Equipment: 2017

My french baby!

And suddenly, I felt an urge to make a new blog.
It's been a year that I am thinking about it. I was working it in my mind and here it is:
Discover my brand new french baby-blog

"Instants (extra)ordinaires"

= (Extra)ordinary moments in english.

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

What best to have fun ending of October than celebrating Halloween ?
Cooking, activities, decoration, colors... lots of ideas in the web! Just to keep track of what is in my blog let's recapitulate...

Have fun cooking butternut soups, halloween cookies, mini apple pies or just apple pie like this one, this one or this one.

Decorate your house entrance with jack-o-lanterns, following my son's short tutorial in the numbered photos (no1 is missing as it is about choosing your pumkin's face :)

Make fake injuries with makeup and scare your friends (not my favorite though!) like this homemade one from my kids...

Whatever you prefer, just try to get with friends and/or family and have fun and enjoy life!

Jam roll

Old time classic recipe coming straight from our youth... jam rolls!
Here's a fast & easy recipe to keep track in my blog. Thanks Vilma for reminding it to me!
I use strawberry jam here, but my dear friend Vilma brought one in our place for a bbq, a tasty one filled with Nutella ... hmmmm just gorgeous!!!
The result here is a fast prototyping, as I am busy and do not have the luxury for better photos or decoration... the essential is here though :)

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup of sugar
vanilla
1 cup of self-raising flour
1 cup of strawberry jam
some powder sugar to decorate (missing today :)

Procedure

Mix for several minutes the eggs with the sugar and the vanilla to thicken.

Then add little by little the flour and mix it carefully by hand and a spatula in order to keep the air inside the mixture.

Empty to the biggest and swallow oven dish after covering it with a baking sheet.

Layer it with your spatula.

Bake at 175 degrees of Celsius and fan for about 20min or until golden.

When done, cover it for a few minutes with a humid towel and then cover the top with the jam or the nutella (warm for a few seconds in the microwave oven to soften a bit).
Roll carefully as in photos, decorate with some powder sugar or melted chocolate
and serve by cutting it in about 1cm slices. Enjoy!

Milopitakia, greek mini apple pies or cookies

October, the month of apples!

That's why I decided to present you today a recipe that was missing from my blog and that I like a lot: milopitakia!

Milopitakia, in greek, means mini apple pies but they are actually more kind of apple-filled cookies to be more precise.

Whatever you call them, I am sure that you will like them once you taste them, so here it goes in order to have them for real at your place :)

They look gorgeous too, no?

Ingredients (for about 30 pieces):
Dough:
500 gr self-raising flour
1 cup of butter (cut in pieces) or softened margarine or oil (whatever you prefer or have)
1/2 cup of plain strained yogurt or white dry wine
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Filling:
4 baking/cooking apples (peeled & coarsely grated)
1 cup of walnuts (coarsely chopped)
2 spoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (as you like)
1/4 teaspoon of clove powder (optional)

Top:
Powdered sugar and cinnamon

Procedure:

Prepare the dough by kneading by hand softly the ingredients (flour, butter, salt, yogurt or wine).

Mix the filling ingredients in another bowl with a spoon.

Make 30 dough balls in the size of ping-pong balls and with your finger press in the middle to make a hole and add with a spoon some filling. Close the dough to cover the filling.

Finish in the same way all the dough.

Bake at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan for about 35 min. Your apple pies/cookies are ready... Enjoy!

Autumn is here!

I am not very active lately in this blog, but that doesn't mean that I am not cooking, though.
Autumn is a busy period for me, so please be patient for more dynamic posts :)
For the time being, just enjoy some photos of backstage while cooking...
The moto of the month, that can be adjusted to cooking, as basics are important, but so does creativity :

First, LEARN the RULES...

then break them !

Zucchini and feta tarte

Here's a simple, light and tasty tarte for summer dinners...

Ingredients
2 medium zucchinis grated
1 onion minced
salt, pepper
2 spoons of frying oil (e.g., sunflower oil)
3 eggs
50cl of milk
250 gr feta cheese (smashed)
100 gr hard cheese grated (here I have used italian provolone)
1 round ready-made puff pastry

Procedure

Peel off the zucchinis and grate them.
Fry slightly the grated zucchini with the onion until it is quite smooth and most of it's water is evaporated. Season with salt and pepper.
Beat the eggs, add all the rest of the ingredients.
Lay the puff pastry in an tarte recipient for the oven (butter it or use the special baking paper).
Empty the mix in the pastry and layer it with a spoon.
Bake at 180 degrees and fan for about 20min or until it gets a nice golden color.
Serve it with some tzatziki sauce and finish with a fresh fruits salad. Enjoy!

Happy summer!

Cherry clafoutis (clafoutis aux cerises in french)

Cherry clafoutis (clafoutis aux cerises in french) is a classic french dessert for summer that is pretty easy to make. It has actually fresh cherries in a rich custard that you can serve warm or at room temperature.
Traditional clafoutis is made with cherries that have still their pits that french say that make a difference in taste. I have used ready-made cherries that have already been pitted and preserved in a light syrup, though. It's so easy to make and so summerish that I could not resist to add it to my blog that time of the year! And if you are among the lucky ones that have a cherry tree, here's how to use your extra cherries :)

Happy & tasty summer !

Ingredients
150gr all-purpose flour
100gr sugar
3-4 eggs
50cl milk
pinch of salt
vanilla
50gr butter
700gr cherries

Procedure

Preheat the over at 170 degrees of Celsius and fan.
Beat eggs with sugar, add flour, salt, vanilla, milk and finally the soften butter.
Butter a round baking dish, add the cherries and pour the custard over the cherries.
Bake for about 50min or until it gets a nice golden color.

Note: If it starts to get burned too fast, cover it with aluminum and continue. It is normal also if it wiggles a bit when finished baking, let it cool and it will setup. It will also inflate a bit, do not worry, it will deflate when cooled.

Tyropita, the greek feta cheese pie!

Family was asking for tyropita, the Greek feta cheese pie, last week and searching to find the recipe in my blog I realized that it was missing! I had only the spanakotyropita recipe that is even better but more complicated. So, you can imagine the rest... had to take photos on top of cooking :)
I was extremely busy & tired and so was my daughter that I asked to take fast some photos, which explains the low quality of the result. But it's better than nothing, no?
So, if you like feta cheese, try this recipe and you won't regret it :)
My only regret is that I had to leave immediately after so I tasted it much later at night when I came back... at least family was nice and had left me a few pieces !

Ingredients
250gr feta cheese (original, not imitations :)
250gr of various hard yellow cheeses that you prefer GRATED (here Gruyere and Comte)
4-5 eggs
500gr filo (special thin dough for greek pies)
200ml of milk
100ml extra virgin olive oil (of good quality)
salt, white pepper
sesame seeds (optional)

Procedure

In a bowl, smash the feta using a fork and add the other cheeses, salt and pepper and mix a bit.
In deep oven dish of 40x30cm that you buttered the bottom, add 3 layers of filo that you have sprinkled a bit of olive oil on each one before adding the net one. Then you continue to add layers of filo in the following way:

add 2 every time in a way that each one covers half of the space in an accordion style,
sprinkle all over some olive oil
pour evenly all over some of the cheese mix
add one layer of filo and sprinkle oil again on it

Repeat the procedure until it's only left 3 layers of filo that you use to finally cover everything.

With a sharp knife then you cut in pieces 5x5cm all the surface. In a separate bowl, you stir the eggs and add the milk and stir once again. Pour the mixture evenly to the top and optionally decorate the top with sesame seeds.
Bake in the oven at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan for about 30min or until it gets a nice golden color. Enjoy!

Truffade auvergnate (sort of :)

Sometime ago, I was honored to accompany my son's class to a field trip in Auvergne (a french region), more precisely in Cantal a department in south-central France, with its capital at Aurillac.
We spent a dreaming week in a farm surrounded by animals, warm-hearted people and a beautiful, green scenery thanks to the volcanoes that the region is known for.
One of the last dinners, we had the chance to try one of their typical dishes, the delicious "Truffade Auvergnate" which is a sort of a thick pancake made with sliced potatoes, garlic and cheese (more precisely the variety called "fresh tomme" or Cantal jeune). For more information, search the web, for example wikipedia. After some scooping on the web, I've found that there exists also a similar recipe, "The Aligot", but I have never tried it yet. Maybe the next time that I will visit the region :)
Cheese is one of the typical products there, with Cantal cheese (one of the oldest in France, from the time of Gauls) but also Saint- Nectaire and Salers.
Cantal cheese is a firm (semi-hard) cheese, made from raw or pasteurized cow's milk from the Salers breed. According to the time of aging, it can be found in three varieties:

Cantal jeune (1-2 months aged)
Cantal entre deux (2-6 months)
Cantal vieux ( more than 6 months)

In the recipe that I will provide you today (easy but so tasty!), I have used Cantal entre deux, that was the only one that I could find easily (sorry Celian for not being too concentrated the day that you proposed me to buy some when we were there, but I can now admit that I have some intolerance and that kind of cheese it always scares me :)
Here it goes ....

Ingredients
1/2 kg of waxy potatoes (I have used Agatha variety)
250gr tomme fraiche de Cantal (I have used Cantal entre deux)
2 toes of garlic
some oil
salt, pepper

Procedure

Peel the potatoes, slice them thinly and cook them in a big saucepan (I have used my wok) using some frying oil like sunflower's (instead of goose fat that was used traditionally) until they are tender. Smash them slightly using a fork.
Add the sliced garlic and season with salt and pepper.
Cover all over with sliced cheese. Normally, you cover and let the cheese melt and then mix well with a wooden spatula. Given that I have used a harder version of cheese, I decided to put it in the grill and mix when it was well melt. The final result should give a thick pastry, a bit different from my version that was still very tasty.
Serve immediately in the table with the saucepan and accompany with a fresh green salad and some slices of ham.
Whole family agreed that it was a nice way to remember those beautiful days spent in Cantal, sitting around a tasty dish, one warm evening in our garden... Thanks CM1-CM2! (even for the cooking recipes book that I got thanks to your tombola which included also this recipe...)

Happy Easter 2017

Dear family, friends, acquaintances and just passengers from this blog,

I wish you all Happy Easter whatever that means for each one of you, if it means something.
Actually, I am so busy this period that I have realized just 2 days ago that Easter is this weekend :)
This blog proposes several traditional Greek recipes to prepare these days that each one reminds me of the Easter time that I have spent in Greece with my family at good and bad times.
I continue to prepare most of them for my subsequent family and I will be glad if my effort will help others to bring up memories from their youth in the same way or even better :) Cheers!
Recipes:

Easter eggs
Roast lamb leg (traditionally we roast the whole lamp in a huge barbecue, though)
Easter cookies
Vivian's pudding
Ribbon cake as Easter cake
Tsourekia (recipe is still missing but you can see what it is and get a recipe somewhere else...)

Feta cheese balls

Remember the recipe of feta cheese pies (tyropitakia)?
It's one of our favorite salty starters and if you have never tried it before this is the moment to do it!

I am giving you an alternative that is pretty simple, much simpler than the original recipe.

You just mix all the ingredients together using the kneader tool of your mixer and you just make small balls and bake exactly as in the original recipe.
HUmmm, delicious!

Hummus

Ok, I won't pretend that I managed to have a nice hummus on my first attempt neither on my second, I do not know why actually, as it is one of the easiest dip recipes to make.
I want to thank Katia (my ex zumba teacher that makes the most delicious hummus :) for her recipe and Aneta for being the intermediate (and for iniating me to zumba btw :)
So, what is hummus ? It's a Lebanese food dip made of chickpeas that I just loooove and that it takes a few minutes to make at home (much better than store-bought).

Ingredients
1 can of cooked chickpeas or 250gr of cooked chickpeas
fresh lemon juice of 1 lemon
1 garlic clove minced
2 spoonfuls of extra-virgin olive oil (plus some extra for serving)
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
some salt
1 spoonful of tahini
(Katia likes to add some parsley or celery also, so you just improvise for the rest :)

Procedure

Drain and rinse the chickpeas.
Mix all the ingredients in a food processor apart from tahini.
When you have a smooth puree, then add the tahini and mix once again.
Empty in a nice serving dish, sprinkle with some olive oil and paprika and use pitas to taste it!
You can store in an air-tight container and in the fridge max for a week.

Hearts all over :)

Last week, passed with me making hearts all over my cooking for my dear ones :)
I am not fan of St. Valentine's day but I have a very dear friend Valentine that I profit to send her a virtual hug !
I can share some of my crazy ideas but chuuut, do not tell anyone, ok?
Recipes that were used are my Homeburgers and the mosaic cake covered with white chocolate.
A big kiss to my daughter that helped me with the cake and taught me new techniques in pastry!!!

King cake (Galette des rois in french)

Galette des rois is a traditional french cake that is made for Epiphany (6 of January). It celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem to visit baby Jesus.
It is composed of a puff pastry cake, and a small charm in china, the fève, is hidden inside. The person who finds it becomes the king or the queen of the day. It is usually filled with frangipane, a cream made from sweet almonds, butter, eggs and sugar but there are several other derivatives as well at modern times.
I would like to thank Vanille, a girl of my son's class that put a recipe in their class blog and I could not resist and did it! It is so easy to make actually, check it for yourselves...

Ingredients
2 ready-made disks of puff pastry
125 gr softened butter
125 gr sugar
125 gr ground almond
1 vanilla
2 eggs
1 beaten egg for the top

Procedure

Preheat the oven at 220 degrees of Celsius and fan.
Prepare the "frangipane" cream by beating first butter with sugar to get fluffy and then add the rest and continue to beat until soften.
Put one of the puff pastry disk on a baking sheet and lay evenly the frangipane on it leaving 2cm of the edges.
Add the charm ("feve"). It is very important not to forget this part!!! Otherwise kids will be disappointed
Cover with the second disk. Press the edges with a small fork to seal well.
Using a knife, "draw" lightly patterns on the top.
Brush the last egg on top to get a nice color.
Bake for about 20min or until it gets crispy and a nice golden color.

Enjoy! And let me know what you think if you try it :)
Here's what was left a few hours later the same day ...

Gravity cake

Happy birthday!

My son just turned 10 and here's the best birthday cake that I decided to make that makes the buzz on the web and makes heads turn on it's sight... The GRAVITY cake!!!
My kids loved it, hubby thinks I'm a genius, friends were amazed and there were even people that took photos of it :))))
Special thanks to both of my children that helped me doing it, and my apologies to my daughter that I underestimated her capabilities as she has proved that often she is much better than me ! Kiss to hubby for the support, as always, to my crazy ideas.
So, let's get back to the cake. Procedure goes like this...

To start, you can use as a base, your favorite recipe for a cake. In my case, this was my chocolate cake recipe that I just love for birthday cakes.
You can cover it with melted chocolate that you have added some fresh cream in it.
Glue using chocolate, biscuits like the Cadbury fingers, almost all around it but leaving a small part uncovered. The most interesting part follows...
The magic is based on a hidden flexible straw that has m&m's on it, using melted chocolate as a glue. This is actually the most delicate part of the whole procedure. Start by covering one part of the straw, put it in the fridge (not the freezer!!! m&m's lose their color otherwise) and then repeat on the other side.
Glue the rest of the m&m's simulating the falling part and finish by adapting the straw in a wooden skewer that you have put before in the center of the cake.
Cover the straw ending with the empty bag of the m&m's and let all overnight to harden.

The next day, just admire the result and feel proud under the envy look of the children and even adults around you :) Isn't it great?

Homemade all-purpose cleaner

What best to start the year than a recipe for a natural cleaner that apart from being natural thus environment-friendly, is fast, simple and cheap ?
Not to mention that might work better than store brands.
Your kids can make it easily too and use it, how about that???
Here it goes...

Ingredients
1.5 table spoons of baking soda
1 table spoon of white vinegar
1.5 table spoons of liquid castille soap
warm water
6 drops of essential oils like lemon or lavender (optionally, I do not use them and use with care only if you know how !)

Tools
1.5 lt bottle (water bottle might do, but glass opaque recipients are better)
funnel
table spoon
a glass

Procedure (respect the order!)

Pour the soda in the bottle
Add some warm water and mix well
In the glass, mix well the vinegar with the essential oil of your choice or simply pour the vinegar in the bottle (in case that you do not want to use oils) and shake well
Add the soap
Fill the bottle with warm water, cover it and shake once again well

Use
Store in a dark place. Shake well before each use. Use it as is to clean surfaces such as shower, water-basin, table, etc or diluted to clean the floor (approximately 1 cup in one lt of warm water). No need to wash it out.

Happy New Year 2017 !

May this year is less violent than the previous one and people will smile more!

Let's all try to be more open-minded and try to find this little kid inside us...

Happy New Year 2017!