Green salad with figs and walnuts

A bit more than a year ago my mom started working in another hospital, in Kastoria, about two and a half hours away from Thessaloniki. So now she spends about 4 days a week there and 3 days back home. At first I was a bit worried, you know, it's not easy to change your every day routine from one day to another and I guess age does not help much here. But after she settled down there I figured that she actually enjoys the lifestyle of a smaller city. Being there alone (my dad works in Thessaloniki, so he stayed there) she started new hobbies and sports. My dad generally is very conservative when it comes to food. So in the past, when cooking, my mom stayed within the limits of my dad's taste. And now she totally grabbed the chance and started experimenting with new ingredients and new combinations!

Last Christmas me, Stratis and my dad went to Kastoria. So my mom wanted to impress us with her new cooking discoveries. Among other things she made a really nice salad, which all of us liked a lot. Fresh lettuce blended with the sweetness of dried figs and a touch of balsamico was just wonderful and full of flavor, great during the winter, when the big, ripe tomatoes are impossible to find! There is no exact proportions of the ingredients, it really depends on your personal preferences. Here I post more or less the amounts that I used, but it's really a try and fail process! :)

INGREDIENTS:

5-7 large lettuce leaves, roughly chopped (enough to fill a large salad bowl)

2 handfuls fresh rucola leaves

3-4 dried figs, quartered

1 tbsp black raisins

1 small handful walnuts, chopped

For the dressing:

3 tbsp balsamico

1 1/2 tbsp liquid honey (I like thyme honey, but you could use any other)

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a separate small bowl.

2. In a large salad bowl mix the lettuce, rucola, figs, raisins and walnuts. Pour over the dressing and add some extra black pepper if you like and it's ready! So simple!

Chicken Fajitas

I don't know how does this happen, but every time I go shopping for something I finally buy something completely different! Like today for example, we went to buy candles and ended up in front of the stand with ingredients for ethnic food. So, eventually, we bought tortilla wraps, special spice mix and Mexican salsa and made Fajitas for dinner! Yum!

INGREDIENTS:

4 large corn tortillas

1 whole skinless, boneless chicken breast

1 medium onion, cut in wedges

1 green and 1 red bell peppers, sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 cup spring onions, finely chopped

3 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

juice of half lime

1 cup canned red kidney beans, mushed

2 tbsp avocado oil for frying (I used chilly flavored avocado oil for extra spicy taste)

3 tbsp fajitas spice mix dissolved in 1/2 cup water

1 cup Mexican salsa (I chose mild salsa but it's totally up to you!)

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp hot smoked chilly flakes

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Guacamole or low-fat thick yogurt to serve (optional)

1. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper and grill it until golden outside and cooked through. Cut in small stripes.

2. In a heavy pan heat the oil. Stir fry the peppers, onions and garlic. Do not overcook the vegetables! They should be slightly cooked but still crunchy. Set aside.

3. Pour some more oil to the pan and add the chicken, diced tomatoes, salsa and fajitas mix and cook for few minutes until the most of the liquid evaporates.

4. Return the vegetables to the pan and add spring onions, parsley and lime juice. Mix well, season with coriander, chilly flakes, salt and pepper and set aside, allowing for flavors to mix.

5. Brush the tortillas with some oil and warm them in a pan.

6. Divide the mushed kidney beans in 4 parts and spread each part over one tortilla. Place some of the chicken mix in the middle of the tortilla, pour some guacamole or yogurt if using, and roll into a tight wrap. Enjoy!

Belgian Chocolate Mousse

World's best chocolate? Swiss! Second best? Definitely Belgian! Living just next door from the country famous for it's chocolate and beer it is very easy to get carried away! The variety is amazing and the quality... oh well, nothing to comment about the obvious!

Few weeks ago a friend of mine got me a birthday present. A cooking book about Dutch and Belgian cousin. Knowing how good Belgians are when it comes to desserts, I opened directly the relevant section and... oh dear God! Chocolate based desserts, waffels, pies and much much more! So my first option was a chocolate mousse. I only hesitated for a second, when I noticed the amount of calories per portion (no, no I'm not gonna reveal it!), but then again... who cares! We all deserve a little piece of heaven for a change!

INGREDIENTS:

150g semisweet Belgian chocolate, cut into small pieces (I used half butterscotch and half bitter chocolate. Yam!)

200ml double cream

75 gr caster sugar

2 eggs, separated, at room temperature

cocoa powder for dusting

1. Put the chocolate in a small bowl on bain-marie and let it melt. Remove the bowl with the chocolate and let it cool.

2. In a separate bowl whip the cream with 15gr of sugar until it stands in soft peaks. Set aside.

3. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and gradually add 50gr of sugar, until the mix is white and stiff. Be careful, when adding the sugar. If you add it all at once the egg whites may separate.

4. Finally in a small bowl whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until the mix is foamy. Fold the yolks into the melted chocolate and mix until uniform.

5. Next, mix in the cream and after that the egg whites.

6. Spoon the mousse into serving cups, dust with some cocoa powder and place in the fridge for at least one hour I know it is very hard to wait but it is really worth it! When cooled the mouse becomes more foamy and it tastes and feels amazing!

PS: This post is dedicated to a great lover of chocolate in all it forms! Zoaki this one is for you!

Grilled salmon with yogurt and tomato sauce

You know how they say that kids don't like fish? I guess I was an exception. I would not eat many other "normal" things, torturing for hours my mom who tried to feed me. But I always loved fish. Growing up in Russia, salmon was probably the first fish I ever tried and the most common on our table. It didn't matter whether it was fried, grilled or most commonly just smoked, it was always a yum-yum :) Later on I tried of course other fish, but salmon always remained my all time favorite!

I know that we Greeks are VERY spoiled when it comes to food (I think most of the people in my office figured that out after the first couple of weeks :P), but I refuse to cook chicken when it is just pouring water while being fried (typical when bought from AH)! That's why I was more than happy to discover that in Holland it is easy to find a good quality fresh salmon. I don't wanna become all negative again, but fish is actually one of the few things that is really worth eating here.

Anyways, I bought nice slices of salmon and was planning to grill them in the oven. But I thought it would be nice to improvise with the topping. So I made tzatziki-like sauce but something was missing. Hmmm, what goes well with yogurt? I guess tomatoes should be nice... Yes, that's it! Tomatoes and thyme! Veeeeery good!

INGREDIENTS:

4 large slices salmon

for the topping:

1 1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 large ripe tomato, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped

1 tbsp fresh chives, finely chopped

1 tsp dried thyme

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a bowl mix all the topping ingredients and set aside for 5-10 minutes to allow the flavors to mix.

2. On a baking tray place the salmon and pour the yogurt sauce on top. Place in the preheated oven and bake util the fish is cooked through. Turn on the grill at the last 2-3 minutes, to make a crust on top of the sauce. Yummy!

Ladero - Greek oily green beans

Today I went through some of the old posts and I realized that at least every 4th post starts with the words "I haven't been blogging for some time now" or something similar. It becomes annoying!

Anyways, the recipe that I wanna post today is traditional Greek. "Ladero" could be literally translated as "something oily" and it is being cooked all over the country as a main dinner course. Nothing fancy, but very healthy! It contains a generous amount of oil, but it is ALWAYS extra virgin olive oil, which is good for your health when used in moderation, so don't be afraid :)

Even though it is so popular, my mom never cooked it (probably because she grew up in a different country, with different food culture). So, the first time I tried it was actually at the university restaurant back in Thessaloniki. It was a a fixed part of the Wednesday menu, followed by a chocolate mousse! I liked it a lot and after some point started cooking it myself :) Here is one of the multiple versions of this dish. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

1kg green beans

2-3 carrots, sliced in circles

2 large onions, diced

3 large, ripe tomatoes, grated

1 large red bell pepper, diced

2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp tomato puree

2 cups water

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cups fresh parsley, finely chopped

2-3 large bay leaves

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp sugar salt and black pepper to taste

1. First prepare the beans. Wash them well and cut off the tips in case they are hard. If the beans are too long cut them in pieces of 4-5cm long. This could the annoying, but this is the only step that requires time, the rest is just piece of cake!

2. In a large pot heat half of the oil. Add the onions and garlic and sauté on a medium heat until soft (not golden).

3. Add the beans, carrots, peppers and grated tomato, mix well and cook for few minutes, just until the beans turn bright green.

4. Add the tomato puree, water, half of the parsley, bay leaves, oregano and sugar, cover the pot and cook for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are soft but still crunchy. If necessary add more water to the pot so that the sauce remains liquid.

5. Turn off the heat, add the rest of the parsley and oil, mix well, cover the pot and let it stay for about 15 minutes. Serve along with feta cheese (I prefer with grated Ksyromizithra) and thick slices of fresh bread to dip in the juices.

Shrimp "saganaki" - Garides saganaki

More than a month of no blogging! That turns into a bad habit! This time I have a really good excuse though, I was on vacation. I went to my beloved Thessaloniki for 3 weeks, which sounds almost too good to be true. And as always it meant enormous amounts of food being consumed, completely disregarding any humanly possible limits! Well, since we moved to Holland whenever we find good food, we take good care of it :) Surprisingly this time no extra weight gained which probably proves once again that Greek food is awesome for another reason apart from great taste! Love it!

Anyway, I returned a week before my man and was too lazy to cook just for myself, which resulted in eating out every day. On the other hand, on Sunday, when Stratis came back I though it would be nice to cook for a change, if nothing else to make the transition from Greece to Holland easier for him. So I woke up in the morning planning to cook something really really Greek and really really summerish. That's when I came up with the idea of Shrimp "saganaki".

Saganaki is actually a type of small pan with two little handles. However, nowadays the word refers mainly to the type of food cooked in it. For example Feta saganaki is Feta cheese melted in a pan. Shrimp saganaki on the other hand is a delicious dish made with shrimps, feta and either tomato or white wine sauce. Both are truly amazing, but this time I went for the tomato one and it was properly appreciated. For the recipe I used small shrimps but you could use the same proportion of large shrimp as well. In this case you should not peel them in advance.

INGREDIENTS:

300 gr small shrimps, peeled

100 gr Greek feta cheese, in bite-size pieces

50 gr Ladotyri cheese, grated (you could use Parmesano-type cheese instead)

4 large ripe tomatoes, grated

1 onion, sliced

1 green bell pepper, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tbsp dried oregano

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a pan heat the oil and saute the onions, green peppers and garlic until they are soft.

2. Add the grated tomatoes and parsley, season with salt, pepper and oregano andcook until the sauce thickens.

3. Put the shrimps and feta pieces into an ovenproof saganaki pan or a little ceramic pot.

4. Pour the tomato sauce over the shrimp and feta mix and sprinkle with Ladotyri.

5. Place the pan in the oven and bake at 200°C until the Ladotyri makes a crust on top. Serve immediately and enjoy along with some freshly baked bread and ouzo!

Thai shrimp soup

The last few weekends we switched for fish and sea food, since we have time to go to the market and buy fresh fish there. So today I got shrimps and made a very nice Thai soup. And it actually smelled like Thai, cause other times I tried some recipes and even though they were nice it didn't smell authentic. Well this time it was great! :)

INGREDIENTS:

350 gr shrimps, peeled

1.5 liter fish stock

4 lemon grass stalks, chopped into 2 cm pieces

3 limes

2 chilly peppers

2 cm piece fresh ginger, finely chopped

6 coriander stalks with leaves

1 tbsp rice vinegar

3 tbsp oyster sauce

2-3 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped

1. Pour the stock in a large pot and bring to the boil.

2. With a vegetable peeler peel off 3-4 strips of lime rind. Squeeze the limes and reserve the juice.

3. Add the lemon grass, lime rind, chillies, ginger and coriander stalks to the stock and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Remove the lime ring from the pot.

4. Add the shrimps, vinegar, oyster sauce and half of the lime juice. Simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Remove the coriander stalks from the pot and discard.

6. Taste the broth and add more lime juice if necessary. Serve with some extra coriander.