Season greetings
to all of you and your families!
Prepare :
Mosaic, recipe reminder!
You have definitely to try it!
Summer time cooking!
Summer is the perfect time to indulge yourself with meat cooked over charcoal and everything that accompanies such a treat.
Approaching 15 of August that is a holiday in several places, I suggest the typical greek combination of souvlakia and tzatziki, and why not a greek salad that is an old-time classic.
Add some grilled vegetables like zucchini and eggplants that will not pass unnoticed for sure.
Kali oreksi! (aka enjoy your meal in greek :)
Banoffee pie, finally! (the almost easy way;)
While I am trying to decide for the order, let's discover together a pie that is very popular and if you have never tried before, this is the moment to go ...
Banoffee stands for banana+toffee (caramel cream) and it's a pie that was invented or better evolved (as all recipes do) in the 70's, the period that all marvels have been born (like me :))))
There is lot's of discussion about what is the best way to do it on the web, especially concerning the toffee part that is called also "dulce con leche" or "confiture de lait" in french and you can get it even ready made at the supermarket! This is my favorite article that discusses about it.
Have I persuade you ? Let's go then!
Ingredients
Base:
100gr butter
250gr digestive biscuits, crushed
2 bananas, sliced
Toffee/caramel: (you can instead buy the ready-made one!)
100gr butter
100gr dark brown sugar
397gr can condensed milk (e.g., Nestle)
Topping:
300ml carton whipping cream (whipped)
cocoa powder to sprinkle
bananas to decorate (optional)
Procedure
Add a layer on top with the banana slices and put it in the fridge.
Spread on the base, let it chill and fridge for an hour.
Whip the cream and add it on top. Put it back to the fridge for several hours. When you want to serve it, sprinkle some cocoa powder and optionally decorate with some extra bananas.I am sure that you will die for it!
Tabbouleh, the healthy and so fresh salad!
I did not have time to play much with recipes but I will share a photo of one of my first attempts and I will give you the general idea, as for salads you need to add your personal touch in my humble opinion ;)
- The general idea is to use as basic ingredient the bulgur
- that you soak for 1-2 hours in the same amount of water
- and then add your favorite ingredients for a fresh salad all chopped
- like tomatoes, onions, cucumber, parsley (I like to add also some dried raisins).
- Season with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and fresh mint.
- Cover and refrigerate.
- Serve with mint leaves on top.
Try it and I am sure that you will become addicted like we did!
Playing with pastry or the "snail pie"
Ingredients
1 round ready-made puff pastry
200gr feta cheese
3 eggs
some sesame seeds
Procedure
In a bowl, whisk the 2 eggs and add the smashed feta cheese inside.
Whisk the last egg and brush it on top. Add the sesame seeds evenly.Bake for about 15min. Enjoy!
Aperitif (or cocktail hour) flower!
Have a glimpse of the latest trend that I did in a hurry with whatever I had in my fridge and that was still delicious despite all odds :)
I had only 1 pastry dough so I made half the flower but it's enough to get the idea still...
Ingredients
2 round ready-made puff pastry (pate feuillete in french)
2 eggs
1 cup of grated cheese (Gruyere is great)
some decoration seeds e.g, sesame
Procedure
Beat in a small recipient the 2 eggs with a fork.
Open one pastry and with a kitchen brush you cover all the surface with half of the eggs.
You add on top the cheese trying to cover evenly all the surface. You cover with the other layer of pastry dough and you "close" the edges by pressing with a small fork.
The result is really delicious that I managed to eat only one tiny part that was left from my family's excitement :))) And my, it was divine! and beautiful too btw...
Recipe reminder/Whole grain bread-Lasagne
I had a crave today for home-made bread. What a great occasion to review my old recipe of whole grain bread! How about trying it once?
And what did I cook today? Lasagne.
Needless to tell you that my family got excited ;)
Have a look at both recipes to see what I mean...
Needless to tell you that my family got excited ;)
Have a look at both recipes to see what I mean...
Recipe reminder (muffins)
Have a look in my chocolate-banana muffins to see why I could not resist...
Try NOT to do them! :P
Recipe reminder (curry)
I would like to remind you a curry recipe that I like and my kids too btw.
As kids make hard criticism in general (ok, they are a bit softer with mum still, but not always), I think that it worths to consider it for one of your next meals.
Are you ready for my chicken curry recipe, then?
Go for it!
Recipe reminder (Gemista)
It deserves all your attention... Light, healthy, tasty, good-looking, what more to ask from a recipe?
Simply, enjoy!
Recipe reminder (Tyropitakia)
"Tyropitakia", the feta cheese pies!
If you haven't tried it yet, just do... if you have, just give me some feedback of what do you think of it or tell me your own recipe, if you like sharing :)
You can even offer them in a nice gift box to someone, to give you some ideas. I always do that, when I want to thank someone ...
Specifically made today as a surprise for one of my kids that I missed soooo much ;) Enjoy!
Coconut "Ravani"
Ok, a difficult day for me (2 of may) has passed and life gets it's rhythm again. So, what's best than trying my favorite Greek cake? Coconut "Ravani" or Coconut semolina moist cake :)
Do you remember the recipe for ravani? If not, time to revise it ...
Find today a slightly different version that is one of my favorite Greek cakes with flaked coconut.
Ingredients1 cup of sugar
1 cup of self-raising flour + 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup of semolina
1 cup of flaked coconut
6 eggs
1/3 cup of milk
For the syrup:
3 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
lemon zest
1 cup of butter
Procedure for the cake
Whisk the sugar with the eggs until they get whiten and thick, adding little by little the milk. Mix in another bowl the rest of the ingredients and add them slowly to the mixture.
Empty in an oven dish that you have buttered well before.
Bake for about 30-35min.
Cut it in medium diamond shaped parts. Leave it to cool and start preparing the syrup.
Procedure for the syrup
Boil all the ingredients in a small casserole apart from the butter for about 5-6min. At the end, add the butter and mix until it is melted completely and integrated in it.
Pour slowly on the cake all over until all the syrup is absorbed in the cake.
Add the extra flaked coconut on top to decorate the cake. Leave it to rest for a few hours, ideally serve it the next day.
Store it covered in the fridge. Every day that passes it gets even better, yummy :)
Chocolate chip cookies
Classic recipe, that similar you can find all around the web, but I like to keep good recipes once found, so here it is the one that I prefer...
Ingredients (for about 30 big cookies)
250gr butter
100gr brown sugar
100gr white sugar
vanilla flavor
2 large eggs
350gr plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder or (bicarbonate) soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
200 gr of good dark chocolate (chips or chunks)
Procedure
Preheat the oven to air and 170 degrees of Celsius.
Whisk the butter with the sugars until whiten. Add the eggs and continue. Add the flour and the rest apart from chocolate and make a nice soft dough (adjust the flour to the feeling of the dough).
Add the chocolate chips or chunks and mix to go evenly all over your dough.
Make small or big dough balls (depending on your preference for chocolate cookies :) and flatten them. Put them in oven trays (you will need 2) that you have covered with the special baking paper.
Cook for about 10-15min depending on the size of your cookies (the bigger, the longer...).
Let them cool and then stock the remaining ones (of course, some will be already eaten in the meantime ;) in a tin box for cookies.
Let me know what o you think about this recipe, once you have tried it ...
Happy Greek Easter!
Too many things going on this period, so I missed lots of events linked to Greek Easter that was yesterday, but I have cooked quite a lot of stuff that are linked to it as you can see in my posts.
So, with a day of delay, all my best wishes for a world with lots of love and much much less of wars and violence in general...
Happy Greek Easter!
especially to my family and friends... that I think of you, even though we see each other once per year maybe. Flower syntheses, offered to me from my precious daughter that has really a talent and borrowed from our beautiful garden.
"Tsoureki", the greek easter sweet bread!
Just google the name and you will find lots of recipes out there and next year I will give you mine ...
For the time being, I am just telling you that they taste great and we have almost consumed all of them in half a day, imagine :))))
Just click on "More..." to enjoy more photos !
The muffins of the day!
The inspiration of the day was to add some sliced almonds on top and decorated with a lollipop as they are going to be sold in my kids' school to finance a field trip....
If you read this post on time, come and buy one before it is too late :)
Happy Easter, whatever that means to each one of you!
Happy Easter period!
I will be coloring eggs, baking traditional easter cookies from Greece and celebrate with this fluffy and creamy pudding :)All the best,
Vivian
Grissinis
Hubby loves Grissinis, so here's a reason to try to make them :) I have to admit that he likes the Greek version but I will try today the original ones from Torino... that I like sooo much :) And with the remaining dough, I will make some nice small rounded breads, what do you say?
Who does not like those crunchy delicate fluffy delicious thinny bread sticks? No excuses of not trying, as it is pretty easy...
Ingredients
500 gr of good quality flour for bread
40gr yeast
a bit of salt, sugar, honey and olive oil
1 cup of warm water
Procedure
- Start by diluting the yeast in the cup of warm water and a bit of sugar and leave it for about 10min.
- Make a nice elastic dough by mixing flour, olive oil and the above mixture.
- Leave the dough to rest for about an hour in a warm place covered with a thick blanket (The traditional greek way of doing such stuff :)
- Roll out the dough using a cylinder.
- Cut with a knife thin slices from the dough and stretch them. (smoothly, if they break do not stick them back, bake them as is)
- Put them next to each other in an oven tray.
- Cover them and let them to rest again for about 30 min
- In the meantime, you can prepare with the rest of the dough small rounded breads like in the photo and let them also rest.
- You can sprinkle the grissinis and/or the breads with sesame seeds if you want.
- Bake all at 180 degrees and fan for about 20 min or until they get a nice golden color.
- Watch them carefully as the grissinis can easily get burnt.
- Save them in a tin box. Serve them with Milanese salami or prosciutto, hmmmm.... (decorated with flowers offered for my bday :)
