Thursday, September 13, 2007

Greek Salad & Fruit Fly Traps

It was my turn to host my Calendar Girls group today. These woman are so much fun. Mary , in the middle there was getting teased & given some gag gifts because of an unfortunate typo on the auction quilt list at our quilt show last weekend. The person who typed the list of auction quilts, typed the name of the quilt, then who made it. For one of Mary's quilts, the name "Cherry Blossom" was substituted for Mary's name. Well you can imagine that led to all sorts of fun.
We managed to squeeze 12 women into my living room! I wasn't sure we would all fit, but we did OK.

I served my favorite Greek Chicken Salad, with garlic bread, & Jello Pretzel Salad in 2 different flavors (the usual Strawberry), & I also tried it using peaches & sugar free peach Jello, & Splenda instead of sugar in the crust. It turned out really good, I think I liked the peach best, & so did everyone else.

Now here is an odd change of subject for you. Did you know that Fruit Flies love Port Wine? I first discovered this when Aunt Ethel was living with us, & every evening she would drink a glass of Port. Well it must be Fruit Fly season here, because they are every where we go lately, & we seem to have just a few here in the house, so I asked Warren to buy me a bottle of Port so I can trap the fruit flies. This is a trick my sister Vicki taught me (only she uses vinegar, her fruit flies aren't boozers I guess). Place plastic wrap over the top of a glass or jar. Place a ring or elastic to hold it tight.
Poke a hole in the top of the plastic. The flies will fly in, & get drunk, & drown themselves.
Oh, & here's the Greek Chicken
Place Chicken breasts to marinate in a glass dish, with Italian Salad dressing (about 1/2 a bottle for 4 to 6 breasts, enough to cover them). They can marinate a couple of hours to over night in the fridge.
Prepare salad ahead: 2 or 3 cucumbers seeded & diced
4 -6 ripe tomatoes seeded & diced
1 or 2 large Sweet onions peeled & diced
lemon juice (about 1-2 tbsp)
Feta cheese crumbled 8 oz or more. (the herb & Garlic Feta is really good in this).
some fresh ground pepper & a pinch of garlic salt
toss it all together & pour on more Italian Dressing.
I've used Good Seasons, & Kraft, & a couple of others, even one with Parmesan cheese in it, they are all good. I cook creatively & it still seems to always turn out good.
Grill or broil the chicken breasts 20 to 30 before you want to eat. For a family meal we put the chicken on the plate, then spoon the salad on top. Today with the group, I just cubed up the chicken & tossed it into the salad. It was great like that, & Warren & I had the left overs for supper, & it still tasted wonderful.

5 comments:

Melodie said...

I love the living room!
I have two bowls of balsamic vinegar and dozens of fruit flies! Our flies don't like normal vinegar!

allie aller said...

You DO sound like an intuitively good cook. Your pear salad was great (had it this week)...will try this one a.s.a.p., esp. as we have so many tomatoes.
Your Calendar Girls group looks so much fun...I'm a bit envious!

Kay said...

Sound very good. Thanks for the fruit fly tip too--peaches seem to be what brought them in to our house.

Juliann in WA said...

Looks like a fun evening and thanks for the tip on the fruit flies. We had a horrible evening with some of those little buggers this summer so I will keep this in mind for next year.

Granny Fran said...

So happy to hear about the fruit fly trap. When I lived in Boulder I loved having a small glass of Tawny Port in the evening. Good excuse to get some more. Cute bunch of friends you have there.