Cooking like my grandmothers

Today we had John's grandfather and his wife over for lunch. They have not been to our home since John Daniel was born and John was excited to show off his renovations and have them see little Molly. We see them two or three times a year but we always go to their house and she feeds us very well so we were excited to be the host and get to feed them. In thinking about what I wanted to fix, I was trying to think of something light and summer-like. I make a chicken salad that is pretty good so we did that and put it on croissant rolls. As a side dish I decided I wanted to tackle something that I have never made before..... my grandmother's famous (at least in our family) Greek Salad! I actually have only eaten it one time and it was my Dad's 60th birthday. He begged her to make it. Apparently she used to make it a lot back in the old days and the family all loved it. But it is kind of a pain and she had not done it in quite some time. When I saw it for the first time it was an amazing sight for the eyes and tasted so yummy. There are MANY ingredients and it has potato salad in the middle of it (and I have never made potato salad). When done...it is so beautiful (if food can be beautiful)!!! John encouraged me to do it and so we bought all the ingredients and John helped me put it all together. It has lettuce, watercress, avocado, beets, radishes, green peppers, the potato salad, green onions, cucumber, olives, anchovies, shrimp, tomato and feta cheese. You layer it all on a big platter and it is sure to impress. It was fun and I loved cooking with my hubby. We do well in the kitchen together. We stayed up until 11 pm last night cooking it all and cutting veggies. I learned something new as well....if you boil potatoes first with the skin on them, after they are soft the skin comes right off. No peeling the skin with a peeler! That was awesome! When I placed it on the table today, John's grandfather and Sue were impressed and they said it was yummy. It was so much fun to cook for them. Now my Dad wants a salad for himself (this is one of his favorite things).

I am a very lucky girl in that I got to experience both of my grandmother's cooking. They are/were excellent cooks. I love making their recipes. I cannot wait to tell my grandmother that I did the Greek salad! She likes to share her recipes with me. Some of my Granny Thornton recipes that I like to cook are chicken Italian, beef stew (have not perfected this one yet), and now Greek salad. Some of the recipes that I like to cook that were my "Roosh's" are her macaroni and cheese, squash casserole, meatloaf, and sweet potato souffle. I hope I can pass these favorites down to my girls!