Scrambled eggs

Scrambled eggs

In a pan, add 1 table spoon of olive oil.
Add 6 green peppers cut in big pieces. Fry them nicely for 3-4minutes.
Add 1 big tomato chopped julienne.
In a bowl whisk 5 eggs adding salt and pepper.
Pour the eggs into the pan and stir until everything is mixed together and the eggs are cooked.
For extra flavour, you can spread around a bit of yellow cheese or even feta cheese (No, I don't produce feta cheese and I'm not trying to sell you anything!)

Enjoy!!!

Peas with tomato sauce

Following the same procedure as the one for the green beans below, you can prepare another light, summer and healthy dish with peas. Ok for sure, that's not my favourite.. but I do like it!

Peas with tomato sauce

The only note is that you have to replace parsley with dill. Et voila! it's ready!

Enjoy!!!

Green beans with tomato sauce

A super light dish for the summer and one of my favourite tastes.. (do I say that everything is my favourite? ignore me..)

Green beans with tomato sauce

In a deep casserole, fry a chopped onion, add the green beans and stir them well untill they all get a bit of the onion and olive oil. Add a can of tomato juice (if there are pieces of tomato it'll be even better). Salt, pepper, sugar (cause of the tomato of course). You can also add some potatoes if you'd like to, cut in round pieces. Sparkle some fine chopped parsley and finally pour some water, enough to cover the green beans and let it drink all the juice. If need be, add some extra water.

PS: This is the kind of dish that feta cheese should not be missed from!

Enjoy!!!

Meat with kritharaki* (special pasta)

This dish is also a super traditional one and a classic Sunday lunch! It's easy to prepare but it does require some time. It's delicious and I always get excited when the house smells of it.

Meat with kritharaki

So here we go taking 1kg of nicely cut pieces of veal (neck or shoulder) and frying it with chopped onion in a deep casserole with 2 table spoons of olive oil until it gets brown all around. When the veal is well secured from all sides, we add 2 grated tomatoes, salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. Add water enough to cover the meat and let it boil. It requires 45-60 minutes, depending on the size of the pieces.

In an oven pan or a pyrex, spread the kritharaki, season it with salt and pepper and then add the meat with its sauce. Bake it for 30-40 minutes at 190-200o C.

NOTE
The water that is left in the casserole with the meat has to be 3 1/2 times the amount of kritharaki before you pour it into the oven pan or pyrex. So the proportion is 1 part of kritharaki - 3 1/2 parts water (the sauce of the meat in this case).

*Kritharaki is a special kind of pasta made from barley and it is very very popural is Greek cuisine. We love it!!

Enjoy!!!

Chicken with red sauce in the oven

Chicken: Kids' favorite!

Ask your butcher to cut a whole chicken into pieces. Marinate the pieces into a mixture of olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, chopped tomatoes and their juice and a bit of sugar. Keep it in the frigde for about 15 minutes.

Chicken with red sauce in the oven

After the 15 minutes, take the chicken and put it in an oven pan, as it is with its marinade. For extra flavour you can spread around 2-3 tea spoons of butter and you can add a cup of dry red or white wine. Add 2 glasses of water and bake it for 40-50 minutes at 220o C.

Accompany it with creamy rice or french fries and your kids will love you even more!

Enjoy!!!

The tomato and the city

Our first tomato!

Not an easy task to grow tomatoes in a balcony! But.. Voila!! and we are waiting for two more!
Mouts sweetheart! We will always remember you!

Pork steak with honey

Last minute call food..

Put a pork steak in an oven pan; cut an onion and a tomato into round pieces. Add some potatoes around. Season with salt and pepper. Pour on the top a mixture of 2 parts of olive oil, 1 part of honey and 1 part of mustard.
Add 2 glasses of water and bake it for 30 minutes in 220o C.

Pork steak with honey

Enjoy!!!

Pastitsio (Pasta with meat and bechamel)

Well, well.. I guess you're all familiar with mousaka.. the famous Greek Mousaka! This recipe below is for the second most known and super Greek mom's food.. Pastitsio! It's a classic Sunday's lunch.. it requires some time to be completed but it's rather easy for its looks and preparation! So here we go:

Pastitsio

Ingredients
1 pack of macaroni No 2*
1kg minced meat (pork and veal or just veal)
1 big onion
500gr chopped tomatoes with their juice
2 handfulls of parsley
Salt, Pepper, Sugar, 3 Carnation sticks, 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
300gr feta cheese

For the bechamel
1 1/2 cup of butter
8 tbl spoons of flour
1lt full fat milk (ok ok... you can do it with light as well)
Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg

Pastitsio and its layers

Procedure
Boil your macaroni and set it aside as soon as it's done.

In a deep frying pan, add 2 tbl spoons of olive oil and fry the chopped onion. Add the meat and stir it thoroughly until it gets the nice brown colour all over it. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar, the cinnamon and the carnation sticks and cook the meat until it's done in low fire(about 20-25minutes). Add the fine chopped parsley at the very end.

In a pot, melt the butter and add the flour stirring quickly until the flour is nicely adjusted with the butter and there are no little flour balls hanging around. Pour the milk and again use your strong muscles to whisk everything together until you have a nice creamy sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

In the big over pan, lay down your macaroni and spread around the crumbled feta cheese. Pour on the top the meat, spread it evernly over the macaroni. Lastly, pour the bechamel over the minced meat and again make it look nice. Season on the top of the bechamel some nutmeg and bake it for about 1 hour at 220o C. Untill it gets this famous brown colour on the top!

Tip: You can mix your bechamel with 200gr of yellow soft cheese for extra flavour.


Enjoy!!!


*It may be difficult to find it in other countries, unless you visit a market with greek products. Otherwise, penne type will be as good. All we need is the chumby macaroni with the big hole end to end (sexy!)

Filled Zucchini Avgolemono

Zucchini!!! You gotta love it!

Filled Zucchini Avgolemono

Ingredients
11 zucchini
1kg minced meat (pork and veal, or only veal)
2 fresh green onions
1 handfull of dill
1 espresso cup of rice
1 tomato
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Avgolemono
1 egg
Juice of 1 lemon

Procedure
Wash the zucchini and remove the flesh, either with the special gadget or with a little spoon. Keep the flesh aside.
Mixe the minced meat with the onions, the dill, the rice and the tomato. Season with salt and pepper.
Fill the zucchini with the mixture of meat. In a deep casserole, lay the flesh of the zucchini at the bottom (this will prevent the food of getting burnt). Then lay on the top the stuffed zucchini. Season with salt and pepper and pour the juice of the half lemon. Add water till a bit over the half of the zucchini and let it be cooked for around 45 minutes. It's better if you have the cover of your casserole on but not sealed closed.

As soon as they are done, bit the egg with the lemon juice adding 2 table spoons of the juice of the food. Mix together nicely and pour in the casserole. Again, make sure that your zucchini have been away from the fire for at least 10 minutes before you pour the avgolemono in it.

Enjoy!!!

Plum marmalade

Freshly cut from the tree... yes, we do produce them!Not in the city of course!

Fresh plums

Ingredients
1kg plums
500gr sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
extract from a vanilla stick

Procedure
Wash and remove the stone of the fruits. Put them into the blender, multi chopper or however you call it and make a purree out of them, like in the picture. Now normally we don't need to do this with all the fruits, but due to the fact that plums are quite hard, they are never going to melt and become creamy only by boiling them.

Cream of plums (multi chopper's action!)

Put the cream of the plums into a big pot and add the sugar. Leave them for around 30minutes, so as to get mixed well and the fruits release their water. Put the pot on the fire and give it a boil. Remember to remove the foam that will be produced. After the 15minutes of boiling, add the lemon juice and the vanilla extract. Give it another boil and then remove from fire.

After it cools down, try it and see if it's done (if it looks like a marmalade or if it is still watery). If it is still watery, give it another boil until bubbles start coming out on the surface of the marmalade. Be carefull at this point, as it is very easy for your mixture to get burnt. Stir carefully touching the bottom of your pot.

Let it cool, and for sure now it won't be watery anymore.

Plum Marmalade

Enjoy!!!

Capsicum filled with rice (gemista)

My all time favourite summer food is the so called "gemista", literally meaning "filled" or "stuffed".

Take your capsicums, wash them and cut the head as if you want to use later as a hat. Cut out the seeds.
In a bowl count as many table spoons of rice as the number of your capsicums adding 3 more.
Then, let's say, for the rice of 10 capsicums add 1 1/2 cups of tomatoes chopped into small pieces including their juice. I personally add as well a teaspoon of ketchup. If not, just add some suger. Then add a chopped onion, parsley, fresh or dry peppermint, oregano, salt, pepper and 2-3 tbl spoons of olive oil.

Gemista (Capsicum filled with rice)

Mix everything together and then fill in the capsicums with this mixture. Add the little hat on the top of every capsicum and put them in an order into an oven pan, spread on them some olive oil, add 2 glasses of water and bake at 180o C for around 45-60 minutes.

PS: You can also make the same exactly procedure using big mature tomatoes. Take out their flesh that you can use it later in the mixture of the rice, and then you have two vegies transformed into amazing and eye catching partners on a plate!

Enjoy!!!

Fish in the oven

Aww! Look at this beautiful fish!

Fish in the oven

It's kolios baked in the oven, with big pieces of tomatoes, onions, garlic and parsley.
Pour some olive oil on the top and bake in medium oven for around 40minutes.
Kolios is a quite greasy fish, with delicious flesh and it's actually quite cheap as well.

Yummy as it can get!

Enjoy!!!

Soutzoukakia*(Smyrna meat balls with red sauce)

BE CAREFULL! THIS FOOD MAY KILL YOU!

And that's not because it has something that can kill you, but because you cannot eat only one normal portion... you have to finish the casserole. You leave the kitchen and you're afraid that someone else is going to eat the last piece and you're gonna miss it out. You dream about it... You even take the last piece out of your sister's mouth (...never happened!)

Soutzoukakia (meat balls with red sauce)

For the soutzoukakia
1/2kg minced meat from veal
2 slices of bread (2 days old)
1 clove of garlic
salt, pepper, cumin (a bit less than a teaspoon)

Moisture the bread and crumble it on the meat. Mix all the ingredients together.
Mold the mixture like meat balls but give them a more cylindrical shape.
Fry them in butter mixed with olive oil.
Leave them aside.

For the red sauce
Clean the remaining butter-oil mixture from the meat that may have been left over and transfer it in a deeper pot. Add 1/2kg tomatoes (passed from the multi chopper or ultimate chopper or that pot with the really sharp blades anyway). Season with salt, pepper, sugar and cumin. Cook for 5minutes and then add a cup of dry wine (red, white, it doesn't matter). Cook it for another 15minutes until the sauce is not watery anymore. Add the soutzoukakia and cook for 10 minutes.
Accompany it with rice or french fries!


Enjoy!!!!

*Soutzoukaki, pl. soutzoukakia

Spetzofai (Villager's sausage)

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of sausages, but there are these spicy, big, not fat, and full of taste so-called villager's sausages that can tantalise the taste of any food!

Spetzofai (Villager's sausage)

Fry 1kg of green peppers cut into big pieces. Remove them from the pan.

Put the sausages in the same pan and fry them for 5-8 minutes. Remove them from the pan.

Fry one chopped onion and them add 1kg tomatoes chopped julienne. Season with salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. As soon as they boil well, add the green peppers and the sausages and cook for 15 minutes. 

The original spetzofai stops here. Now if you want you can add potatoes; fry them after the green peppers, remove them from the pan and continue as above.

Enjoy!!!

Cheese Pie (Tyropita)

In reference to the cream pie (Bougatsa) posted yesterday, today I'm posting the recipe for an original cheese pie!
Here, I used a different kind of fillo. I used a thinner type with around 8 seperate filla. You lay 4 filla at the bottom of the oven pan, the mixture of cheese goes after and then you top it with the remaining 4 filla.
Make sure that you spread some olive oil on each and every fillo, so as to have a crusty yet soft pie.

Cheese Pie

For the mixture of the cheese you are going to need 1kg of feta cheese, 300gr yellow soft cheese (such as Gouda or Emmental), 2 eggs and pepper. Crumble the cheese, bit the eggs and mix everything together.

Enjoy!!!

Mussels Saganaki

The ultimate summer and super saliva-running-out-of-my-mouth recipe is the Mussels Saganaki! It smells summer, it tastes like summer and it's the absolute yum expression! Yes, I love it!

Mussels Saganaki

Ingredients
1/2kg mussels
3 green peppers
2 mature tomatoes
1 hot green pepper
1 tbl spoon mustard
1 cup tomato juice
a bit of sugar
400gr feta cheese

Procedure
Fry the green peppers and the hot pepper into a deep pan, or a pot. Add the tomatoes (cut in big pieces), the tomato juice, the sugar, the mustard. Do not add neither salt nor pepper! You have the feta cheese and the hot green pepper to do the job!
As soon as the sauce is well done and thick (not watery), add the mussels (the water of the mussels will come out during the cooking time) and cook for about 10minutes. After you remove from fire, add the crumbled feta and season with oregano. Stir everything together and you're ready!

PS: A slice of fresh bread is a must for your "dives" into the sauce while a glass of cold ouzo will empower the taste of the mussels!

Enjoy!!!

Beans in the oven

Greece, well, was never a rich country and that is why people had to find out creative and delicious ways to transform and present even the cheap legume into a delicatessen plate! Full of flavours and nutritional value!

Beans in the oven

Beans is one of the very traditional meals especially cooked as soup. Here, there is an ulternative way, cooked firstly as soup and then baked in  the oven.
Ah and of course, Feta cheese is the obvious lover of legumes!


In a big bowl with hot water, pour 1/2kg beans (big dry beans). Let them as they are overnight.
The next day,  fry a chopped onion and thin cut green pepper in 2 tbl spoons of olive oil in a deep pot. Add 4 chopped tomatoes, a bit of sugar, salt and pepper. Add the beans and cover them with water. As soon as they complete 2-3 rounds of boil (around 15minutes), add some fine chopped parsley and transfer the mixture into a round over pan. Sprinkle some dry peppermint. Bake in 200o C until the food "drinks" its water and only some juice is left over (around 30minutes).

Enjoy!!!

Bougatsa - Cream Pie

That one is the ideal breakfast! Accompanied with a glass of chocolate milk and you're ready to go to school... ok ok to work as well!

Pies are traditional all over Greece; you can find them with cheese, meat, vegetables; sweet or not, you can eat them cold or hot, for breakfast, lunch, snak or dinner. Accompanied with a nice salad can make a complete nutritious meal!

The art is actually in "opening the fillo", preparing the dough, but now you can actually find any kind you want in the supermarkets in most countries. 

Here is a sweet pie made with fluffy cream!

Bougatsa - Cream pie

Ingredients

Sfoliata fillo (dough pastry of thin layers - sfoliata usually consists of 2 filla slighty thicker than the normal*)

1 1/4lt milk

1 cup semolina 

3/4 cup sugar

15gr vanilla powder

Procedure

Pour all the cold milk into a pot and put it on fire. Immediately (when the milk is still cold), add the rest of the ingredients and stir quickly until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Let it cool.

In the big oven pan of your kitchen, spread a bit of butter at the bottom and around the sides of the pan and then lay the first fillo making sure that 3-4cm jut out of the sides; pour the cream and spread it evenly. Add the last fillo on the top carefully and cover the pie around with the fillo that is hanging out of the sides.

Now with a fork, puncture the pie on its surface, pour some water on the top (about 2 tbl spoons) and bake in 220o C for 15 minutes on the top and 15-20 minutes from the bottom (depending on your oven).

As soon as it takes a nice golden colour on the top, it's baked and not burnt at the bottom, it's ready!

Let it cool and season with some icing sugar and cinnamon.

Enjoy!!!

*Fillo, pl. Filla

Meat with Zucchini Avgolemono (egg-lemon sauce)

Sundays are known for their impressive and most of the times complicated lunches, mainly I guess because we have more disposable time to spend in the kitchen... Though today was a quite busy Sunday I should say, but in order not to miss out in impressiveness we cooked this:

Meat with Zucchini avgolemono

What you're going to need is:
1kg veal cut in pieces (you can buy a piece from the  neck or better the shoulder)
10 small zucchini
2 green onions
1 handful of dill
Juice of 2 lemons
1 egg
Salt-Pepper

Boil the meat until it gets soft (depending on the size of the pieces, you will need approximately 40-60 minutes. It doesn't have to melt, just try it with a fork and see if it has gotten soft)
In a pot add some olive oil and fry the zucchini (if some zucchini are big, you can cut them in the middle). Fry them until they take a nice colour all around. Add the chopped onions, the meat and the dill and season with salt and pepper. Cover the food with hot water and let it boil until there is only very little water (juice) left.
When it's done, remove from fire and let cool for 5-10 minutes.

Now, in a bowl bit the egg and add the lemon juice. Add 2 tablespoons of the juice of the meat (from the pot) and bit all three hard and quickly. Then pour the mixture into the pot with the meat and the zucchini. Your food has to be quite cool (or not very hot) before you pour the avgolemono,because otherwise your egg will become like omelette!

*Feta cheese is a must with this dish!

PS: Avgolemono is a very basic sauce in greek cuisine, so do your practice cause you're gonna need it for other recipes as well! It smells grandma actually! :)

Enjoy!!!