July 21-24 Garides me Feta

Entire weekend away at a fabulous party at the home of generous friends who are also just the most super duper hosts. I did not cook a thing!
July 24     Garides me Feta

We spent the weekend in Cobourg celebrating the 40th birthday of a dear friend and we were wined and dined and treated to an amazing time.
We finally got home on Sunday afternoon and I had no idea what to make for dinner but clearly I had to cook something. I knew that I didn't want to mess with the bbq, I wanted something simple and easy to eat and I wanted something that I could turn into another dinner for The Kid and I tomorrow when Shack was back at work.

Garides me Feta is something that I often dream about eating. I spent quite a lot of time working in Greece in my late twenties and I have to be honest, I didn't love much of the food. It was too heavy, too much deep frying and you can only live on greek salad and watermelon for so long before you start to get antsy. One of the dishes I never got sick of was Garides me Feta - huge shrimp baked in a sauce of tomatoes, white wine, lemon, garlic, sometimes some oregano, sometimes no oregano then covered in a thick layer of feta and baked until the sauce bubbled up through the soft, salty, melty cheese.
YUM
I added some sugar snap peas, which are not very greek but remind me of fava beans (which are) and I felt like we needed something green in there somewhere. So if you are all worried about authenticity, you might want to leave those out but if only care about taste and texture and a bit of nutritional value, leave them in.

The sauce was garlicky and delicious and the perfect thing to sop up with some nice baguette. It was exactly what I wanted and tomorrow, it will make the filling for some greek tacos that I am thinking should not be so terrible. There was a moderate amount of whinging because the poor boys had to actually peel their shrimp. It is not my fault that they do not truly comprehend the joy that comes from sucking the sauce from every shrimp before you take the shell off so you can eat each one slowly and not just shovel three shelled shrimp into your gaping maw all at once just because you can.
Boys.

Garides me Feta

1 lb large shrimp (i did shell on and split but you can do shell off if you prefer)
juice of one lemon
1 onion, diced fine
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
500 ml grape tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup white wine
handful parsley
pinch kosher salt and a few grinds of black pepper
pinch of greek oregano
200 g sugar snap peas
100g feta cheese

squeeze the lemon juice over the shrimp and set aside while you prep the rest of the dish
preheat the oven to 400F
heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion for about five minutes, until the onion is softened. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute or two before putting in the white wine and the tomatoes. Throw in some salt and a few grinds of pepper and let that simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
While the sauce cooks, wash and de vein the sugar snap peas and set aside.
Get a casserole dish and put half the tomato mixture in the bottom of the dish. Add a layer of snap peas and then cover those with the shrimp. Pour over the rest of the tomato mixture and cover the whole thing with about 100g of feta. You can use more if you love feta too you know.
Bake for about 20 minutes until the sauce is bubbling up through the cheese and then I turn the heat up to 500 or you can broil for another 5 minutes.
Serve with lots of yummy bread to sop up all the juices.