Clean Monday and Prison Food

Tags

rice, risotto, spanakoryzo, spinach

Intriguing title huh? Read on…
Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent for the Greek Orthodox Church. As you may or may not know, Easter is the biggest celebration in Greece, even bigger than Christmas (well, apart from in my house…) and during the run up to this holiday quite a significant number of people fast. They usually just cut out meat for the 40 days, and then during Holy Week they observe other traditions as well, such as no products originating from animals with blood (meaning shellfish are in) and on Good Friday no olive oil either. The more religious people will go vegan for the whole 40 days. Yikes. I can’t do that. I love my milk and my cheese too much. To be honest, I don’t fast on any of the days. But then I don’t like the lamb or goat eaten on Easter Sunday either, in fact I usually make do with the eggs and salad on that day, so I figure I’m allowed. Sometimes I feel I’d like to be more traditional, but my willpower leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to food. Also, if I tried feeding the Mister a meatless diet for a month and a half, he would end up ordering in souvlaki and pizza every day, and I’d be stuck eating up the beans and pasta while drooling over his dinner.

However, in honour of “Clean Monday” tomorrow (this is what it’s called here) I’m posting a vegan recipe for the classic Greek dish Spanakoryzo (spinach risotto). It’s a very easy recipe, very quick if you use pre-cut pre-washed and bagged spinach, and very healthy too. The outcome is sloppy, gooey, sometimes a bit mushy, but very tasty! Its appearance doesn’t do it justice, and has resulted in it being –unfairly- called prison food by a friend. Curious? Check out the photo below! A good photo of Spanakoryzo is a true challenge!

Important note: This is not traditionally eaten on Clean Monday, it’s a year round dish but it can be eaten during Lent. It’s also the back-up recipe I had in case I didn’t cook this weekend. I’m not cooking, so this is what you get 😉

Prison Food (aka Spanakoryzo)
Serves 2

What you’ll need:
3 Tbs olive oil
1 small onion, minced or chopped – or use 2 spring onions (these are nicer)
350g spinach (full grown, save baby spinach for a nice salad!) washed and roughly chopped
100g rice (about ½ a cup)
1 medium tomato, chopped with juice reserved, or whizzed in a food processor
½ bunch of fresh dill (about a large handful), chopped, thicker stalks removed
Salt and pepper
A good squeeze of lemon juice

What you do:

1. Heat 2 of the 3 tablespoons of oil in a large pan, on medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. If you want you can add a pinch of sugar which mellows the taste a bit.
2. When the onion is soft, add the spinach and stir well, coating it with the oil. Cook until wilted, stirring frequently, about another 5 minutes.
3. When the spinach is wilted and reduced in volume, add the rice and stir again to coat that.
4. Add the tomato with its juice and one cup of water. You may need to add more water later but at this stage you want to wait and see how much liquid the spinach will release. So, boil some water in a kettle and have it on standby.
5. When the mixture starts bubbling, add the dill, some salt and pepper and give it another stir.
6. Turn the heat to low and cover leaving a small gap. I find that if I have tomato in the pan it tends to boil quite wildly, so I turn the heat to the lowest possible setting of my hotplate. Basically you want it to simmer slowly, and keep an eye on it in case it starts sticking to the pan.
7. After about 10 minutes see how it’s doing liquid wise. If the rice has absorbed most of the water, add a ¼ cup more. Later on check again and repeat if necessary. I had to do this twice, so I used about 1 ½ cups of water in total. Continue to simmer, half covered.
8. After about 25 minutes add the 3^rd tablespoon of oil. I don’t know why you do it now, it helps with something. Also add the squeeze of lemon.
9. 5 minutes later you should have a soft, gooey, green risotto. Taste it to see if the rice is cooked. If it is, then you can either take it off the heat, or leave it a little longer to get a firmer, stodgier consistency (remember it will thicken a bit more after it rests off the heat for a while). I prefer it to be fairly sloppy so I can use bread to help scoop it up! Luckily, this is not considered impolite in Greece J

This goes fantastically well with feta cheese (in fact I don’t even make it if I don’t have feta – I told you, I can’t do vegan) and crusty bread. I also squeeze about half a lemon on my portion as well (extra to the juice during cooking). Yup, I like things lemony.

Some people don’t add tomato. If you want to leave it out just add 1 ½ cups of water, or half water half veggie stock, at the beginning, instead of one.

Enjoy!

A Glass of Dessert

Tags

banoffee, chocolate, dessert, pots, salted caramel

Two important things happened the day before yesterday. Number one, we had two friends over for dinner, number two, I reached the end of the third week of a “healthy eating” regime (more commonly known as a diet – an unsuccessful one). I was soo ready to enjoy a yummy dinner finished off with a much missed plate/bowl/anything full of sugary sweetness. People sometimes ask what I enjoy more, cooking or baking, sweet or savoury, main course or dessert. I wish I could say “oh I love ..[enter appropriate option].. but I can live without ..[enter other one]… Nope. For me it’s both. I love both, what can I say? I’ve heard it’s characteristic of Taurians to appreciate food. So there’s just nothing I can do really, is there?

I especially like having dinner parties; don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make an effort even if it’s for one (me!), but having people round gets me in a frizz of excitement and menu planning days before the event. This usually results in a pretty large variety of dishes, quantities to feed a small army, and at least one period of blind panic when I just know it will all be a catastrophe. I call it perfectionism; the Mister and my mum call it being psycho and promptly remove themselves from the near vicinity for fear of flying pans and a lot of bad language.

I am getting better at all this, I must say, and each time I feel more in control. I’m also becoming more realistic in terms of what I can achieve in the 3 hours between getting home from work and the estimated time of arrival of our guests. A good example of this is Friday’s meal. I decided on lasagna, since I could prepare the bolognaise and béchamel beforehand, leaving only the assembling and baking for that 3 hour interval. This would give me enough time to make side dishes and dessert! There was still, however, no way I was going to fit in making say a cheesecake. So the night before, after the bolognaise was in the slow cooker and the béchamel was ready in a tupper on the balcony (which I have been using as a huge fridge lately!), I went to bed with my iphone and looked up some recipes.

The first one I chose was for these yummy and easy looking Salted Caramel Chocolate Pots from the BBC Good Food website. They seemed ideal (minus the faffy grissini) especially since I had a can of dulce de leche waiting to be opened. “Ah, but will these be enough?” the obsessive side of my brain chirped, “surely you should provide a second option! And what will you do with the leftover caramel?” (“eat it all with a spoon while watching Law & Order” was the answer from the other side of my brain, but I ignored it). Then inspiration hit! What do I normally use caramel for? Banoffee Pie. What would be easier than that, and wouldn’t leave too many tempting leftovers? Mini Banoffee Pies. Ooh, in a martini glass! Definitely a hostess-with-the-mostess presentation, but with a minimum effort dessert.

The verdict? Top marks all round. The choc pots were great, although very rich. A layer of biscuit (cookie for my US friends) in between might have helped “break” the richness for those whose tooth is a little less sweet, but for me it was fine as is. The banoffees… well they were sublime. So much so that today I dove into my extra one completely forgetting I had put it aside to photograph it for this post. Oops.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Pots from BBC Good Food
Note: the original recipe is for 2 portions, but I doubt anyone could take so much richness in one go. I used the same quantities for 4 smaller servings, having in mind that we would also be eating the banoffees.
What you’ll need:
4 heaped Tbs dulce de leche or canned caramel (*see note at end)
½ tsp salt plus extra to sprinkle on top of the chocolate
85g dark chocolate
85g milk chocolate
100ml heavy cream
50ml milk

What you do:

• Mix caramel with the ½ tsp salt, divide between 4 small glasses and put into the fridge (or on the balcony if it’s cold enough!).
• Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a microwave safe jug. Melt it in the microwave 20 seconds at a time, on high. After each 20 second interval mix it with a spoon and make sure it’s not burning. Try not to lick the spoon. When there are only a few lumps left stop microwaving and just stir it till it’s all smooth. Leave it for a few minutes to cool slightly.
• Mix the cream and milk together, and stir it into the chocolate until incorporated. Pour mixture into the glasses over the caramel (try to get it around the edges first, then the centre). Return to the fridge. Before serving sprinkle some coarse salt on top.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Pot

Mini Banoffee Pies
What you’ll need:
6 digestive biscuits (or graham crackers if you’re in the US)
1 Tbs butter
1 large banana
Squeeze of lemon juice
150ml dulce de leche or canned caramel*
150ml heavy cream (cold)
1 tsp powdered drinking chocolate or cocoa OR some grated dark chocolate, to decorate

What you do:

• Crumble your biscuits. You can do that using the zip-lock bag and rolling pin method (I’ve never found this practical), the food processor method (shame to dirty the FP for 6 biccies) or the manual method (break into small pieces and crumble by rubbing together with your fingers). They don’t have to be completed crushed, as we aren’t making a pie base here (if the biscuit sets into a crust it might be hard to break with a spoon in a delicate glass).
• Melt the butter in the microwave and mix into the crumbs, using your hands. Spoon the crumbs into the glasses and gently press into the bottom. Chill (the glasses, not you). Do something else for a few minutes.
• Chop the banana into round pieces and squeeze some lemon juice over them. Mix the banana pieces with the caramel and spoon over the biscuit. Chill.
• Pour the cream into a bowl and whisk until it forms stiff peaks. Spoon cream over the banana/caramel mixture, or use a piping bag if you want to really show off (my need to show off ends when it means washing up fiddly kitchen gadgets or wasting a perfectly good zip-lock bag).
• Sprinkle drinking chocolate (such as Cadbury’s) or cocoa over the top. To make it even prettier grate some dark chocolate and sprinkle that instead. Chill until it’s time to serve.

*Dulce de Leche Note:
You can make your own very easily. Take a can or two of sweetened condensed milk (do NOT open), put them in a deep saucepan, fill with water making sure the cans are covered by an inch or two (depending on how deep your pan is) and bring the water to the boil. When it’s boiling turn the heat down and simmer for 2 hours. Keep checking because the water will evaporate. Top up every so often with boiling water, so the cans are submerged at all times. This is important – honestly – I’ve heard stories of the cans exploding! Turn the heat off and leave the cans to cool in the water for a while. Remove the cans from the pan and let them cool completely. Use up one can by making banoffee pie or mini pies. Leave the other in the fridge for emergencies (or for the next episode of Law & Order!).

Oops

Quinoa Stir Fry with Chicken

Tags

chicken, quinoa, stir fry, vegetables, wok

It’s only been a few months now since I discovered a new favourite ingredient; quinoa. I vaguely remember seeing it in health food shops during infrequent visits over the years, but I never gave it much attention. Here in Greece it’s not available in supermarkets yet, but I’m hoping people will catch on to how great this little seed is and hopefully it will be easier (and cheaper) to find eventually. Maybe by then we’ll be getting the name right as well! After reading on many websites the story of its origin and how the word is pronounced, it was funny to see the package with the name translated phonetically in Greek, reading the equivalent of KEENOA. I should get in touch with the importers and tell them 🙂 Apparently this little gem originates from South America, and was grown for human consumption as long as 3-4,000 years ago. Impressive!

So a few months back, I started coming across various recipes involving quinoa in all the blogs I read. The first one that actually made me go out and buy some, was this post on With a Side of Sneakers. It may sound strange, but a bit of cooked quinoa stirred into porridge just before it comes off the heat, gives it a gorgeous nutty taste and makes it an even better “fuel” for the day ahead due to the heaps of protein it provides. If you add a spoonful of honey or maple syrup… well that could be dessert for me! I love it.

Since then, I have found loads more recipes I really want to try, and no doubt they will all be making an appearance here at some point. When I made the chicken soup a few days ago (previous post), I left some of the cooked meat aside, with the intention of trying a very tasty looking stir fry dish from one of my favourite blogs, The Perfect Pantry.  I’m so glad I did! What a fantastic dinner. I used slightly different vegetables, because these are what I had in the fridge on the day I made it. And that’s the great thing about stir fry, it’s a great user-upper of odd bits of veg lurking at the back of the crisper drawer! Well, one of the great things. The main one being it’s just plain yummy. So, thank you Lydia for a wonderful recipe. (You should all take a visit to her site, it’s full of really interesting stuff!)

Quinoa Stir Fry with Chicken (slightly adapted from The Perfect Pantry’s Chicken and Vegetable Quinoa Stir-Fry)
Feeds 2 hungry people or makes a side dish for 3.

You’ll need:
½ cup quinoa
1 cup chicken stock or water
1 Tbs vegetable oil + 1 tsp toasted sesame oil (or use the same oil)
½ carrot, julienned (i.e. cut into matchstick-like strips)
½ red bell pepper, julienned
1 cup of broccoli (florets and julienned stalks)
3-4 small mushrooms, sliced
½ courgette (zucchini), julienned
½ tsp dried ginger (or use 1 or 2 tsp fresh, if you have it)
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp fresh black pepper
1 egg
100gr cooked chicken cut into bite sized chunks (er, no bones obviously!)
Juice of ½ a lime
1 spring onion or scallion, chopped
1 tsp dried coriander (cilantro) (or 1/4 cup fresh if you have it)
2 Tbs soy sauce

What you do:

1. Bring the stock or water to the boil in a small saucepan, and add the quinoa (check the packaging to see if you need to rinse it first). Give it a stir, turn the heat to low, and cover the pan leaving the quinoa to simmer for about 20 min, or until the water is absorbed. The quinoa is ready when it is soft and the little tail thingies come out of the seed. You’ll know what I mean when you see it! When it’s ready, take the pan off the heat and put a paper towel (or clean dish cloth) over it, and cover again with the lid. Set aside.
2. Heat the tablespoon of oil in a wok or non stick frying pan on medium high. Add the bell pepper, carrot and broccoli, and cook stirring occasionally till they soften a bit.
3. Add the mushrooms and courgette and stir fry for a bit longer (about another 2 minutes, depending on how soft you like your veg).
4. Add the ginger, red pepper flakes and black pepper. Continue to stir fry for a few seconds to release the aromas.
5. Remove the veg from the pan and set aside. Add the teaspoon of sesame oil (or same oil you used before) and return the pan to the heat. Add the cooked quinoa and break the egg over it. Stir so the egg cooks, about 30 seconds to a minute.
6. Add the chicken, veg, onion, coriander, soy sauce and lime juice. Mix well and continue to cook for a while, till the chicken warms through (about a minute or two)
7. Serve and enjoy!

For me, this made enough for one good dinner and one good lunch the next day!

Feed a cold… (Egg-lemon Chicken Soup)

Tags

avgolemono, chicken, egg-lemon, soup

So my second post is up much sooner than I thought it would be! The Mister has been attacked by a vicious cold and has been sitting hugging a box of tissues for the past couple of days. So yesterday we had egg-lemon chicken soup for dinner. A bowl full of goodness that’s great any day, but especially great if you’re feeling poorly. I was actually planning on making it soon anyway, since it fits in nicely with the healthy eating plan I’m following these days. Its nutrition comes from loads of veggies and chunks of juicy chicken, cooked in a lovely broth. I think the lemon also gives it an extra boost with its vitamin C.
Here in Greece this is a very popular dish; we call it “Avgolemono” meaning Egg (Avgo)-Lemon (Lemoni). Don’t ask why lemoni turns into lemono… Greek is a complicated language!
Normally, I would have cooked the chicken in the slow cooker, and then used the liquid produced from that to make the soup. However, since this was an emergency and the appropriate supermarket visit could only be made after work, I had to do it the traditional way. Which is fine, and still pretty easy!
Sometimes new cooks are a little intimidated by this soup, as you have to temper the eggs at the end. This is much easier than people think, you just have to be patient and a little organized! So, here goes…
(Oh, wait. This is actually my own recipe! Cool!)

Chicken Avgolemono (Egg-Lemon) Soup

You’ll need:
3 litres of water (see? easy)
1 small chicken, about 1.2 kg, bone in, cut into four or five pieces (um, let the butcher do that bit)
1 medium onion, peeled
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into medium sized pieces
2 carrots, peeled or scraped (or just washed!) and cut into smallish pieces
1 small celeriac (celery root) about 300gr, peeled and cut into medium sized pieces
½ bunch of celery (in Greece celery looks like parsley and comes in bunches) or 2 sticks of celery (the thick whiteish kind), chopped
½ bunch of parsley, chopped
Salt & Pepper
½ cup of rice
2 eggs
Juice of 1 or 2 lemons (depending on how lemony you like it)

What you do:

1. First of all, before you start, take the lemons and eggs out of the fridge. It’s best if they are at, or near, room temperature when you use them at the end.
2. Bring the water to the boil in a large saucepan. Remember that the level will rise when you add all the other ingredients. In the meantime rinse the chicken under cold water. Always be careful with poultry and clean all surfaces it has come into contact with, with warm soapy water (otherwise you might end up with a cold and salmonella!).
3. When the water is boiling add some salt, the onion (whole) and the chicken pieces. Let the meat boil on a medium high heat, and skim any foam off the surface. Or don’t bother, I didn’t and nothing bad happened!
4. Boil the chicken until the meat falls easily off the bone (take a piece out and test it by pulling apart with a fork, the meat should separate from the bone easily, if in doubt leave it in a bit longer!). This should take about 40 minutes.
5. Take the chicken pieces out of the pan and turn the heat down so it’s not bubbling away and evaporating. Let the meat cool (really, let it cool, the tips of my fingers still hurt) before picking it from the bones. If there was some skin, remove it and throw it away. My bones go straight into the slow cooker for overnight stock (more about that another time). Break the meat into chunks and set aside.
6. Bring the soup back to the boil and add all the vegetables, some more salt and some pepper. Now, depending on how soft you want the veggies, either let them boil for about 10 minutes before adding the rice, or add it straight away. Just remember each time you add something the liquid should be boiling, and then left to come back to the boil if it’s cooled down by whatever went in. Then turn the heat down to a good simmer.
7. When the rice is half done (after about 10 minutes), throw in the chicken chunks to warm through. Both the veggies and rice need a minimum of about 20 minutes each, so calculate your timings based on that. The great thing about soup is that you don’t have to be 100% precise!
8. At some point during all this you can take the onion out. Either mash it up and put it back in, or chuck it.
9. After the soup is ready (veg and rice cooked/soft, chicken warm) turn the heat right down. It’s time to do the egg-lemon mixture. Get organised. Bring all your utensils near (a tablespoon, a ladle and a whisk). In a medium sized bowl (not a small one) beat the eggs a bit. Pour in the lemon juice and continue beating. Bring your bowl near the stove top. Take the pan off the heat and put it next to the bowl. With a tablespoon, take a spoonful of soup (just the liquid) and add it to the bowl with the egg-lemon, beating continuously. Repeat with another spoonful. And again. And again. Keep beating! Basically you want to bring the temperature of the eggs up -slowly- so they cook without scrambling. Keep adding spoonfuls of the hot soup into the mixture (one spoonful at a time). Feel the side of the bowl. If it’s getting warm, switch to a ladle so you get larger quantities of soup into your eggs. When your mixture is looking more like the soup, and is warm/hot, you can carefully pour it into the pan, stirring continuously. There, that was it!

Serve the soup with extra lemon, freshly ground pepper and crusty bread. This makes enough for four people.

Tip: If you want to make the soup thicker, you can blend some or all of the veg before putting in the rice and chicken. This means it will take longer as you’ll have to wait for the veg to soften before you can blend the soup and continue with the rice. However, this helps if you have to hide certain vegetables that people think they don’t like 😉 Use an immersion blender, anything else would be too faffy and you’d get annoyed with me and stop reading my blog.

Enjoy! Or, Get well soon!

On Top of Spaghetti

Tags

almond, baked, meatballs, recipe, spaghetti, tomato

Finally, I found a name for my blog. I’ve been thinking about starting this for months and months, but I hit a mental block when it came to choosing a name. I wanted something catchy, then I wanted something that would reflect my bilingual/bicultural background (Greek-English in case you’re wondering), then I wanted something catchy, then I wanted a food-pairing name like “sugar & spice” or “honey & thyme”… then I wanted something catchy. Then I gave up. I thought it would come to me. It didn’t. Today, I thought right, be proactive. So I turned to my buddy Mr. Google and just typed stuff in the magic box. Somehow this brought me to a nursery rhyme site and I got the bright idea to check food nursery rhymes. I was just about ready to name my blog Little Miss Muffet, when my eyes fell on the dreaded words… “On Top of Spaghetti”! The trembling started and I quickly grabbed the mouse to get away as fast as possible from the nightmare. Ok, I’m probably not making any sense right now; bear with me. When I was little, one of my aunties in England use to sing this to me. I hated it. It scared and depressed me, and made me cry. This, however, seemed to amuse certain members of my family! After all, it’s a song about meatballs, they were just teasing me (right?). Anyway for years since, whenever I’d hear the first few words I’d clasp my hands over my ears so hard I’d nearly squash my head flat. But today I thought this was a sign, an omen of some kind. Today I am meant to forgive the idiot who sneezed, and stop mourning over the loss of the poor defenseless meatball, whose life was so cruelly cut short. So I am facing my fear and in tribute, I am naming my blog after this tragic story.

And now, before you start recommending places with comfy couches (if you’ve even read this far), I’ll move swiftly on… This blog will be filled with recipes. Most of them will be other people’s, since I’m better at following instructions that creating things with my own imagination! The more I cook though, the more I’m getting a feel for doing my own thing, so occasionally there will be a triumphant creation or successful adaptation. There may be some flops too! I live in Greece but love all sorts of cuisines, so apart from say a spanakopita (spinach pie), I might also try a steak & ale pie. I hope you enjoy the recipes and tolerate the rambling.

My first recipe couldn’t be anything other than… “On Top of Spaghetti” (meatballs in tomato sauce). I found this on a great blog called Stonesoup, on a post with a collection of meals for a new mum (the author Jules’s sister). The idea was to make various meals ahead of Baby’s arrival, freeze, and enjoy at a time when cooking wouldn’t be an option. I found that to be one of the cleverest and most organized plans ever. There are quite a few evenings here when cooking is not an option so I made a big batch and froze half of it for a fuss-free after-work dinner another day. They froze fantastically. They are very easy to make and create a minimum of washing up. Win win!

Baked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce (very slightly adapted from this recipe on Stonesoup)
Serves 3-4
Cooking time about 1 hour

1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 Tbs olive oil
2 tins chopped tomatoes (you want about 800g)
1 tsp oregano or thyme or basil or mixture
1 tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp sugar
Salt & pepper
500g minced (ground) beef, or beef & pork mix
75g almond meal (I used no-skin almonds which I whizzed in the food processor as finely as possible)
2 tablespoons butter

1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium/low heat, and when it’s warm add the chopped onion. Cook gently, until it softens and becomes translucent
2. Put half the cooked onion in a big bowl
3. Add the tomatoes to the pan with the rest of the onion and turn up the heat. When it starts boiling add herbs, paprika and sugar, and season with salt & pepper. Turn heat down and simmer for about 10-15 minutes
4. While sauce is simmering preheat the oven to 200C (400F)
5. Place meat and almond meal in the bowl with the onion, and use your hands to mix. Form little meatballs no larger than a golf ball and put them on a plate
6. Place tomato sauce in an oven proof dish or baking tin. Place meatballs on top and scatter pieces of butter over them
7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until browned on top and cooked through

Enjoy over spaghetti (of course!) or rice. Or mashed potatoes. Or even quinoa. They go with pretty much everything!

Sheesh, writing this blog is going to make me hungry all the time…