Crete

I recently went on holiday to the Greek island of Crete, which was totally amazing. Greece is surprisingly poor for an EU country, but still astonishingly beautiful.

The food there was awesome; classically Mediterranean, with lots of vegetables. A lot of the food was quite light, as you don’t want stodgy food in the heat! I’m going to be trying out some Greek-inspired recipes soon, but in the meantime here are a few favourites of mine.

Gyros kebab meat with tzatziki and pitta bread. Gyro meat is popular throughout Greece, Turkey and much of the Middle East. It’s a great combination, as the tzatziki makes the meat taste far less heavy and much fresher. I imagine it’d be really nice with some roasted vegetables added in with the meat as well.

Saganaki, a type of fried cheese, which has several regional variations. It’s a very simple flavour, with just the cheese and the lemon (if you add it), but so delicious and moreish. It’s quite similar in taste to halloumi, but it has a much gooier texture inside and a crunchy, flaky texture on the outside.

A Greek salad, which usually includes tomatoes (under the other vegetables in this picture), onions, olives, cucumber and feta cheese, dressed with olive oil and seasoned with oregano and pepper. This particular salad also includes carrots. It’s a fresh and simple dish which is easy to make and great for when you fancy something both healthy and tasty, and also ridiculously easy – no cooking time required!

Loukoumades are a deep-fried pastry soaked in honey and cinnamon, or sometimes sugar syrup. In Ancient Greece they were served to the winners of the Olympics. I’m not sure how easy they’d be to make as they’re deep fried, but they’re so ridiculously tasty. I don’t usually like cinnamon but these were amazing!