A Meal from Leftovers: Mediterranean Salad

I recently made this fresh, filling, Mediterranean rice bowl for dinner the other week. And while there were a lot of ingredients, and steps it yielded a lot of leftovers. Most of what I make, I make for one, so I typically end up with extra servings of the main dish. Because this particular dish called for mini recipes within the main recipe, I ended up with leftover cucumber tomato salad and tzatziki sauce plus some extra potatoes from my gyro recipe. Honestly, I had enough of the ingredients to make the Mediterranean rice bowl for probably 3 weeks and although I like a leftover - eating the same thing every day gets a bit monotonous.

So, what did I make instead? You already saw the falafel gyro recipe which was such a fun dish for me to make. I don't normally eat gyros and had never made gyros before. For me it was a fun take on extra ingredients that ended up being a really flavorful meal. Again, could have eaten that for a week… except I ran out of falafel and to be honest it was a bit too filling, I'm a big snacker and don't like to eat super heavy meals for dinner every night of the week which means I usually end up with salads.

Ding ding ding, you guessed it :) I used some of the leftovers to make a salad! OK, again, maybe not so groundbreaking. But sorry, sometimes you don't need to be groundbreaking to make a delicious meal. I knew the cucumber - tomato salad was going to be jamb packed with flavor and super fresh. But I was pleasantly surprised by how crisp and savory the combination was on a bed of spinach, paired with a block of feta, the tzatziki sauce and some of the leftover potatoes from the Gyro recipe…. chefs kiss, perfection!

Ingredients

Tzatziki Sauce:

• 1/2 cup grated cucumber

• 1 cup Greek yogurt - whole milk

• 1 tbsp lemon

• 1/2 tbsp olive oil

• 1 garlic grated

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 2 tbsp fresh dill

Cucumber Tomato Salad:

• 3/4 cu cucumber, thinly sliced

• 1 cu halved cherry tomatoes

• Drizzle olive oil

• Salt to taste

Lemon Potatoes

• 1lb of small potatoes, I did the gemstone potatoes

• 2 tbsp lemon juice

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• Salt and pepper to taste

Salad Base:

• 1-2 cups of spinach - depending on how much greens you want

• 1 block of feta cheese (more or less to preference)

• 1 tbsp of olive oil

• Salt and Pepper to taste

Recipe

Tzatziki Sauce: (makes one small to medium sized Tupperware container full)

1. Grate the cucumber, press with paper towel to dry off. The thinner the slices the wetter it will be.

2. Mix remaining ingredients together in a bowl. Chill until ready to serve.

Cucumber Tomato Salad:

1. Cut cucumber and tomato into bite sized pieces, add in to bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and top generously with sea salt.

2. Mix and set aside for topping

Lemon Potatoes

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Rinse and dry your potatoes

3. Cut in to bite sized pieces, I quartered mine

4. Place in to medium sized bowl. Add olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix to cover

5. Add potatoes to baking sheet. Roast in oven for about an hour. Turning the potatoes every 10-15 min for an even roast.

Leftover Mediterranean Salad

1. Put 1-2 handfuls of spinach on to plate

2. Add cucumber/ tomato salad on top

3. Drizzle with Tzatziki sauce

4. Add a little drizzle of olive oil

5. Add salt and pepper to taste

6. Top with block of feta and falafel if you want to add

Why I like It:

Honestly part of why I liked it was because I had all the ingredients ready to go so there was not much prep work for me. I would say, even if you made this from scratch it wouldn't take too much time and the ingredients aren't that outlandish. As I've mentioned before my local grocery store mainly has just the basics, so most of my recipes are based around items I have in my pantry already or easy to pick up grocery items.

Enjoy! And as always, drop a comment and tell me what you thought of the recipe and what would you do with the leftovers?