Mediterranean Steak Salad

Description

Here’s a riddle, what’s nutritious, easy to make and delicious all over?  This Mediterranean Steak Salad!  Great food doesn’t have to be complicated or hard to make, in fact, I believe that keeping recipes down to basic and high quality ingredients is the very best way to go.  This salad takes simple yet delicious ingredients like crispy romaine lettuce along with savory red onions and juicy tomatoes and pairs them with briny olives and feta to bring you the perfect base for a Mediterranean salad.  For the protein, I’ve opted for steak because when it comes to having a salad as a meal, it feels more satisfying to have a more robust protein. However, this salad will work with just about any protein you choose to pair it with.  Keeping with the theme of simplicity, I’ve opted for a very basic seasoning on the steak.  I’ve tried many versions of steak for this recipe from a balsamic marinade to an herbal rub, but when it came down to it, keeping the steak seasonings simple to let its natural flavors shine was the way to go.  The dressing that brings this whole salad together is a simple vinaigrette consisting of oil, vinegar, garlic, and a few seasonings that’s shaken up and poured right over your salad.  One of my favorite parts of this recipe is the toasted pita bread. I love how the warm pillowy pita bread contrasts with the cool and crisp salad to give a variety of textures.  I typically serve this with the pita bread cut into triangles so you can dip them in your dressing, but sometimes, I love to pile my salad and steak into a freshly warmed pita and have it as a sandwich if I’m craving something more on the hearty side.  Not only is this salad easy and delicious, it’s packed with fiber and protein at roughly 24 grams of protein per serving!  This is truly an infallible recipe that you can make time and time again.  Speaking of being infallible, did you know about that time I bought all of my kitchen appliances from a traveling salesperson?  We were just moving into a new home and my kids were young so I had my hands very full.  We had upgraded to a bigger house with a bigger kitchen, and I was finding myself seriously lacking in some items around my kitchen like a decent blender, a juicer, and a coffee maker.  As I was contemplating where to buy these items with kids in tow, I heard a knock at the door that just so happened to be an appliance salesperson.  Normally, I stick to name brand appliances bought at a reputable store for their reliability, but there was something very trustworthy about the gentleman that came to the door. That, and I was dreading the prospect of appliance shopping with two young children. In the end, I ended up buying items like an egg cracker, a pancake flipper, and a ketchup dispenser along with my necessary kitchen accessories. At first, appliances worked as they should have for the first couple of days and then things went terribly wrong.  Ketchup was dispensed in such a violent fashion that it was all over the ceiling, eggs were thrown across the house, coffee was coming out as a thick syrup, and pancakes were plopped on top of my children's head like little doughy berets.  I tried to get a hold of the salesman but the number on the card they had given me connected to a local laundromat with no salesperson to be found.  After cleaning up my house from all the food disasters, I had to swallow the bitter pill that I had likely been swindled and had to start over again at my local appliance store.  After some shopping and setting up the new and trustworthy appliances, I decided that I needed something reliably good for dinner, and that’s when I rustled up the ingredients to make my Mediterranean Steak Salad.