Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

T he other day I found some cheap cherry tomatoes and went ahead and bought them knowing that I could find something to do with them. As I had nothing to do that afternoon, thought of making an all purpose sauce and freeze it . It could be of use some day I would be cooking chicken, beef, seafood or pasta....

O rzo can be treated as rice. Some Mediterranean ways of cooking orzo or rice is by frying in olive oil or butter first till all the grains are coated  before adding the right amount of water, covering the pot, lowering the temperature to minimum and letting it cook for 20 minutes.....

M aybe I am being a bit old fashioned as to the Gratin. Yes, I know all about the modern Nouvelle Cuisine and the various videos but I am following my heart and am still cooking dishes I used to eat when I was much younger in various cosmopolitan cities such as Monte Carlo, Beirut, Lausanne. These dishes are now prepared with a twist by adding some bacon or a touch of Porcini mushrooms....

S.P.G. = Salt, Pepper, Garlic. Nice and short!! Happy New Year everybody. I would like to share this easy recipe with you guys because it is delicious and festive. All it takes is a lot of baby potatoes, well washed, skins on, cut in half, placed in a nice baking dish cut side down and roasted for 1 hour at 190 degrees Celsius static, half dipped in very good extra virgin olive oil with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste Just delicious!!! Enjoy, Stelio

T hought I'd include this as my last posting for 2014 but was busy fixing some electrical stuff around the house so... We had this for Boxing Day lunch and people loved it! This is an old recipe made with cauliflower instead of broccoli so I said " what the heck " and used Broccoli instead and amazingly enough it came out much better ....

T his is not a pizza. It has no tomato on the bottom, and definitely no cheese. Yes...it could have been a 3 million calorie pizza if I put a doctored tomato sauce on the bottom and covered it with nice, melting Cheddar, Mozzarella, Gouda or a mixture of all three!....

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....

Found two beautifully huge zucchoni in the market and bought them not knowing what exactly to do with them. I knew though that I would cut them in half lengthwise, take out the inside, fill them with something, cover them with something else, and bake them.....

We've had leek pie before in my previous posts. This time we shall add pumpkin and see how it goes. Bear with me...

Pumpkin time - hooray!! How nice... October is here, the rains have began, the farmers are happy, we are happy because we are having our building painted from the outside although it was planned for July...but what can you say. Pumpkin is a very healthy vegetable.  I began eating pumpkin at the beginning of my journey down from 155 kg, and now two years later I'm stuck at 130 kg. After being called in a couple of days ago by my physician friend for a 24 hours (blood pressure Holter)check up on my blood pressure, I decided that it is now the time to start losing the rest down to 100 kg. No special diet, nobody supervising me, just I, me and myself have taken the decision to lose the rest by eating white meat such as boiled skinless chicken (I use the stock to cook  Millet, Quinoa, Buckwheat), fish and lots of different colored veggies, raw, cooked on steam, or just roasted. No salt added just some extra virgin olive oil. No I have not decided to become a Vegetarian or a ...

Nothing like beginning your week with a nice plate of Lentils and Kinoa. This is a super food with a concentration of vitamins and nutrients which will give your body one heck of a boost.... the fantastic thing about it .....

I guess we are trying to continue our special eating habits by putting a bit of "sex" in it. By that I mean, chicken livers/hearts with ouzo. Braise till all the alcohol is out. Leeks and carrots with rice....veggies with rice. Cheating?? maybe not. So here we go.

P iment de Spelette is a very "gentile - civilized - suave" kind of chili because unlike the Jalapeño or Habanero, is mild but still has that bite which even a lady can enjoy. They all have the same size, grow in the Basque area of South Western France/Spain around the area of the town of "Espelette". It can be found fresh, dried, and in powder. I personally have the dried ones very beautifully strung on a cord. In this recipe I used ¾ of one snipped very thinly with a pair of scissors.....

Adzuki Bean: Health Benefits and Nutrition Information....

C aramelized Onions are a treat because they very easy to make on one hand and yet difficult on the other. They are easy to make because all you have to do is boil finely sliced onions with caster sugar, butter and water till all the water boils off. The difficult part is to be over the pan when all the water has evaporated and make sure the caramelization is evenly done. As we know onions are sweet by themselves but the addition of sugar raises the taste to a whole new level. And the addition of a refined brandy makes it even better. Caramelized onions go with many kinds of foods such as meats, chicken, fish, pork, foie gras and...

L eek pie is a quick, easy and inexpensive vegetarian starter to make without using cheeses. All you have to do is sauté the leek, onion, scallions and parsley...

I love stuffed tomatoes and bell peppers! It is not an easy dish to make so it should be made on a Sunday when we have no plans to go out or have nothing to do. This dish is international.  Every country makes it, but...in its own style. This is the Greek house-wife recipe.

Green String Beans With Cauliflower And Semolina Squares. Green string beans with cauliflower and semolina squares is a meal by itself.  String beans are bought frozen and already cut  in pieces so as to make it easier to use in a meal like this. This dish can be considered vegetarian if chicken broth is not used to make the tomato sauce and generally to cook the whole meal in. So basically it depends on who cooks it to decide. Broth is used to improve the taste, and the body of the dish.  Of course many herbs and condiments could be used instead of the broth but that really would change the overall taste of this recipe. The health benefits of green string beans are....

S oy pieces can definitely take the place of meat, specially when they are the size you see in the picture. Perfectly vegetarian and healthy. Including string beans gives us the extra vitamins needed and the addition of a curry sauce gives a little "kick" to the whole dish. Here is how:

S emolina comes from wheat. It is very cheap and is used in Greece to make sweets. Today I used it to make semolina cakes to pour a string bean curry over them. Here is how...