Easter Dinner, Greek Style

This year a rare occurrence happens. Both the Christian Easter and the Greek Orthodox Easter coincide. In celebration of this monumental event let's take a look at some traditional Greek Easter delights:

Greek Lamb
Ingredients: 2 heads of garlic, 6 tablespoons of fresh oregano, 6 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, 3 tablespoons of salt, 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper, 1 cup of olive oil and a 6-8 pound leg of lamb. Hint: if you don't care for lamb, you can substitute a pork tenderloin, whole chicken or whole red snapper.

• Take all of the ingredients (except for the olive oil & lamb) and place in Cuisinart. Pulse the food processor while slowly adding the olive oil until a loose paste is formed.
• Score the leg of lamb with a small pairing knife and smear HALF of the paste all over the lamb, make sure to push it into all of the crevices and scores. NOTE: take the other half of your paste and cover airtight and place in refrigerator. You will use this to make the Greek style potatoes below.
• Cover lamb and place in refrigerator to marinade overnight.
• Remove lamb from refrigerator and preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• In a shallow roasting pan, cook the lamb for 1.5 hours on your oven's lower rack at 325 degrees or until a meat thermometer reads 145 degrees when inserted into thickest portion of lamb.
• Once cooked, remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes under foil until ready to slice and serve.

Greek Potatoes

Ingredients: 8 large Yukon gold potatoes and remaining half of the unused paste you made for the lamb marinade.

• Peel and quarter the potatoes.
• Toss the potatoes in the remaining half of the marinade (add additional olive oil if necessary). The potatoes should be well coated.
• Spread potatoes out on a large cookie sheet and cook with the lamb on your oven's upper racks at 325 degrees for 1 and a half hours.

Spinach with Feta

Ingredients: 4 pounds of stemmed spinach (preferably fresh, but frozen can be used), whole onion diced, 6 garlic cloves diced, 1 pound of feta crumble and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

• In a large saute pan, cook the onions and garlic over medium heat until onions are translucent.
• Add the spinach and saute until tender. Remove from heat and put on serving plate.
• Crumble feta over the top of the spinach and serve.

Some other great Greek side dishes for Easter include:

• Orzo with golden raisins and pine nuts (cook according to directions on package, adding the raisins and nuts right before you cover the orzo to simmer).
• Roasted zucchini and summer squash that have been tossed with oregano, olive oil and lemon. Cook at 400 degrees for 25 minutes until veggies are tender.

Don't forget to pair you wonderful with Easter meal with a great wine like the Turkey Flat Shiraz. Happy Easter.