Ok, we hit a slight snag in the blog about cooking influences line of blogging... More on that later. Just to tide you over, I give to you Part II of the tribute to my wonderful mother:
Mom's Tiropita Recipe
What Youll Need:
1 lb Feta
1 lb Farmer's Cheese
3 Eggs
1 package Filo dough
Butter (the more the merrier, but really, just a few tablespoons)
What to Do:
Mix up that feta and farmer's cheese. You can beat it with an electric mixer until smooth, or just mash it up with a folk. Add eggs and mix some more. A Note about quantity: You don't really need to use a pound of these 2 lovely cheese. Out here they sell Farmer's Cheese only in pound packages, and 1 lb of Feta is easily translateable as 2 packages of Athena brand Feta. My Mom's written recipe card for this one actually calls for 8 eggs! But we cut that down from practice. The idea is to add one egg at a time and stop adding eggs before the mixture gets liquidy. The mixture should be slightly smoother than a cookie dough.
Lay out your Filo Dough. Spoon about 2 heaping TBSPs of Cheese Mixture onto one corner of the Filo and fold up 2 or 3 sheets of Filo, like you would a flag (corner to side, corner to side, until you get to the top of the sheet). You should get a nice triangle shape, but if not it'll still taste good.
Put the tiropita on a baking sheet and sprinkle or brush with melted butter.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes. You'll know when it's done when you push down on a tiropita with a folk and no cheese or liquid seeps out.
Modification for Spanakopita
Chop up some spinach or add thawed and drained packaged spinach to the cheese mixture. That is absolutely it!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
My Mama
As you may have noted in my blog, this week (and maybe the rest of this month depending on how often the blog spirit inspires me) I'm going to be paying tribute to a few of my favorite cooks. I actually thought of this one when making yellow rice, something introduced to me by one of my favoritest people who introduced me to far more than a rice cooker and a package of Vigo. (More on that person later!)
But today, I wanted to spend a few brief moment's discussing the person who taught me the most about cooking before I go ahead and give away one of her recipes. I remember when I was little my Mom decided she was going to give me cooking lessons. She taught me how to make french toast and french onion soup before we gave up on lessons. Mostly I learned about cooking from spending time with my Mom, but the best thing I learned from her (recipe-wise) was her French Strawberry Pie. Which I'm not going to give you here. HAHA, thought you were gonna get that one, huh?!? Maybe later.
No, the recipe I'm going to give you today is for one of my favorite dishes. You know, the type of meal that you request when you come home from college for break or on special dinners. It's my Mom's Meatloaf!
What You'll Need:
1 lb ground meat or turkey
spaghetti sauce
2 slices of bread
onion soup mix
What to Do:
I think this is pretty commonsensical. Add a good dollop of spaghetti sauce to the meat, as well as the bread (torn into tiny pieces) and half the onion soup mix. Mix it all up by hand. You can either make this into one loaf, or make mini loaves. Top with the left over onion soup mix, and bake at 375. If you make mini meatloaves it will probably take about 20-25 minutes. If you're just doing one loaf, it will take a little longer. You'll know it's down when it gets nice and browned.
What else to serve:
As you can see in this pic, I served this with some roasted potatoes and sauteed escarole. I must admit both of these are from Martha Stewart Everyday Food. The potatoes are in the March episode and seriously are to die for. The Sauteed Escarole I found quite a while ago. It's ridiculously easy, and sooo incredibly good. Martha says this more eloquently but here's how you do it:
Cut up a head of escarole (into salad sized bites). Put a small tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and add a clove of chopped garlic, and brown. Add the escarole and salt well (As I've said before, I like it salty). Sautee until wilted.
Wow, I've said enough today.
But today, I wanted to spend a few brief moment's discussing the person who taught me the most about cooking before I go ahead and give away one of her recipes. I remember when I was little my Mom decided she was going to give me cooking lessons. She taught me how to make french toast and french onion soup before we gave up on lessons. Mostly I learned about cooking from spending time with my Mom, but the best thing I learned from her (recipe-wise) was her French Strawberry Pie. Which I'm not going to give you here. HAHA, thought you were gonna get that one, huh?!? Maybe later.
No, the recipe I'm going to give you today is for one of my favorite dishes. You know, the type of meal that you request when you come home from college for break or on special dinners. It's my Mom's Meatloaf!
What You'll Need:
1 lb ground meat or turkey
spaghetti sauce
2 slices of bread
onion soup mix
What to Do:
I think this is pretty commonsensical. Add a good dollop of spaghetti sauce to the meat, as well as the bread (torn into tiny pieces) and half the onion soup mix. Mix it all up by hand. You can either make this into one loaf, or make mini loaves. Top with the left over onion soup mix, and bake at 375. If you make mini meatloaves it will probably take about 20-25 minutes. If you're just doing one loaf, it will take a little longer. You'll know it's down when it gets nice and browned.
What else to serve:
As you can see in this pic, I served this with some roasted potatoes and sauteed escarole. I must admit both of these are from Martha Stewart Everyday Food. The potatoes are in the March episode and seriously are to die for. The Sauteed Escarole I found quite a while ago. It's ridiculously easy, and sooo incredibly good. Martha says this more eloquently but here's how you do it:
Cut up a head of escarole (into salad sized bites). Put a small tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and add a clove of chopped garlic, and brown. Add the escarole and salt well (As I've said before, I like it salty). Sautee until wilted.
Wow, I've said enough today.
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