Greek Cooking Class

Another successful date night!

September’s date night took us to Whole Foods, but not for grocery shopping… 

We were there for a Greek cooking class that featured a three-course dinner with appetizers to boot!

The class was only $10 a person. Who says a fun and delicious date night has to cost mucho dinero?

Ryan and I arrived and took our seats at a long table with the other class participants and were immediately served a glass of wine.

 

I love a good glass of white wine! I much prefer white wine to red because I like my wine to taste like juice and  that’s harder to come by when enjoying red wines.

Once everyone was happily sipping on their glasses of wine, the class began.

It started out on an interactive note with some hummus-making!

The homemade hummus contained chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice and tahini (sesame seed paste).

Guess who was our table’s designated chickpea crusher?

That is Ryan’s “I’m really into this chickpea crushing business” face. 

As he crushed away, I couldn’t help but quip “a food processor would be pretty great right about now.” The instructor said that a food processor would take all of the fun out of the hummus making process.

False.

It would take all of the lumps out of the hummus-making process. 😉

Once Ryan was done making the hummus, we enjoyed it spread on fresh pita bread.

Ryan and I thought the hummus was okay… but in some serious need of seasonings. Sue recommended adding roasted red peppers if we recreate the hummus at home which I think we would really enjoy. I think this less flavorful hummus would be delicious on a sandwich, but when enjoyed on a pita alone, it was a bit bland.

Luckily the other appetizer was very flavorful.

Grape leaves stuffed with rice and seasonings. So good! I had three while Sue prepared our salads with another Whole Foods team member.

It’s rare that I will say a salad is the best part of any meal, but in this particular situation it really was!

The salads were comprised of a very unusual combination of foods:

• Watermelon
• Olive
• Endive
• Feta cheese
• Mint
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar

We were all a little skeptical about how the flavors would taste together, but they were unbelievably delicious! My favorite bites were the ones with the watermelon, feta and mint. YUM.

We basically licked our salad plates clean.

Then it was time for the main course.

Chicken gyros were served with pita bread, cucumbers, tomato, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a yogurt-based sauce known as raita sauce.

My favorite part of this dish was definitely the raita sauce. It was cool and creamy and I cannot wait to try to recreate it at home.

Dessert was also delicious.

We were served plates of stracciatella gelato, which is essentially an Italian sweet cream flavor of gelato with chocolate shavings. It was topped with mint leaves and orange blossom honey (so good!) and served with watermelon, cantaloupe and sliced, frozen grapes.

Ryan and I finished our respective desserts very quickly and were able to share a second scoop of the stracciatella.

Clearly the gelato sparked our sweet tooth, because once the class was over we headed to Whole Foods’ bakery and nabbed some chocolatey goodies.

I am seriously in love with Whole Foods’ bakery. Their oatmeal chocolate chip cookie is unreal. I could eat those bad boys all day every day. Ryan shares my love of these cookies and we spilt a big one between the two of us (it looks small in that bag, but it was the size of my hand).

I also nabbed a chocolate twist from the bakery which I planned to save for tomorrow.

It didn’t make it out of the parking lot. 😉

Good food + Good company = Great date night

The rest of our evening will be spent cuddled up on the couch with the dawg. My kinda night!

See ya in the mornin’, friends!

It’s All Greek To Me

OPA!

I should probably start this post by saying I am not Greek (though likely my blonde hair and pale skin have already given me away) but I love all things Greek! Olives and olive oil, fresh bread, cheese (feta!), yogurt, eggplant… the list goes on and on.

After receiving my big package of fun foodie treats yesterday, I knew I had to incorporate one of Joseph’s pitas into my lunch today since I’ve heard fantastic things about them but have never actually tried the little buggers.

Joseph's Pita Bread

I’ve also been meaning to make tzatziki sauce with my Greek yogurt for ages and since the remainders of a big tub of the yogurt would likely go bad in the fridge when we’re outta town this weekend, I saw a wonderful opportunity to give it a go!

After a quick Google of typical tzatziki sauce ingredients, I rounded up the essentials (salt and pepper not pictured… sliced cucumber already in the container) and started creating my oh-so-Greek lunch.

Sauce Ingredients

I combined two big spoonfuls of Greek yogurt, approximately a teaspoon or two of garlic and lemon juice with finely diced cucumber slices and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Creamy

Last night when I was making the roasted veggie pizza for dinner, I chopped up extra veggies and tossed them with feta cheese to stuff inside my pita pocket.

Cucumber, Plum Tomato, Zucchini

Chopped Veggies

Lots and lots of feta!

Anything with Feta is Betta!

Before stuffing my pita, I spread the homemade tzatziki sauce inside.

Waiting for the Veggies

I then stuffed as many of the chopped veggies as I could inside the warmed pita bread.

Veggie Overload

This was one packed pita. I loved all the veggies and the creamy goodness of the tzatziki sauce really made the pita pop!