Smoked Salmon, Raw Courgette (Zucchini) and Spearmint Cannelloni Bites

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courgettes, feta, Greek yogurt, herbs, lemon, nuts, pasta, salad, smoked salmon, spearmint, zucchini

Last Saturday it was The Mister’s birthday, so I decided to throw him a surprise party. I had been thinking of doing this for a while now, but I just couldn’t believe I could pull it off. But I did! Boy was it hard work, and nerve wracking and complicated. But so worth it. He was truly gobsmacked!

As you can imagine, I went a bit overboard with the food. I started preparations on the Wednesday, with the first step being the menu, the shopping list and the schedule. Yes, like the one I mentioned in my post on preparing ahead. Thursday morning was supermarket time, and from then on I spent a significant amount of time in the kitchen, cooking up all sorts of goodies. I was expecting about 20 people, so a buffet style dinner was the best option. For a peek at the menu take a look at the bottom of the post. It might seem a strange assortment of dishes, but I wanted to include some of The Mister’s favourites as well as some slightly more adventurous recipes. One of which is the dish featured in this post, Smoked Salmon, Raw Courgette (Zucchini) and Spearmint Cannelloni Bites.

You are probably wondering what I did for a birthday cake. Well, you will be surprised or maybe even shocked to hear that I let go of that part and allowed The Mister to blow out candles on a store bought cake. Was it a terrible thing to do? Well, time-wise it would have been a struggle to make it myself (it might have even ruined the surprise as he decided to come home early on the day of the party – yeah, I have a couple more gray hairs thanks to that – and he would have more than likely found me icing it). Plus, Greek store bought birthday cakes are delicious (they are patisserie style, creamy affairs with whatever decoration you can imagine – in this case The Mister’s football team emblem). And sometimes, you just have to accept that you can’t do everything. So I’m glad and grateful to The Mister’s sister for taking care of it!

Moving on to our recipe. A couple of weeks ago I saw that this month’s “Swallow’s Recipes for Life” challenge on Bangers & Mash is a recipe using salmon, courgette (zucchini) and pasta. I knew I wanted to participate, as these are favourite ingredients of mine. I had recently made a gorgeous pasta salad with raw zucchini (recipe by Elena’s Cooking) and thought I could use that as a base. It’s so summery and fresh tasting. I did however, want to make it a bit different to your average pasta salad. The original idea was to make a filling and stuff large pasta shells with it; that didn’t work out though as this particular type of pasta seems to have vanished from supermarket shelves in Athens. The only other alternative I could think of was cannelloni tubes. I wanted something that could be eaten as finger food, so it had to be large enough to accommodate a bite size portion of filling. This was the result. It was impressive and pretty, but also a little faffy! So you will find two versions here, one for the bites as shown in the picture and one for a regular pasta salad.

Makes 30 – 40 bites

Ingredients

300g courgettes (zucchini) (approx. 3 medium sized)
salt for helping courgettes to release water
200g smoked salmon, cut into chunks
140g Greek yogurt
20g (about 2 tsp) mayonnaise
80g feta cheese, crumbled into small pieces
2 Tbs spearmint, finely chopped (measured after chopping)
3 Tbs olive oil (plus more for pasta)
1 lemon, zest of
1 Tbs lemon juice
1/4 tsp white pepper (or more to taste)
1 Tbs pine nuts (optional)
1 box (250g) cannelloni or 250g pasta (penne, fusilli or farfalle)

Instructions

1. Coarsely grate courgettes and place in a colander over a bowl. Sprinkle lightly with salt, shake/flip in the colander and sprinkle again. Set aside for at least 30 minutes so liquid is released.
2. If you are making the pasta salad, boil your pasta according to package instructions. Drain and return to the pan (off the heat) with a bit of olive oil so the shapes don’t stick together. Shake it all up once in a while. For the cannelloni bites boil the tubes till tender but be careful not to overcook. After about 10 minutes taste one to be sure. When ready drain them and return to the pan with olive oil.
3. Put salmon chunks in a big bowl.
4. In a smaller bowl mix yogurt, mayonnaise, feta, spearmint, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, pepper and pine nuts if using. Mix well with a fork, breaking up any feta lumps. Taste and adjust to your liking. Add to the salmon but don’t mix yet.
5. After about 15 minutes you will see that the courgettes have started to “sweat”. When the half hour is up, help them along by squeezing a bit with your hands being careful not to mush them. Add to the bowl with the salmon and yogurt mix.
6. For the pasta salad, add the pasta to the bowl and toss well but carefully. Let it cool completely and refrigerate till a couple of hours before serving.
7. If you are making the cannelloni bites, toss the courgette, salmon and yogurt mixture carefully. Place the bowl with the filling and the pan with the cannelloni near you. Bring out the serving dish and place that near you as well. Take a tube, cut it into three smaller tubes, and peel the first one open with your fingers. (Make sure they have cooled enough, but don’t let them get completely cold as they will stick.) Fill the little tube with a teaspoon or two of filling (place your fingers at the bottom to keep the filling in) and quickly stand it in the serving dish, open sides up and down. Be gentle and fairly quick so the filling doesn’t plop out of the bottom while being transferred. Keep going till your filling is finished. I garnished with tiny bits of dill weed, but they are just as pretty without. Refrigerate till a couple of hours before serving.

Notes:
– I used between 10 and 15 cannelloni tubes. Unfortunately it is necessary to boil more than you will use so that you can allow for some to split during boiling or filling. I kept the rest, filled with leftover meat sauce from the lasagna, put them on a layer of tomato passata in a baking tin and froze the whole thing. I am hoping that I can pop that in the oven with some béchamel on top and get a good result. I will let you know!
– If you can find the large pasta shells they might be easier and prettier to use.
– There are a lot of different tastes in this dish so you could definitely omit the pine nuts without compromising the result.
– For a more conventional flavour you could substitute the spearmint with dill weed. But the spearmint is so summery and fresh; I think it makes this dish special.

Our party buffet offered the following:
Lasagna (The Mister’s favourite. I promise I will share my recipe soon)
Gorgonzola Gnocchi Bake (will share recipe when I make it again)
Chickpea and Avocado Salad (based on this recipe by Kalyn’s Kitchen, but I used leafy greens and parsley instead of coriander. The chickpeas were cooked on Wednesday night using my slow cooker recipe)
Green Salad with Sundried Tomatoes and Walnuts (which my friend kindly made)
Tabbouleh (bulgur wheat salad made by my Mum)
Potato Puffs (recipe on The Kitchn)
Spanakopita Muffins (recipe coming soon)
Cheese and Rosemary Corn Muffins (recipe coming soon)
Corn and Capsicum Muffins (recipe by My Favourite Pastime)
Cheese Platter with Naxos Island Graviera, smoked Regato and mild Cheddar
Marinated Mini Mozzarellas (based on this recipe by The Kitchn)
German pork sausages, Greek pork sausages and beef sausages (thrown on the BBQ after the party got started – enjoyed as hot dogs by the kids)
Farmhouse Pickle to go with the corn muffins and cheese

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Picnic On The Beach, Part 1 – Sweet Zucchini Bread

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cake, courgettes, sweet bread, zucchini

Antique butter knife on kind loan by The Collector

Last week my cousin came over from the UK to visit with her two gorgeous boys, aged 4 and 6. The day they arrived was also my name day, which is a big celebration in Greece, even bigger than a birthday since everyone knows when it is! To celebrate, I decided to whisk them off to the beach for a picnic straight from the airport. My mum and one of my auntie’s came along and one of my best friends brought her own little ones and some of their friends. We made quite a group, and as you can imagine (if you know me) the food preparation began well in advance. I planned a menu and embarked on a baking extravaganza followed by a sandwich making marathon! Sweet muffins, savory egg muffins, cookies, sweet bread, granola bars, and triangle sandwiches with the crusts cut off as a special treat! Mum supplied the fruit and together with my friend’s additions we had a huge spread. I’m sharing my favourites in a series of posts.

First off, and since I promised this one in my last post, one of the most gorgeous cakes I’ve ever made. Actually it’s not cake but it’s gorgeous nonetheless. Sweet Zucchini Bread. Amazing. I made this for the first time in an effort to use up some leftover zucchini flesh after I stuffed 2 beautiful round ones and cooked them in the slow cooker (see previous post). After a quick search I came up with this recipe which was easy and used ingredients I had on hand. I couldn’t believe how tasty and moist and perfect it turned out – healthy too! So I decided to make it again for the picnic. And by the way, it keeps beautifully for at least a week! (Confession: I actually ate the last piece ten days later and it was still yummy)

Sweet Zucchini Bread (based on a recipe by Paula Dean on Food Network)
Yields one loaf

You’ll need:
1 ½ cups + 2 Tbs all purpose flour (plus some extra for sprinkling the pan)
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups sugar (mixture of white and dark brown – or you can use all white if preferable)
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
3 Tbs (scant) water (40 ml)
1 cup grated zucchini (leave skin on to create lovely green specks in the bread)
½ tsp lemon juice
½ cup mix of dried cranberries and flax & sunflower seeds (original recipe calls for walnuts or pecans)

What you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 180C (350F).
2. Grease a loaf tin or pan. Next time I make this I will sprinkle some flour in the pan, move it about so the flour coats the base and sides, and then tap out the excess. The reason is that the second time I made it I had a hard time getting it out of the tin, so I think this might help. If you prefer to follow Paula’s instructions, just grease it.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon, sugar).
4. Whisk all the wet ingredients together in another bowl (oil, eggs, water, zucke, lemon juice).
5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry.
6. Fold in the cranberries and seeds and mix to incorporate (don’t over mix).
7. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour (until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean).

It doesn’t get much easier than that!
Stay tuned for Part 2!

Stuffed Courgettes (Zucchini) with Egg Lemon Sauce – My Slow Cooker Success

Tags

avgolemono, courgettes, crockpot, egg lemon sauce, Greek, slow cooker, vegetables, zucchini

A couple of weeks ago I decided to experiment with another slow cooker adaptation. I had prepared myself towards a possible flop because after all, I was trying something quite tricky. I started by looking for a traditional recipe for this dish as it wasn’t something I knew off by heart. I’d only ever made it once, the regular way, a few years ago. I found one I liked the look of, and kept the quantities to a minimum, just so that if it was going to be a disaster, I wouldn’t end up hyperventilating at the waste of good food! Well. I needn’t have worried! After the first taste test I was high fiving myself, punching the air and doing a little victory dance round the house. Yes, I was mighty proud of myself, and I still wear a bit of a smug expression when I look at the pictures!

So, Stuffed Courgettes (or Zucchini if you’re reading from the US) in an Egg Lemon Sauce. Delicious. Ok, I admit, anything in egg lemon sauce is delicious for me, but this dish really is good. Here in Greece, up until a few years ago, you could only get the long green courgettes. Recently though, you see these really cute variations that have the same colour and taste, only they look like they’ve swallowed a tennis ball! Seriously, I find their almost perfect round shape hilarious, I don’t know why. When I saw some in the supermarket I thought right, I am going to try these stuffed, in the slow cooker. Actually they are ideal for stuffing as they have so much flesh, thus lots of room for filling, once the flesh is removed.

Now I must warn you, this isn’t a throw-everything-into-the-slow-cooker-and-turn-on type of recipe. It takes some prepping. But it’s worth it, and you do avoid the whole palaver of trying to boil the stuffed zuckes with an upside-down plate lying on top of them (yes, I know, weird – I think it’s to stop them moving around).

I’m not big on taking photos of each step when trying a recipe, usually because it’s what’s for dinner and needs to be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Also, more often than not, I’ll forget to snap a step or two and then it’s all messed up anyway. This time however, I couldn’t resist a couple of extra photos during the preparation of the courgettes – they are just so pretty. And I thought it might help readers to visualise certain aspects of the process (i.e. gutting the zuckes). And they’re so pretty.
So, here they are. See I told you they were cute (ok, sorry, I’ll stop now). You start by slicing the tops off, to make little lids. Keep them aside. To get the insides out I suggest the following tools: a knife (smallish, you want good control) and –ideally- a melon scoop (at least I think that’s what that is). What a useful contraption. It came in a set of three, a citrus zester, an apple corer and this spoon-like thing that looks like a mini ice cream scoop with a hole the middle. I gather it’s for making little balls of melon or watermelon. It’s great for scooping out the courgette flesh because it’s sharpish around the edge and you can position it at a good angle inside. So, you start scooping leaving a wall around the bottom and sides of the veg. You want them to be sturdy enough to hold, but you also want room for a decent amount of filling. I left just under one centimeter of flesh. It’s a good idea to lift the courgettes and hold them in your hands while scooping; this way you can sort of feel how close you’re getting to the sides. If you’re using regular, long zucchini you might find an apple corer useful, at least in the beginning. After you get the first chunks out continue with a small spoon.

Remember you need to keep the flesh. Some of it goes in the recipe, some of it you can keep for something else. I made the most unbelievable zucchini bread and was planning on doing a double post today; then I promptly ate the two last pieces before I’d taken any photos of it. I do that often, I think I’d have twice as many posts up already if I remembered to take pictures of all the things I make. Aaanyway. The two round zuckes gave me 1 ¼ cups of flesh. This of course largely depends on the size of the vegetables.

After I made the filling and stuffed the two courgettes I discovered that I had quite a bit of filling left over. I rummaged through the produce drawer in the fridge and discovered this lovely white aubergine (eggplant), so out it came. The two zuckes fit perfectly in my slow cooker (it’s only a small one), leaving no room for anything else. So now I also had to employ the services of my second slow cooker! Now that the extra room issue was solved I decided to plop some potatoes and carrots in with the aubergine as well. All set.After they cooked for about 5 ½ hours on low and were pretty much ready, I decided to make the egg lemon sauce. This is easy, but needs some attention when it’s transferred back into the slow cooker. I tempered the eggs (for more details on this see my Egg Lemon Chicken Soup) and then poured the sauce into the slow cookers with the veg and left it for about 5 minutes on low. I then tested the sauce with a food thermometer and it was well over 140F which is the minimum for cooking eggs, so I turned the cookers to warm and served shortly afterwards. The total cooking time was about 6-6 ½ hours.

Result? Gorgeous. Really tasty. And I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t fall apart when I took them out of the slow cooker. The courgette skins had cooked to a perfect consistency. Not pull-apart-with-your-fork soft but cut-with-the-side-of-your-fork soft. The eggplant was also just right, as were the potatoes and the carrots. Success!

Slow Cooker Stuffed Zucchini in Egg Lemon Sauce
Serves 2-3

What you need:
2 large or 3 medium round courgettes (zucchini). You can use long ones, I’d say probably 4 large (I suggest you have one or two extra on hand in case you end up with lots of leftover filling. Don’t gut the extras till you know you need them, to avoid waste)
200g minced/ground meat (I used a combination or beef and pork)
½ medium onion, minced
2 Tbs fresh chopped parsley
2 Tbs fresh chopped dill weed
¼ cup risotto rice (like Arborio)
Salt and pepper
½ tsp dried thyme
1/3 cup olive oil
1 ½ cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 egg
Juice of ½ lemon

What you do:

1. Slice off the top of the courgettes in order to form little lids. Scoop out the insides as described above, leaving a wall of flesh around the inside of the veg.
2. Keep ¼ cup of the flesh and chop it up. Put the rest away in the fridge till you find a good recipe for it.
3. Heat half the olive oil in a frying pan, over medium heat. Gently cook the onion being careful it doesn’t brown or burn, till it’s translucent.
4. Add the meat to the pan, and turn up the heat to medium high. Break up the meat clumps with a wooden spoon and keep stirring till you don’t see any more pink bits.
5. Add the parsley, dill weed, courgette flesh, rice and salt & pepper, turn down the heat a bit and continue to gently sauté over a medium heat, for about 2-3 minutes, stirring continuously.
6. Add ¼ cup water to the pan, and let it reduce, stirring the meat mixture frequently.
7. When the water has reduced almost completely, take the mixture off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Use a spoon to fill the vegetables with the meat mixture, leaving a couple of centimeters space from the top.
8. Replace the lids on the vegetables and put them in the slow cooker.
9. Add 1 ½ cups of vegetable stock to the slow cookers, so that the liquid comes up the sides of the courgettes by about 1/3.
10. Turn slow cooker on and cook on low for about 5 ½ hours. We have mostly cooked the meat, so the only thing that needs cooking really is the rice.
11. After 5 ½ hours try prying open one of the lids, and lifting out some filling. You will see it will have increased in volume and may now reach the top. If the rice is cooked and soft you can go on to make the egg lemon sauce.
12. Beat the egg and lemon juice in a medium/large bowl. Slowly add spoonfuls of the cooking liquid into the egg mixture, one at a time, being careful that the egg doesn’t scramble.
13. As you add the warm liquid you can slowly increase the size of the spoonfuls. When the mixture in your bowl is quite warm, with lots of the juice in it, take out the insert of your slow cooker and set it somewhere heat-safe. Carefully pour the egg lemon mixture back into the slow cooker, lift it and swirl it around to mix it.
14. Put the insert back into the slow cooker and leave on low for about 5 minutes. This should do it in terms of egg cooking time.
15. If you want to be sure, test the sauce with a thermometer; it should be over 140F.
16. Take out the veggies, spoon some sauce over them and enjoy with fresh bread and feta cheese.

For ideas on what to do with the leftover zucchini flesh, take a wander over to Kalyn’s Kitchen. She has lots of lovely recipes for this wonderful veg, including these gorgeous Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins with Green Chiles and Cheese. I’ve made these and they’re yummy.