You May Have Noticed...

... There's been a theme going on here. For those of you who actually read this blog you now have all the recipes for a fantastic Greek Feast.


Your Menu
Greek Potatoes
Lamb Kofta with Tzatziki Sauce
Stuffed Artichokes

If you don't like artichokes, you might prefer to serve a simple Greek Salad (just spinach with a store bought vineagrette and feta cheese OR if you want to be fancy about it here's a Greek Salad recipe:

Greek Salad
Chop up some iceberg lettuce. Add thinly sliced onions, chopped tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese. Sprinkle with oregano. Top with oil oil and vineger.

And yes this is all still an enclosed parenthetical statement.)

Artichokes

The other day I was in the grocery store and saw these AMAZING, huge artichokes. Tis the season right? And seriously there is nothing better than an artichoke in springtime.

What You'll Need
An Artichoke (or 2)
Butter
Breadcrumbs
Lemon Juice
Minced Garlic

How to Prepare Them

Remove the outside layer of leaves (which usually look a little scruffy). Chop off the top 1/4 inch of the center leaves. Then take a scissors to the tops of all the remaining leaves. Slice off the stem to make a nice flat steam about a 1/4 inch tall.

Fill a pot with about a 1/2 inch of water, place artichoke on it's stem. Cover and bring water to a boil. Boil for about 15 minutes, or until leaves come off very easily. Take out of water and put on a baking sheet.

The final steps! Melt a tbsp of butter. Mix in bread crumbs, a spoon of garlic, and 2 tsps of lemon juice. Pour mixture onto the top of the artichoke and pat down in between the leaves. Bake at 350 degrees just until bread crumbs brown about 5-10 minutes.

Tzatziki Sauce

This isn't real Tzatziki sauce. Real Tzatziki sauce or did has cucumbers and stuff, this is just easy... and well good. If you want to do more work, grate some cucumber. Still good.

What you'll need:
Plain Yogurt
Garlic (I buy pre-minced in a can)
Oregano
Salt

What to Do:

Strain about a cup of plain yogurt. Don't get too technical here -- you just want the yogurt without all that "juice" you find at the top of the container. Stir in a tablespoon of minced garlic (that's right, nobody said you were going to have good breath after eating this!), a half-tablespoon of oregano and a teaspoon of salt. Stir that all up.

Serve with Stone-Wheat crackers, or toasted pita bread. Or Lamb Kofta [see below]!

That's ok... I make a nice lamb (aka. Lamb Kofta)

Warning -- not for the vegetarian!

What You'll Need:
1 lb ground lamb
1/2 yellow onion
1 egg
fresh parsley
cinnamon
nutmeg
cumin
paprika
garlic
salt & pepper
olive oil

What to do:
This is basically like making mini burgers.

Cut the yellow onion really small (mince it!). Do the same with a clove of garlic, and a handful of fresh parsley.

Put all of the following in a bowl and mix by hand: lamb, minced onion, minced garlic, egg, minced parsley, and one teaspoon of each of the following: cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, cumin. Add a shake of salt and pepper for taste, and mix by hand.

Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan on Med-High. Make little patties about 2 inches in diameter and pretty flat. Fry until browned (about 3-4 minutes) and flip. After another 3 minutes, remove patties and place on a paper-towel lined plate.

Serve with my non-tzatziki Tzatziki sauce [see above post].

Greek Slow-Roasted Potatoes

What you'll need:

2 large potatoes
1/3 c Olive Oil
1/3 c Lemon Juice
1 c Chicken Broth
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp oregano
Salt and pepper

What to Do:

Peel potatos and quarter. Cut into "home-style fry" sizes. Put in an oven-safe, caserole dish.

Mix the oil, lemon juice, broth, garlic, oregano and salt and pepper. Cover the potatoes (should be about half-covered with the liquid).

Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 1-1.5 hours (until potatoes are soft.) Uncover and continue cooking at 400 degrees until potatoes are browned and slightly crispy.

Greek Omelette

What You'll Need:

2 Eggs
about 3 Tbsps Plain Yogurt
Garlic
Oregano
Salt Pepper
2 Scallions
A Handful of Spinach
Feta Cheese
Butter or Pam

What to Do:

Whip 2 eggs in a bowl, then add in the plain yogurt. Whisk or stir with a fork until fully combined and thickened. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic, a tsp of oregano, a pinch of salt and some pepper. Stir.

Heat a small frying pan and melt a pat of butter (or spray with pam) to coat the surface. Pour in egg mixture and cook on low heat until eggs are solid throughout. While cooking, chop up scallions, and spinach. Once eggs are cooked, add scallions and spinach to center of omelette, as well as crumbled feta cheese. Fold omelette in half and serve.

Yeah, I want some Cheesy Puffs!

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!