Melomakarona, the greek xmas cookies!

Every country has a recipe for xmas cookies, find today here the greek way :)
It's full of honey, cinnamon and walnuts! You will be surprised how tasty they are although quite sweet and heavy in calories... Despite this, when I make them for Xmas, we tend to finish them so fast that I have to redo for Xmas once again :)
Not many succeed to make them in Greece, so do not underestimate my recipe as it is a sure one for success... and I share it today with you together with the small secret that goes with it ;)



Ingredients (for about 40 cookies)

1 cup of good olive oil
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of good brandy
1/2 cup of fresh orange juice
the zest of an untreated orange
4 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
some clove powder
1/2 cup of walnuts

For the syrop:
3/4 cup of good honey
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of water


Procedure
In a big bowl, mix well with the mixer all the liquid ingredients with the sugar. Then add little by little the flour with the rest of the ingredients but not the walnuts and with your hands continue to mix them. Continue adding the flour, until the mixture starts to thicken but not stick to your fingers.

Then, make with your hands cookies in the shape that you see in the photos. Put them in an oven pan for cookies, using the special cooking paper or butter it if you prefer. Leave the space of a cookie among them.

Bake them in the oven in fan and 180 degrees of Celsius for about 30min or until they get a nice golden color.

In the meantime, and 5 minutes before the end of the baking, boil the ingredients for the syrup for about 5min but check it often as the big secret is to be quite liquid as with the honey inside, if it boils too much it will be too thick to be absorbed by the cookies.

When the cookies are done, take them out of the pan and put them in a smaller and deeper pan one next to each other. Pour the syrup little by little to all of them and leave them to absorb it as long as it needs to. The faster this happens, it means that you have done it correctly :)

Finish by decorating, putting them in a nice presentation tray, and pour on them the grated walnuts. Don't they look great? And they taste even better... 


Eat with moderation :)

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Merry Xmas!

All the best to all of you! 

A big thanks to all the people out there from America, Australia, Africa, Asia, and of course Europe, that keep coming back to my blog and like my recipes ... 

Keep cooking! It makes quality of life much much better....

Vivian

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Chicken with exotic okra!

Oh my goodness, I will share with you today one of my favorite dishes! Chicken with okra :)
Do you know what okra is? It is a green vegetable that if you have never heard of, better try it once as it might drive you crazy, if it is cooked correctly of course :)
In France, I find it only in shops that sell oriental products, while in Greece you can easily find it in a supermarket. The one I use is frozen, unfortunately and not fresh, but there is an advantage after all, it is already peeled and ready to use... otherwise you have to peel the "head" of the okra and someone has to show you how. Ready? Here it goes...



Ingredients:

1 medium chicken
4-5 potatoes
500gr okra
3-4 tomatoes or 1 can of tomato
1 small onion
1 garlic 
parsley
salt, pepper, olive oil

Procedure:
Prepare the chicken and put it in the middle of a big oven pan.

Peel of the potatoes, cut them in slices and put them in one side of the chicken.

Fill the other side with the okra. Pour on top of the okra, the smashed tomato sauce, the sliced onion, the chopped parsley and the smashed garlic.

Pour olive oil on top of everything, add salt and pepper.

Mix with the help of 2 spoons the okra and the ingredients added.








Add enough water to cover half of the okra and the potatoes.

Put in the oven and cook for about 1h30min in 180 degrees of Celsius and fan.

Home will smell delicious!!!! I really insist that you try this recipe. If you do, please send me some feedback... I am curious of you opinion :)  

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Vivian's quiche

I live in France for years, and when I ask a french friend for an idea on what to cook for dinner, very often I get the same answer: a quiche! So, here's a quiche a la Vivianne (that's how they write my name in french :)   

 Ingredients:

1 package of puff paste (pate feuilletee in french)

1 tomato

4-5 big eggs

1 pepper

1-2 spoonfuls of milk

150 gr of grated cheese

salt, pepper

Procedure:

Open the paste in a pan for the oven that has a bit smaller diameter so that the edges create a nice protection all around. In a bowl, beat the eggs, add salt and pepper, the milk and the cheese and mix them with a fork.

Pour the mixture on the paste. Decorate with the pepper and the tomato cut in slices.

Cook in the oven for about 15min in 200 degrees of Celcius/fan or until the mixture gets quite solid.

Take it out and leave for 5min to cool down. Cut it like a pizza and serve with some fresh salad. your quiche is ready! Bon appetit :) 

 

  

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Red chicken flirting with spaghetti :)

Like spaghetti? Chicken is an easy meat for kids? Find this nice recipe that is sooooo tasty!

Ingredients:

4 chicken legs

500gr spaghetti

4 good tomatoes or 1 can of tomato sauce

olive oil, salt, pepper

Start by frying the chicken in a big frying pan with enough olive oil

Until they get a nice golden color

Then add the tomato...

Enough water to cover everything...

add salt and pepper, cover and cook for about 45min

Take out the meat with some of the tomato sauce in a separate bowl

Add more water to boil the pasta

add the spaghetti

Cook as said in the box

Your pasta is ready!

Serve pasta with the chicken and pour the tomato sauce on top! 

Yummy :)

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Chocolate cake... yeah!

My favorite chocolate cake

This is THE chocolate cake that I chose for one of the first birthday cakes for my kids that became a very popular one among my kids AND their friends!
Given this success in taste, this is the one that I chose as base for several birthday cakes later on.
I only changed the decoration/topping to fit to the occasion and you will see how a humble cake can end up to such an awesome cake :) Trust me and try it, you will become addicted!
Special tribute to all my family (husband and kids) that helped me to decorate the following cakes. These were moments of pure happiness... I love you!
Let's start from the basics...



Ingredients
2 cups of flour for cakes
3/4 cups of cocoa powder
3/4 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
6 eggs
1/2 cup of milk
vanilla flavour
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

Procedure
Use a mixer to mix all the ingredients very well for a few minutes. Pour the mixture in a baking dish covered with butter that can have any form that you like. Put in the oven at 175 degrees (Celcius) for 40-45 min.   
Decorate with a chocolate topping, marzipan, sugar topping or whatever you or your kids like!
Get ideas from the following photos, and discover how this love affair started and how it evolved with time...

So, what do you say, it worth to try it, no? Simple but delicious... from Vivian!

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Summer break!

It's been a very productive year, so it is time for a summer break!
Enjoy your vacations all of you out there and meet back again here from September with fresh ideas and passion for creativity :)

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Cheese balls/Gougeres au fromage

Today I will share with you a simple and delicious recipe that my polish friend Anneta does and that I really like. It's great for buffets like birthday parties, various celebrations at home, at work, at school of your children, etc. and it's so easy to make!
In french they call these cheese balls "Gougeres au fromage" and if you speak french have a look in the original recipe here: http://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_gougeres-au-fromage_20095.aspx

For the ones, that cannot understand the french, I will try to translate :)
Thanks Anneta for sharing this recipe and please send a nice photo to us if you have one!



Ingredients

4 eggs + 1 yolk (optional)
150 gr grated gruyere cheese (my friend says that she puts the double amount or improvise according to your preferences :) 
150 gr of flour
80 gr of butter
salt, white pepper and optionally

Procedure

Warm the oven at 200C/fan. In a small casserole, boil 25cl of water with the butter cut in pieces and 1 teaspoon of salt. Take it out of the fire, add all in once the flour, mix well and put back into low fire to dry well for 1 min. Take it out of the fire, let it cool and add the eggs and whisk well and eventually add the salt, the pepper and the cheese.

Using 2 teaspoons, make small balls of this mixture and put them in an oven dish that you have greased before or you have put the special cooking paper. If you want, cover them with the beaten yolk using a kitchen brush. Put them in the oven for about 25 min or until they get a nice golden color. Enjoy!

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We are the champions :)

I have been pretty busy lately with various things so I was not so often blogging here, but I would like to share with you one of the reasons :)

My husband is a pilot and his club was organizing a treasure hunt and me with kids joined him in the team and guess what? we won THE FIRST PRIZE!

So we celebrated the event with a bbq organized at the club and it"s only today that i got back into cooking doing pasticcio :)

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Jello dessert, for summer parties!

Want a summer dessert? Then a jello dessert is what will freshen your summer parties :) It is easy, quite popular and very tasty... See how you can do it :



Ingredients

2 packs of petit-beurre biscuits (or digestive, ...)
1 big can with fruits in syrup (your choice of fruit)
1 box of jello (your choice of flavor)
2 cups of milk
2 egg yolks
4 spoonfulls of flour
3 spoons of corm flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 vanilla
2 spoons of butter

Procedure

   

Drain the can of the fruits and use the syrup to moist one by one the biscuits.

In a rectangular dish (20x30cm) that can go in the fridge and has a cover, make two layers with these moist biscuits. Put the dish in the fridge. Prepare a pastry cream by putting in a small casserole 1 1/2 cup of the milk together with the sugar to boil and in the rest 1/2 cup of milk dissolve well both types of flours and add it to the casserole. Continue stirring until the cream starts to thicken and then take out of the fire and add the egg yolks well beaten and mix well. Put back in low fire and adding the butter stir again for 2-3 minutes.

The cream is ready. Leave it to cool for a few minutes and then pour it on top of the biscuits and spread evenly.

Put again in the fridge and prepare the jello following instructions in the box and leave it also to cool for a few minutes.

Once the jello has cooled, put the canned fruits on top of the pastry cream and pour the jello slowly on a spoon on top of the fruits. Be extremely careful as the jello has to stay on top, otherwise it will pass under the cream!!! Cover and leave in the fridge for a few hours (better overnight) until the jello becomes solid. Enjoy!
     

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