Extra-Thick Pork Chop Stuffed with Roasted Red Peppers & Graviera
Last week I caught my food muse, Chef Dina Nikolaou serve up a baked pork chop stuffed with peppers and Graviera cheese and I knew I just had to try this dish…with my own personal touches. I knew that I had to translate this into a grilled dish – it’s BBQ season. Roasted red peppers […]
Crawfish (καραβίδες του γλυκού νερού)
This dish was made with the intent on transporting my parents back to their towns in located in the northern Greek prefecture of Florina. Florina is located about 2 hours northwest of Thessaloniki. It’s at the top end of Greece and it’s motto is “Where Greece Begins”. This region is mountainous with stretches of elevated […]
Makaronopita With Eggplant (Μακαρονόπιτα με μελιτζανες)
It’s time for another pasta dish. Although I’ve cut down on the amount of pasta I eat, I still do love it and I have pasta at least once a week (maybe twice a week). Greeks enjoy pasta, the Spaniards, the French, Arabs, Turks and of course, Asians. Pasta also has a special place in […]
Roulade of Sole With Avgolemono (Ρουλάδα της γλώσσας)
I recently caught Chef Jacques Pepin serving up some paupiettes of sole. Now don’t go scrambling for your French-English dictionaries, a paupiette is simply sometime rolled-up – in this case a fillet of sole. I immediately had to use this method of baking sole as it looks gorgeous and the fillet will cook more evenly. […]
Tarragon Chicken With Peas and Carrots
File this recipe in the category of “quick weeknight dinners that transport you to a restaurant”. This dish was one of the first dishes I ever cooked and it’s also one where I enjoyed the experience of cooking with “significant other” and loved it. Do you like cooking on your own or do you allow […]
Baked Gigantes Beans
Last year, one of the stops during my vacation to Greece was to Kastoria. Kastoria is the capital city of the Prefecture of…Kastoria. It’s located in northern Greece, northwestern Macedonia. This region of Greece is located on fertile, elevated plateaus and the economy is centered around its long history of fur trading, tourism and agriculture. […]
Grilled Halloumi and Orange Salad
Today is Mother’s Day and I would like to extend my best wishes to my mother, all mothers, grandmothers and mom’s to be. You rock, you make the world go round and I send this dish out to you. My love affair with Halloumi cheese continues. This slightly briny, semi-firm sheep’s milk cheese hails from […]
Bits & Bites With Astrid Speranza
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Chef Astrid Speranza appear on a Greek reality show. The premise of the show is where the subject (sometimes male, sometimes female) is taken on four dates where the suitor will woo them with their home cooking and charm. The week culminates at a restaurant where the subject […]
Vine-Leaf Chicken Stuffed with Feta
Most of you are familiar with dolmades, where small packets of rice and aromatics are bundled using grape-vine leaves or “ampelofyla” in Greek. These small morsels may also contain meat or be wrapped with Swiss chard cabbage. The cabbage rolls are also often called “lahano-dolmades”. The use of grape-vine leaves is not limited to just […]
Grilled Halloumi Salad With a Kalamata Olive Vinaigrette
I’m not sure which ingredient is the star here – the Halloumi cheese or this dressing made primarly of processed Kalamata olives? The Kalamata olive is best known as topping the famous Greek or Horiatiki salad. The Halloumi cheese, born in Cyprus, enjoyed equally throughout the Middle East and gaining new fans around the world. […]