Modern Greek Salad, Spinach, Chickpea and Feta Parcels

Meal 104 - December 3rd - Modern Greek Salad, Spinach, Chickpea and Feta Parcels

So as a result of Lolz's mussel induced bout of sickness what was supposed to be a weekend of three 15 minute meals turned into a weekend with just one 15 minute meal. Unfortunately, one of the two cancelled meals (for which I had already bought ingredients) was the Moroccan mussels which unsurprisingly Lolz wasn't too keen on. So I set about finding another meal in the book for which the ingredients were similar, which is quite a challenge when you only have 16 left to do.

Lamb Kofte, Pitta & Greek Salad

Meal 92 - October 31st - Lamb Kofte, Pitta & Greek Salad

I can't claim to have the biggest collection of JO recipe books (currently just the four) but I do like to have a bit of a flick through from time to time, and when I'm in a bookshop I'll often pick up another one and see what I'm missing. As a result you do see certain dishes which run through the back catalogue. There's sausage pasta, a version of which seems to appear in every Jamie book. There's braised peas and lettuce, the 15 minute version of which I'm yet to actually do. Today I'm doing Greek salad, perhaps not really a Jamie signature dish, but it's one of my fave recipes in the "Jamie does..." book and so inevitably, I'm going to compare them.

Chorizo & Squid, Greek Style Couscous Salad

Meal 86 - October 17th - Chorizo & Squid, Greek Style Couscous Salad

You could argue that squid deserves it's own chapter in 15 minute meals. Not just because it isn't a fish, but because it has three meals to it's name - not bad for a rather marginalised member of the seafood community. I had never actually cooked squid before starting this challenge - now I can say I have griddled it, made it into "squidballs" and today I would be completing the trilogy by frying it with chorizo and peppers. And this looked like it would be the best of the three...

Greek Style Toastie - Hot Sandwich Heaven

Meal 66 - August 11th - Greek Style Toastie - Hot Sandwich Heaven

With a trip to the phenomenal Burger and Lobster planned for this afternoon, breakfast would be very much taking a back seat on the eating front today - an amuse bouche to the main event if you will. Still, we would need something to see us through the afternoon and thought that this toastie might do the job. If it was anywhere near as good as the smoked salmon and egg toastie we would be in for a treat.

Greek Chicken, Herby Vegetable Couscous and Tzatziki

Meal 5 - 13th Jan - Greek Chicken, Herby Vegetable Couscous and Tzatziki

Clearly on a roll, I decided to attempt a third meal in just 24 hours. I should confess however that I had already made this dish before, and that this was in fact the dish with which I christened my new food processor and I guess inspired this challenge way back on December 30th. I decided to attempt it again as we happened to have most of the ingredients in the fridge/ cupboard.

On the face of it, it looks a very simple cous cous and chicken recipe, but having cooked it before, I was aware that it was actually quite fiddly with lots of ingredients and lots of multi tasking, so I decided to cheat a bit and prepared the tzatziki in advance and stashed it in the fridge ready to serve. I have a few minor issues with recipe. Frist, two chicken breasts between four people is a little stingy. Second, 1 mug of cous cous is not equivalent to 300g. I used 300g the first time around and ended up with about twice as much as was needed. Third, the whole dish is just a little soggy - using 2 cups water for one cup cous cous is excessive, and the chopped veg also produces a lot of liquid.

Overall though, the dish is a success. The feta works well and adds another flavour and texture dimension, and whoever knew tzatziki was so easy to make?! Looks quite fancy too.

Lolz gave the dish 9/10. Difficulty factor 8/10. Definitely some potential as a next day lunch. Sadly on this occasion though, it all got eaten up...