Cooking & Spirituality: Greek Salad in a Jar

By Lucia Ferarra

This is a great make-ahead recipe and a great to-go meal. You want to prepare at least one day before you plan to eat it. Make it in the evening, refrigerate overnight and have a salad for lunch the next day. In fact, it will keep in the refrigerator for up to four days.

When you’re ready to eat this salad, tip the jar upside down over a large dinner plate or a large bowl and shake until all the ingredients are out of the jar. The shaking and tumbling out of the jar mixes the ingredients like a tossed salad.

Serve with a good baguette or crunchy breadsticks to round out your meal. Salad in a Jar is perfect for picnics or to-go lunches at work or at school.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your own ingredients: diced carrots, baby arugula, kale or a hardy lettuce like escarole, watercress or mesclun are all ingredients that would work in this salad. Some people may want to toss in a few nuts at the top of the jar with the feta cheese. Try it!

The Vinegarette

• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2-3 sprigs of fresh oregano, stems removed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ cup balsamic vinegar (or substitute with red wine vinegar)
• ½ cup and bit more of olive oil
• Dab of Dijon mustard (optional)
• Juice of one lemon

This makes more than twice the amount of vinegarette you will need for two jars of salad

The Salad

• 2 24 oz Mason jar
• ½ cup cooked quinoa (optional)
• ¼ – ½  avacado (optional)
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 12-15 Kalamata olives, halved
• 12-15 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
• ½ cup red onion, chopped
• Half bell pepper, diced (I like red bell pepper, use the color you like)
• ¾ cup cucumber, peeled and diced
• ½ cup feta cheese, crumbled

Directions

Add the ingredients to the jars in the following order

1. A couple tablespoons of the vinegarette
2. Chickpeas
3. If you are using them, quinoa and avocado
4. Tomatoes, onions, olives, cukes, bell pepper
5. Stuff spinach in tight
6. Top with feta cheese.

Cooking as Spiritual Practice

The following is excerpted from a prayer by Wendell Berry in Earth Prayers from around the World edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon (HaperSanFranciso, 1991)

 

Within the circle of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circle of the years,

the cycles of the moon

writing the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

 

… The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

in the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again

 

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All the articles and videos in the Cooking and Spirituality Series can be found here.

[Lucia Ferrara, the Director of Hospitality at Precious Blood Renewal Center. Share your thoughts with Lucia or ask her questions using the form below or by sending an email to info@pbrenewalcenter.org.]

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