Briam is the Greek name for this dish. I like the Greek name better than the English name of “Baked Zucchini with Potatoes and Carrots”. Not a very exciting title in English. Everything sounds better in Greek!

This posting is a little late and I apologize for that. I was a little lazy on Sunday but I’m back! I’m just three days late…on the blog post of course! Get your mind out of gutter. And if it wasn’t in the gutter then keep it where it was at!

Here’s a list of the organic ingredients I purchased and the store I got them at:

1. Yukon Gold Potatoes (Whole Foods)
2. Zucchini (Whole Foods)
3. Roma tomatoes (Whole Foods)
4. Baby Carrots (Whole Foods)
5. Onion (Whole Foods)
6. Parsley–the curly kind; not flat leaf (Whole Foods)
7. Garlic (Whole Foods)
8. Chicken breast (Whole Foods)

Here’s a list of the non-organic ingredients I purchased and the store I got them at:

1. Water–(my kitchen sink)
2. Salt and pepper (Town and Country)
3. Olive Oil (Costco)
4. Parmesan Cheese (Costco)

This dish made A LOT of servings. I would say we got 10 or 12 servings. I chose to add chicken and some cheese for flavor. However you can make this dish completely vegan by adding soy cheese and some kind of meat substitute (or you can skip both altogether). You can also make this dish vegetarian by adding cheese. It’s totally up to you!

Whole Foods was a great place to go for the fresh vegetables. They offer such a great selection of organic and also non-organic fresh vegetables. I haven’t replaced my staples yet like Olive Oil and cheese and salt and pepper yet because we are still using up what we had from before, most of which came from Costco. I’m keeping the focus on the main ingredients being organic for now.

This dish was very fresh tasting with a nice sauce from the tomatoes. The chicken gave it another layer of texture and the cheese added a little saltiness to the dish. However, it was the vegetables that really shine in this dish.

If you don’t like garlic, I would recommend either using less (recipe calls for 6 cloves) or skipping it if you must. I eat my lunch at my desk and I had a few cranky bees buzzing about the office complaining of the garlic stench the first day I brought this entree to work. Here was my solution: After heating my lunch in the microwave I would make sure to snap the lid securely on the gladware container, make sure no one was looking and creep back to my desk where I keep my lunchbox which has a zippered top. I would unzip the top, quickly pop open the lid of gladware container and leave it off to the side and then re-zip the lunchbox so that the meal could air out a bit–give it about 10 minutes. What did I wind up with? A really stinky lunchbox and some really happy coworkers who kept asking, “Oh my, what smells so good?” The great thing was the food stayed warm in the lunchbox but still had the chance to air out.

A note from the chef: “Because this dish bakes for about an hour and we had pan-fried the chicken in advance to get some browning, we didn’t add the chicken until the last 20 minutes of cooking so it wouldn’t dry out; however, it didn’t quite absorb all of that garlicky flavor I was hoping it would have. Next time we make this we’ll skip pan-frying the chicken advance and just let it bake for the full hour with the rest of this dish.”

There you have it! A wonderful dish that can be eaten many ways! You may want to follow up this meal with some gum because your breath will be stinky from the garlic. Don’t kiss anyone you care about right after eating this meal unless you are telling them to kiss off!

This coming week there will be a few changes. I made a vegan Greek dish from the cookbook so you’ll have my post to look forward too with a vegan twist. Also, you will have a post done in a different style from the actual chef! I’m working on a new blog post entitled “Meat Pete” so you can get to know your chef and guest blogger a little bit better! This coming week look forward to vegan lentil soup from me and Greek-style hamburgers on the grill by Pete.

If you like the reviews and ingredients listed on my blog and want to get measurements and cooking instructions I highly recommend you visit Anna O’Brien’s website to get some free recipes, meet the author and inspiration of The Greek Eating Project–and also to buy her book.

Opa!

Sara