Phyllo and Sesame Pies

Looking for something simple, sweet, light and crunchy?  Then these sesame pies or crescents will definitely satisfy all those urges. Similar to baklavas and typical of Greek sweets they are doused with a simple syrup when they come out of the oven.  Sweets made with phyllo pastry are some of my favourites in Greek cooking.  To me they represent a time of celebration and family gatherings.  You may even call it “sweet comfort eating”.

I made a few adjustments to the original recipe, especially the amount of sugar that was required for the sugar syrup. The rest is easy.  Some store bought phyllo, ground sesame seeds, brown sugar and a few spices.  And for all you good people fasting out there these are also Lent friendly.  I  also opted to brush the sheets with Greek olive oil instead of butter.  Enjoy these for morning or afternoon tea with a lovely cup of Greek coffee.  They are really delicious!

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Lentil Soup-”Fakes”

Souvlaki For The Soul

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HomeAbout MeArchivesPhotographyContact MeCOPYRIGHT & DISCLOSUREPersonalPlacesRecipesGreek FoodReviewsSubscribeLentil Soup-”Fakes”by Peter G on March 12, 2010

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Braised Okra

Today I’m adding another dish to my stable of Greek recipes.   or “bamies” as we say in Greek (pronounced bum-yes) is a wonderful, tasty vegetarian dish.  Truth be told, I was never a fan of okra.  Especially, whilst growing up.  I know it seems like I keep on repeating myself  about particular foods, but I learnt to appreciate it more in my later years.  I had tried it in an “authentic” gumbo in the United States-thought it wasn’t so bad and decided to give the Greek version another go.

This is a very simple dish to prepare requiring a few ingredients.  It belongs to the “ladera” (pronounced la-the-ra) family of dishes which translates as dishes cooked in an olive oil  based sauce (the Greek word for oil is “lathi”).  These dishes are almost always vegetarian and usually include garlic and tomatoes.  They are so tasty and the sauce that is created is perfect for mopping up with plenty of crusty bread.  There is something really magical about using olive oil to braise vegetables in this manner.  I also love green beans prepared this way and will be featuring that recipe in the coming winter months.   is also Lent friendly and suitable for those who are fasting during the lead up to Easter.

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Green Beans with Bacon and Shallots

HomeAboutRecipe IndexPantrythis cook’s toolsjump to navigationGreen Beans with Bacon and ShallotsFebruary 25, 2010Posted by elly in vegetables.
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I’m a firm believer that a lot of people who claim not to like vegetables just haven’t had them prepared in a good way.  Well, not necessarily in a good way, since that’s all subjective, but in a way that the is pleasing to that person’s palate.  Many people steam their vegetables, and that’s really great if you like them that way because it’s healthy and easy.  But me? No way. I am not a steamed veggie kinda gal. I mean sure, steaming some spinach before tossing it with pasta is ok, but just to have a side of steamed peas or something? Nuh uh. I need some flavor, some texture, some…well, fat, usually.  My favorite way to prepare vegetables is by roasting.  This is just as easy as steaming and the results are amazing.  Toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roast anything from brussels sprouts to zucchini to green beans to asparagus.

But, every once in a while, I want something a little different and maybe a little more indulgent without being TOO over the top bad for you.  These are green veggies, of course—just like I’m not one for steaming, I’m not really one for coating them in cheese sauce, either. As good as that may be. :-)

While I love roasting green beans, I also really enjoy them blanched and then tossed with a little oil or butter, usually some garlic, and occasionally some walnuts or pine nuts.  Blanching gets green beans just tender enough while retaining that gorgeous bright green color.  You’ll never get that color with frozen or canned green beans.  Add a little bacon to blanched green beans and really, what could go wrong?

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Koukkia Kounnes (Fava Bean Stew)

HomeAboutRecipe IndexPantrythis cook’s toolsjump to navigationKoukkia Kounnes (Fava Bean Stew)March 4, 2010Posted by elly in beans and legumes, greek, soups and stews, vegetarian.
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Let me just get the apology out of the way.  I know that we eat with our eyes, and probably the last thing you would want to ever eat is something that looks like this – which, let’s face it – basically looks like a bowl of crap.  I’m putting this right up there with split pea soup as far as unappetizing photos go.  I debated blogging this at all, but I realized that it’s a tasty recipe, especially timely during Lent, and well…I’m running low on blog backlogs anyway. :)

Now, onto the food.  For some reason, when I did all my cooking magazine recycling, I couldn’t bare to get rid of my Saveurs.  So, they moved with us to our new condo.  But now, it turns out we’re going to need every teeny tiny cubic inch of space we can get our hands on to store baby-related items, so the Saveurs came out of hiding and had to be picked over.   One great thing about going through old magazines is that it’s almost like reading totally new ones.  I vaguely remember seeing a special section on the cuisine of Cyprus when I first read the magazine a couple years ago, but I would have never actually recalled it on my own. Rediscovering it was great, and this stew in particular caught my eye.

This stew is really easy to make with very few ingredients, but it tastes great.  Bean stews like this are very popular in Greek cuisine in general, but especially during Lent.  The only change I would make to the recipe next time is boiling the fava beans for a few minutes and then peeling them.  This was my first time working with dried favas, and I just thought the texture of the final product would have been better without the skins.  You can buy them without the skins, apparently, but when I bought these (a looong time ago) I obviously did not take that into consideration.  Perhaps because of the skin issue or because my favas were a little old, I did have to add more broth to this recipe and also cook it a bit longer than the original recipe called for.  So, just keep that in mind, as this recipe does already cook for quite a bit of time already.

I wished we  had some feta around because I think it would be great crumbled over the top (and probably would have made for a better photo, too).  Depending on how strict your diet is during Lent, I would recommend trying some feta on top if you make this.  That said, it’s perfectly delicious on its own with some crusty bread to sop up the sauce.  This is really, really filling. I definitely think 6 is on the closer end to the serving size.  We had this with a salad and a little bread and were stuffed. I had plenty leftover to freeze.

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Stuffed Pork Chops

I stuff meats all the darn time.  Usually, though, there is cheese involved.  And occasionally, another meat.  This time,  I decided to stuff pork chops with some…well…stuffing.

This may not look terribly fancy, but it’s not really meant to be.  I know I have been using these words a lot lately, but this is downright homey and comforting.  I guess I just must really be craving that kind of food lately!

This is a pretty traditional stuffing that I added pistachios to (I love pistachios, and think they pair well with the leeks and mushrooms. Oh, and I have a lot sitting in my cabinet.)  The stuffing mixture is easy enough to put together, and since the pork chops are butterflied, they cook up rather quickly, making this an easy weeknight meal.  I made a quick pan sauce/gravy at the end with a small amount of roux and some chicken stock.  It was perfect to spoon over the chops and mashed potatoes.

Serves 2


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Greek Feta Salad Recipes

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Feta cheese is the iconic standard that goes into Greek salad. It seems wrong to chomp on fresh tomatoes and cucumbers seasoned with oil and vinegar without at least  a little feta to add some salt and flavor to the mix. I love ordering Greek salads in restaurants. I also love making them at home.

The beauty to making a Greek salad is that the ingredients don’t need to be rigid. Sure, you can follow the recipe I am going to give you. But if I were you, I’d follow that recipe only once and each time you make it, do something different. A salad, afterall, is pretty much impossible to mess up.

If you’re reluctant to change things because you’re afraid it will break tradition consider this: Greek cooks are all about using the freshest, tastiest ingredients around. If tomatoes aren’t in season, there is nothing wrong with leaving them out and adding some lettuce and green peppers instead. It’s the feta, olives, oil, and vinegar that are really the things that make this salad Greek. Why not use your imagination to come up with of your own?

Also, you don’t need to use kalamata olives. There are other Greek olives out there. And believe it or not, feta isn’t the only Greek cheese. There are others. Why not experiment? You can make all kinds of substitutions and additions until you find the ingredient combination that you like the best.

Ingredients:

1 English Cucumber, chopped

3 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 cup chopped scallions

oil and vinegar, to taste

1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives.

1/2 cup crumbled feta

dried oregano as a garnish

Instructions:

Add the tomato, onion, and cucumber in a bowl. Add oil and vinegar. Toss to coat. Transfer to a serving dish. Add olives and feta and sprinkle oregano over the top. Serve immediately. Makes 4-6 servings depending on how big the portions are.

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Ancient Greek Recipes - Wine Soaked Fruit with Honey

This fruit salad is light and refreshing. You can use any Greek wine you can find. However, I reccommend Mavrodaphne. It is a dessert wine and very sweet - this makes it better suited in this fruit salad. The fruits that were chosen were available in Ancient Greece - at least their ancestors were. The fruits that are available now may be slightly different than they were back then.

You can basically use any fruit you want. I just included these as guidelines. Also, the almonds add crunch and are a tradtional Ancient Greek food. You can, however, also use almonds. Try to find raw orange blossom honey if you can to try to get the flavor as close to the Greek honeys as you can.

Ingredients:

1 cup cubed honey dew melon

1 cup cubed cantalope

2 peaches, pitted and sliced

2 cups grapes, any variety (golden is best, however)

1 cup Greek wine

2 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons chopped almonds or walnuts

Instructions:

Add chopped fruit to a large serving bowl. Pour wine and honey over fruit and toss to incorporate the flavors. Let sit for thirty minutes. Garnish with almonds or walnuts and serve. You can serve this in pretty dessert cups. Be sure that each serving gets a splash of the wine/honey dressing.

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Greek Food is Part of the Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet has been getting a lot of press as being one of the healthiest diets in the world. In fact, much of the initial studying took place on Crete. When people first learned that the Mediterranean Diet was so healthy, they based their iinformation on those initial studies.

Of course, now the diet has been studied even more and we understand things about the diet that we didn’t at first. Here are some of the things that make the diet so healthy:

Olive OilModerate consumption of wineFresh fruits and vegetablesLimited consumption of meatHigher consumption of fish and seafoodCheese and yogurt are eaten on a moderate basisPeople enjoy their meals with familyPhysical activity levels are fairly high

If you follow the basic guidelines of the Mediterranean diet you will be setting yourself up to have a healthy life. Just remember that eating to excess will get you into trouble so it isn’t just the foods that make it healthy. It’s the lifestyle. Be sure to lower your portion sizes and get enough exercise and you’ll be on your way to better health.

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Greek Butter Cookies Recipe (Kourabiedes)

Kourabiedes, or Greek Butter Cookies are my all time favorite Greek dessert cookies. They are known as the “celebration” cooking and are on the table whenever there is a special event such as a wedding or Christmas. I personally like to make them whenever I want! (But never, ever serve them at a funeral - my mom learned this one the hard way).

Here’s a recipe that’s fairly easy. My mom’s is a little more complex. I’ll share that one a little later but these are still delicious!

Ingredients:

4 Sticks Sweet, Unsalted Butter

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Greek Lent Food - The Traditional Fare on 'Clean Monday'

As I write this we are in the middle of carnival weekend. It’s big event here in Greece leading into Lent and is a time for a good deal of celebration. Following the main carnival weekend we have Kathari Deftera or ‘Clean Monday’ which is the official start of lent. On this day there are specific foods that it is traditional to eat and most Greeks head out to a local taverna and order a table load. In fact, for the devout, it will pretty much form their diet until Easter in 40 days time. Lets run through the staples of a Clean Monday menu and find out how to prepare some of these simple dishes.

All food served today will be accompanied by a special bread called Lagana. This was once unleavened but over the years the recipe has started to include a little yeast. It comes in the form of a large rectangle covered in sesame seeds and is most wonderful but very expensive to buy (bakers make a killing on Clean Monday!).

The types of foods eaten on clean Monday are generally vegetable or seafood based. Even the normally ubiquitous feta cheese is absent. Here is a list of what you would typically find on the menu:

Taramasalata (a dip made with cod’s roe), Skordalia (a dip made with garlic and potatoes), marinated octopus, calamari (squid), fava dip, bean salad, and lettuce salad.

There are other dishes, like whitebait, prawns and cuttlefish for example, that may show up here and there as well. But here we will concentrate on the staple dishes.

1.Taramasalata. You will need 100g red salted cod roe, 300g boiled potatoes, 1 cup of olive oil, 1 small onion finely grated and the juice of 2 lemons. Simply mash the fish roe, onion and the potato together and drizzle in the olive oil and lemon juice gradually. Don’t worry if you can’t find the fish roe where you live, you will no doubt find that there are commercially made versions of this salad available to buy.

2.Skordalia. You will need: a head of garlic, 200g boiled potatoes, half a cup of olive oil, a couple of teaspoons of vinegar and a pinch of salt. Mash the garlic first then add the potato and vinegar. Continue mashing to a purée whilst dribbling in the olive oil a bit at a time.

3.Fava Dip. For this you will need 500g fava beans (split red peas), 2 medium onions (1 quartered and 1 finely chopped), half a cup of olive oil, the juice of a lemon and salt & pepper. Wash & boil the fava beans, skimming off any scum that forms on the top. Add the quartered onion, salt & pepper and half of the oil. Continue to simmer until the fava had broken down to a porridge-like consistency. Put the mixture through a food mill of processor to form puree . Sir in the rest of the lemon juice and serve topped with the raw finely chopped onion.

4.Lettuce Salad. Quick & simple. Just finely shred a couple of lettuces and toss with an olive oil and lemon juice dressing (two-thirds oil, one third juice)

5.Bean Salad Another simple one. 500g of dried white beans, soaked and boiled or – better still – 2 cans of white beans drained, 1 medium onion finely chopped, oil & lemon dressing as described in the lettuce salad, a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley and salt. Simply mix the ingredients together in a bowl and add the dressing.

6.Calamari. Cut the squid into rings (use the tentacles too) and dip into milk. Squeeze of excess milk and toss in flour. Shake off excess flour in a sieve and deep fry until golden. Throw on some salt and serve immediately while piping hot with wedges of lemon.

7.Marinated Octopus. Not as difficult as it may seem, this one. Firstly, a word about octopi. Don’t fret about trying to find a fresh one in February. 99.99999% of Greeks will use a frozen one. Octopus does not lose any quality through freezing. In fact, many would say that the freezing process helps to tenderise the flesh. Anyway, find a frozen one and, if you can, find one from Morocco as they are the best.

Here’s what you will need: A 1.5 kilo octopus (thawed), 3 cloves of garlic mashed or v. finely chopped, a teaspoon of dried oregano, a cup of olive oil and half a cup of red wine vinegar, a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper.
Wash the octopus inside and out (it will already be prepared if you buy a frozen one) and put into a large stockpot or saucepan. Many people say do not add water, but I put a just little in the bottom just to protect the pan in the early stages of cooking. You could put a little white wine in if you wish…not much, a couple glugs, that’s all. Then cook the octopus in its own juice over a low heat until it is tender to the point of a knife. Remove the octopus from the water and, when it has cooled, chop it into small pieces. Take all of the other ingredients and put into a jar, put the lid on (do remember this) and shake vigorously. Use this dressing to pour over the octopus. This will keep well for several days in the fridge and tastes much nicer the day after it has been made, once all of the flavours have got to know one another.

Other vegetable dishes would include a shredded white cabbage and carrot salad dressed with oil & lemon, vine leaved stuffed with a rice mixture and horta (boiled mixed wild greens)

For a dessert, Greeks would favour ‘Halva’ a sweet made with semolina and nuts which is available in many different varieties.

Until next time, Kalí Sarrakostí! (or have a good lent).

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Eating Out in Greece

Greeks also love to go out to eat, any occasion is a great excuse to gather with friends or family at a local Taverna and while away a few hours or an evening with food and company. As there are so many festivals, name days, religious holidays to celebrate, becomes a regular outing!

Until recently, at a taverna was a very cheap way to go out to eat and so it was affordable to all Greeks.

Where to Go and What to ExpectGreeks are not known for their quiet, demure, formal ways and eating is definitely no exception. Casual is the order of the day when , which suits the Greeks just fine. Spirits are high, talk is loud, lots of laughter and cheers will regularly burst fromtables, food and drink will seem to flow for hours. Everyone is friendly, cheering and even calling out to other diners. The atmospherecan be electric, the laughter and joy infectious. For a few hours, you can forget all the troubles of the day, relax and enjoy life!TavernaThese are the most popular places to eat out in Greece and where you will find excellent Greek traditional cuisine. They started off just a few meals being cooked in a home kitchen and has slowly evolved from there, being a place to eat, and to congregate, an extension of their own homes in a way.

When you go to a Taverna, you'll be taken to a table and immediately served with a basket brimming with thick chunks of bread.

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