach for arrowroot powder (for health reasons, lets face it corn ain't the doctor's best friend).

Tzatziki (Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce)

I used this recipe: Tzatziki sauce recipe (Greek Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce). It depend on your lil' ol' taste buddies but we're prefer tzatziki with a more predominant garlic flavour. Make sure you drain the Greek yogurt (if you're using plain yogurt than drain an even longer time).

Dessert: Honey Pie (Melopita)

I made this once before with great results using this recipe from Food By Country but I was trying to make sure the recipe was traditional and I found quite a few recipes more akin to this one from Cook Me Greek so that is the recipe I went instead.

My family agrees that we prefer the melopita recipe from Food By Country but the ricotta one is still good and probably more authentic but tastes more like a dessert omelet than a cake (perhaps use one less egg?).

---

Need some help planning when to make these dishes?

Here's a time table I made showing when to start each dish, so that it's possible for one person to make by themselves (but much better for two to do!). It starts at 3 o'clock and ends at 7 o'clock.

• The GREEN denotes when you will be actively involved in making the recipe (e.g. stirring, measuring, fast pace cooking/baking).
  
• The RED denotes when you can take it slow on a particular recipe (e.g. the items is roasting, marinating, rising, etc.)
• And of course WHITE denotes when nothing is being done on that recipe at all!

I served the egg lemon soup at 5:00 as an appetizer and the main course and vegetables at 6:00 and lastly the dessert at 7:00 pm.