Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

S ometimes you have left over rice and don't know what to with it. Asians usually use it for fried rice. I used it to make a nice mix which we enjoyed very much.

Boy I tell you this is one heck of a buffet or starter recipe. Get yourself one kg of pork belly with a lot of the surface fat taken off,  cut in 2 inch cubes ,  Sear and caramelize with strawberry flavoured balsamic cream vinegar on your stove top. Then roast in 180 degree Celsius oven for 20 minutes. Separately cook cubed green apples and ginger in fresh butter till very soft. Roughly pure the apple sauce. Serve pork bits with a dollop of this mash. Simply gorgeous !!

Pie not yet cooked. H ere is a very nice savory pie you can make when invited to some friends house (such as a New Year's Eve dinner party) and you would like to take something made by you. It is very presentable and light. I have taken this recipe from my friend Paola Collengui, of Zenzero e Limone a blogger with www.giallozafferano.it. She takes all the credit. Nothing wrong in copying another person's recipe as long as you mention his name and give him credit for it. Only in this case there will be a change in the styling of the pie because it is not the season for zucchini flowers. So this pie will decorated with something different....we shall see when the time comes.....

Tahini Photo Courtesy Of Wikipedia On Google T ahini is a paste made from Sesame seed. The oil you see floating on the top is the sesame oil which is an integral part of the tahini.  This is exactly like peanut butter where sometimes the oil floats on the top (if it is not made in U.S.A.). Tahini is very much used in the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin from Greece Eastwards, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, and Iraq. Tahini is used as a complement to shish kebabs,  meat, chicken, fish, and salads and even alone as a dip in western countries by people who lived in the middle east. Tahini is extremely good for the health and contains a number of vitamins, fiber, and other.

A lthough broccoli and cauliflower are basically from the same family, only cauliflower can be eaten raw. Unfortunately it is not as healthy as broccoli.  As I was washing our cauliflower today for lunch, I suddenly felt very hungry so I had one or two flowers of the cauliflower which was crunchy and delicious....

A s we have already mentioned in the passed posts that Camembert is a cheese from the Normandy in France. It is usually round and you can cut it in eighths, coat them with flour, beaten egg, and fine bread crumbs then fry it in very hot oil. The secret here is that the camembert should be very cold, and oil very hot so they get nice and crispy. Stick a toothpick in each, and you have a nice appetizer. Note: You can do this with any cheese you like as long as it is hard on the outside and soft in the inside. Enjoy! Stelio

I Admit To Over Roasting The Sesame R oasted s esame covered turkey nuggets are perfect for finger food during a cocktail party where there isn't an actual meal. Furthermore I love roasted sesame. I love the taste it gives to freshly baked bread, bread rings (koulouria) 5-10 inch thin bread rings being sold in the streets of Athens and Manhattan in New York by Greeks.  Sesame is also very much used in Chinese and Indian cuisine...

The Purple Color Is Obtained By Adding Beetroot Juice. On Thursday, July 7th 2011 I shared with you my recipe for Homos, the dip. These lasagna fritters will help you dip into it. You will need:  If you use the whole box as you buy it from the supermarket you will have enough for a large party. -  500 gr of ready uncooked lasagna in a box from the supermarket. -  5 liters of water to boil. -  ¼ cup olive oil. -  1 wet clean white* kitchen towel spread on your kitchen table. -  Salt for the boiling water....

I haven't made snails bourguignon in years...why? because I could not find canned, imported or local ready to use snails. You cannot believe the work that has to be done to treat snails from scratch, in fact I don't even want to start telling you the required steps. To say the truth I have never done it.

I really don't know if home cooked chicken wings are "junk". But after a long time of abstinence, we decided to have some today. The weather is not really that great to use the BBQ so I cooked them in the oven....

G ood morning everybody hope you had a good night's sleep. I know I did because I tell you, this writing on the computer is literally a pain in the good ol' bum. I cut the recipe short.....

I am certainly writing this post for a much younger generation who may not be very experienced in the kitchen but who wishes to make something home made from scratch and tell friends "I made this from scratch"...

December 22nd 2013....Gees! Time flies... I began blogging December 16th 2010...that makes three years and an all time page visit of nearly  67,000. Not bad. Blogging is writing: if you don't feel like writing nothing comes out. If what you cook is not interesting then there is nothing to blog about. However I had a couple of surprises with my semolina cakes.....

G ees I really missed you guys!! I had to be serious for a while and look after my business other than cooking. I would love to share with you a recipe that came to my mind while reading various cooking magazines and figured you would love it. Everybody loves cheese unless prohibited due to health reasons.

T his is a most elegant, and delicious appetizer for all kinds of buffets. All you need to do is prepare the tartlets a few days earlier, freeze them, then use them in whatever way you want: savory or sweet. These particular ones were savory where whole cumin seeds were used to adorn the tartlet and taste the cumin while biting into it......

C ountry sausage can be cooked in different ways. I used leek flavored Greek country sausage sliced at an angle. You will need: Serves 10-15 -  8 x 30  cm long country sausage. -  2 shots ouzo -  1 Tbsp. olive oil. -  2 stars anise -  2 cups any tomato based sauce you have in your deep freeze. If not made a new hot and spicy tomato sauce. Method: -  Heat the olive oil. -  Add the sliced sausage and saute on high heat for about a minute. -  When sausage takes a nice color, add ouzo and star anise. -  Flambe the whole lot. -  When flame dies out, add tomato sauce and simmer for about 30 minutes then turn off heat. -  Serve with slices of bread to dunk. Enjoy! Stelio

P izza is Italian. It also became American when the first Italians started emigrating to the United States and in my opinion these American pizzas have become better that the Italian basically by the addition of the famous "Pepperoni" sausage and Jalapeño pepper slices.  Unfortunately the Greeks use yellow cheeses which are very heavy and nauseating. Greek modern cuisine has evolved using other ingredients such as pastries (special phyllos). An example of nouvelle Greek cuisine is the Greek type pizza using a different kind of pastry and different cheeses.

A s I was cleaning up my desk from the pieces of paper I had with phone numbers, names, recipes, etc, I came across an interesting recipe but I honestly cannot remember who gave it to me, or where I got it from.  I would like to share with you today something which looks like a quiche but it is not. The base pastry is much thinner than the actual one used for the quiche, and the fixings on top are not as elaborate...

W e are already eight days into the new year. These were lazy eight days because life in the streets of Athens has just began.  Everybody is back from their "Cortina D'Ampezzo " holidays and supposedly back to work... Our politicians are still arguing between them who is right and nothing is being done to fix things. Everyday there are new austerity measures and we, the people, do not know what to do anymore and try to go on with our lives as if nothing is happening. Alexis,a friend of Barbara's, was having a party for his wife Joanna yesterday to celebrate her name day  (St. John the Baptist day ) and I prepared some savory cookies to take with her and here is what I did. You might like the idea...

A s I am proceeding towards the end of my Odessy and finally reaching my Ithaka .  An Ancient Greek proverb says that every person on this Earth is a Ulysses searching for Ithaka " and when this man succeeds in life, is content and happy, he can say that he has finally reached 'his' Ithaka ." I find this saying so romantic!! I am proposing easy recipes so I will be remembered as the "Guy with the hot food but easy recipes". This Tappas, finger food, appetizers, meze, whatever you would like to call it is easy, quick, and inexpensive....