I drove to SLO today and decided to drive the scenic route through the Nipomo Mesa, wind my way along the coast through Arroyo Grande and then through the Edna Valley. The drive is beautiful and peaceful and one always encounters roadside produce vendors.
My tomatoes aren’t quite ripe yet so I purchased a couple of pounds of delicious, vine ripened and sweet tomatoes along Los Berros. I love to visit this little stand in the small, warm valley below the mesa where juicy, ripe, tomatoes are piled in baskets for one to choose and pay on the “honor system”.
Caprese is a remarkably easy to prepare salad and should be made of only the very freshest ingredients! Vine ripened tomatoes, Mozzarella Bufala, fragrant Basil Leaves and copious amounts of the best olive oil are the foundation for one of the tastiest salads available!
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Souvlaki is a wonderful food that is made with cubes of meat. Depending upon the local it can be very small bits of meat up to 1″ cubes. The meat, traditionally lamb, it marinated in lemon and olive oil and Mediterranean herbs and spices and finely skewered on wooden sticks and cooked over coals.
Souvlaki can be a hand food or plated for dinner. As a sandwich it is usually served wrapped in a pita with a salad like a Gyro and served with sauces and fried potatoes. When plated as a dinner the Souvlaki are served with rice and a Greek Salad.
Today, as taste change pork, beef and chicken are commonly used to create the Souvlaki. The skewers of meat are served with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and Tzatziki sauce and very often with fried potatoes and rice. The marinade will vary with the cook and can range from lemony to garlicky, heavy on the oregano and sometimes thyme. Once cooked the Souvlaki are seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.
The first time I enjoyed Souvlaki was at a Greek Festival in Southern California and the tender lemony chunks of chicken were served wrapped in bread with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and hommos. It was delicious!
My Souvlaki are marinated in a combination of olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice to which I have added a mixture of ground garlic and fresh oregano. I like to use chicken and so I only marinate for a couple of hours, if using lamb I would marinate over night.
Souvlaki is a wonderfully easy and deeply satisfying meal to make. The high satiety value is achieved by the liberal use of garlic, black and red peppers and finally by using a finishing salt which clings to the tongue a bit. [...]
When I was a kid, artichokes were a regular part of our diet. One of the wonderful things about living on the Central Coast is the bounty of fresh produce available to us and artichokes grow well in the valley. I just naturally assumed that these wonderful thistles were a part of every diet.
Years later, soon after I met Mia, the very first meal I cooked for her was pork chops and artichokes stuffed with stove top stuffing. Mia admitted that she had never eaten the heart because her mother told her she wouldn’t like them. It was then that I learned artichokes were considered a “special treat” unlike in my home. [...]
