Salad Skewers and Evo3 inspired dressing

Evo3 asked us to come up with a salad dressing inspired by their new Extra Virgin Organic olive oil that is just launching. Evo3 is one of those brands with a real story to tell and I would urge everyone to pop over and have a read of their website to find out more.

It is a Greek Olive Oil produced on the Island of Lesvos, and created by the founder who wanted to find a truly authentic olive oil and whose provenance could be traced (unlike many other olive oils in Europe which interestingly cannot always be).

Add into the mix social responsibility, where a tree is planted in a deforested area for every bottle of Evo3 olive oil sold, and you truly have one of those unique brands with passion and ethics at the heart of all they do.

Here's the recipe I was inspired to come up with:

Dressing: 
50 ml Extra Virgin Olive oil (I couldn't get hold of Evo3 in time, but this recipe is bound to taste even better with Evo3)
Tahini (one spoonful)
25 ml Lemon juice
Cinnamon (a pinch)
Ground cumin (a pinch)
Dried Oregano (a pinch)

I put all these ingredients into a clean jar and shook well to make the dressing.

Salad Skewers:
I decided to make salad 'skewers' as I thought they would be a bit different and fun to make. I know my kids love to get involved in cooking and so this is a fun way that they can get involved.

Ingredients for the Salad skewers:
Halloumi cheese (cut into pieces and griddlled)
baby tomatoes
Red, yellow and green peppers cut into pieces (fresh)
Red, yellow and green peppers cut into pieces then brushed with olive oil and roasted.
Bread pieces dipped into olive oil and baked in an oven to make croutons.

Having some of the peppers fresh and some roasted makes the flavours and textures more interesting on your salad skewers.

The roasted peppers and chunky bread croutons will need to be baked for around 10-15 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 200C. Keep your bread pieces deliberately chunky so that they thread onto the skewers easily. I used some granary bread rolls cut into chunks.

Then simply thread onto some skewers which can then be drizzled with your dressing or dipped into the dressing. Some green lettuce leaves complement the salad skewers perfectly.

This salad provides a nutritionally balanced meal in its own right as it has foods from all the major food groups. The halloumi cheese covers the dairy and protein elements of the meal, the bread croutons provide carbohydrates, the peppers and tomatoes are healthy colourful vegetables along with the lettuce and if you use an Organic Extra Virgin olive oil like Evo3, you will get the health benefits of that.

Evo3 have told us that they would love to hear from you with recipes and they have said that will offer a 15% off promo code to everyone who enters with their Greek Island inspired recipe. You could win a bottle of their Evo3 Extra Virgin Organic Olive Oil. You can send details of your recipe to Evo3 via the contact form on their website (use the 'General Inquiry' option on the subject field).

They can also be found on facebook here.

This is our entry into the Evo3 Salad / salad dressing competition.