Grecian Meals

I loved the food across Greece. It is so much better than the Americanized Greek food we commonly see here. What makes a great Greek meal? Add one part atmospheric Greek taverna (preferably by beach), two parts wait for the sun to go down so and it cools off enough to have an appetite, combine fresh ingredients, a sense of culinary adventure, chilled wine (red or white), cold beer, and a little ouzo.

These are some images from some of our favorite meals.

Breakfast usually consisted of yogurt and honey with fruit (the honey in Greece is unbelievably flavorful) or open face omelets.

Yogurt and honey with fruit and fig

Greek Omelet

Lunch was often gyros which we didn’t eat nearly enough of.

Gyros

Pork Gyros

Chicken gyros

Meals always started with fresh ingredients:

Garlic on sale from back of truck in Skiathos

Fresh fish for sale from back of van in Skiathos

Fresh fish for sale

Fresh fish for sale

Before dinner happy hour would usually be on our boat or in a taverna with beer or wine and snacks

Mythos – Hellenic Beer

Mythos – Hellenic Beer

Skopelos cheese pie

Pita cheese pie

Meals often started with appetizers such as saganaki or fried eggplant

The Greek salad is a staple of every meal and always a cool crisp salty favorite

Greek Salad

Feta & Olives, Greek Salad

Greek Salad

Greek Salad

Greek salad

Greek salad

Greek Salad

The octopus was aways fresh and delicious

Fresh caught octopus

Octopus salad

Grilled octopus

Octopus salad in oil

Octopus salad in oil

The seafood was always fresh as well, but fish tended to be very expensive so we stuck with squid or prawns which were more affordable. Once we had bream, a rather bland whitefish.

Fresh fish

Fresh fish

Grilled Bream

Fresh Prawns

Fresh prawns

Prawn salad

Anchovies in oil

Fried squid

Fried squid

The chicken souvlaki was another staple of each meal. At the BLO Taverna on Skopelos they had this incredible bacon wrapped souvlaki.

Chicken souvlaki with bacon and lemon

Chicken souvlaki

For dinner main courses we tended to share a variety of dishes to get tastes and flavors of the taverna and Greece.

Chickpea salad

Gnoci in browned butter

Homemade tagliatelle with shrimp

Seared tuna

Tuna salad

Lamb in tomato sauce

Moussaka

Lamb in tomato sauce

Moussaka

Stuffed eggplant

Stuffed cabbage

Lamb with potatoes

Spaghetti carbonara

Stewed veggies and cheese

Meatballs

Stuffed peppers

Moussaka

Now that I’m back in Seattle I want to return to Panos Kleftiko and order more authentic items from their menu.