Delicious Food that Happens to be Gluten Free - Chicken Souvlaki, Lemon Rice and Greek Dressing

I love Greek food. Just the word 'souvlaki' makes my mouth water. People always seem to be impressed when I tell them I am making Greek food for dinner and as much as I hate do anything that would dissuade people from being impressed with my culinary capabilities, I have to admit, it's really quite easy to make. At least the way I do it.

Part one - Chicken Souvlaki

2-3 chicken breasts

Italian dressing

1/2 tsp. turmeric

salt/pepper to taste

Dice up the chicken breast into bite sized pieces and put them in a leak-proof vessel of some variety and pour in some italian salad dressing, a little turmeric and any salt/garlic salt or pepper/lemon pepper that you want. The longer you can let it marinade, the better. If you have time to leave it overnight, I would highly recommend that you do so. That's right, it's got my recommendation.

When you're getting ready to prepare the meal, soak some bamboo skewers in water for a bit so that they don't disintegrate when you put them on the grill (yes, i've learned this lesson the hard way even though my sister warned me). After they've soaked for a while.... brace yourselves.... you have to touch the raw chicken. With your bare hands. It's gross. You have to fish through your leak-proof vessel searching for bits of marinated raw chicken and then, you must heartlessly and cruelly skewer them.

It's a dirty job, but, you know the drill.

I usually add some extra garlic salt and lemon pepper at this point because I'm big on the excess sodium. Then, get your grill good and hot and throw them on.

'Tis true that they taste better when grilled on an real, outside grill, but it's snowing outside today and we're out of propane anyway, so we're going with plan B. Plan B aint that bad.

So there's your souvlaki, but it's practically a crime to eat souvlaki without lemon rice, so we always make that too.

Part deux - Lemon Rice

1 1/2 cups rice

1/2 tsp. turmeric powder

1-2 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. lemon juice (fresh is best, but we're working with plan B here too)

3 cups water & 3 chicken cubes OR 3 cups chicken broth

salt & lemon pepper to taste

1/2 tsp. thyme

Once again, I just put it in my rice maker and turn it on.

I'd like to take this opportunity to admit that I don't actually have any idea what turmeric does, other than make things yellow. But for some reason, I like my Greek food to be yellow, so I put turmeric in EVERYTHING.

Part Three - Greek Dressing

Ok, now for the last part (for today) the Greek dressing. I found this recipe on Allrecipes and I've never found a Greek dressing that I like more.

1/2 cup olive oil

3/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/2 tsp. dried garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1 1/2 tsp. dried basil

1 1/4 tsp. pepper

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/4 tsp. onion powder

1 1/4 tsp. dijon mustard

I blend it all up with my hand blender and then it all fits nicely in one of the Good Seasons dressing thingers. I make this for salad, obviously, but I also douse my whole plate in it and savor every tangy bite.

Yum. I want to try making beef gyro meat and I think I'll give it a shot later this week. If I do, I'll let you know how that goes as well as posting a recipe for delicious cucumber dill sauce. So, you know, cross your fingers for that.