Greek Recipes

I'm celebrating today! Celebrating 200 'likes' on the Greek Vegetarian Facebook page! And I truly can't think of a more delightful little celebratory sweet to make on such a happy day than baklava. My Aunt Koula's baklava no less. Koula's recipe was passed down to her by her mother and is a variation on the traditional squared or triangle-shaped pieces of baklava – the baklava is rolled into logs then cut diagonally. Koula says it's much quicker to make baklava this way. It also uses a mixture of three different nuts, including pistachios which are not often seen in Greek baklava recipes. I briefly introduced you to my Aunt Koula in an earlier post , but here I would like to tell you a little more about this remarkable, beautiful and incredibly funny woman who wears a pair of Nana Mouskouri glasses better than Nana herself. I first met Koula around 15 years ago when my sister, Melinda, and I were holidaying together in Greece. Koula and her husband (my dad...

So many ways to say it, so many ways to make it. But today I'm going to share with you, my Dad's way. My father, Takis, is a bit of a mad professor when it comes to experimenting with food. He will spend weeks, if not months, perfecting a particular creation in the kitchen. Even something as simple as hommus. No matter what he's making, he will go to whatever length it takes to make sure the flavour, the texture and the aroma is tweaked and refined to absolute perfection. But only Takis knows when it's perfect. He may use other people as guinea pigs in the process, but like many proud Greeks, my dad doesn't want to hear your opinion unless it's a favourable one. Even if he asks you "Do you like it?", you mustn't answer. Takis is the only one that can criticise his own food and will make sure he immediately responds to his own question with "It needs more lemon doesn't it". Only then can you speak, and you have two choices: Reluctantly...

Oh what a week! Seven straight days of eating carbless, vegetarian Greek food, and blogging about it every day. This has been harder than I thought it would be! Tony struggled with the overload of tofu, and I really pined for my carbs! It was a difficult challenge for us but we also gained a lot. We really enjoyed spending some time with each other in the kitchen and sitting down and eating the same meal together. It was something we both missed over the years of cooking and eating separately. We realised that we only need make a few simple compromises to bring back some mutually enjoyable activity at dinner time so we will definitely be doing this a lot more in future. Going without carbohydrates for the week was quite physically and mentally draining for me. Tony has been doing this for a while so he got through that part of it okay, but for someone who loves her bread, pasta and sweets, this was a real shock to the system. Tony kept reassuring me that after this week my body will re...

I wanted to keep a green theme with this frittata, since we're not really supposed to be eating anything "red" during this Carb Free/Meat Free week – tomatoes, carrots, beetroot are all out – and yes, I know, we had stuffed red capsicums on Wednesday, but I needed a little deviation for the week to help me get used to going carbless! Since then, instructions from Tony have been very clear that Lisa goes in the naughty corner if she tries to put anything else red in the meals this week. (Thank goodness he didn't notice the withered-away slices of tomato in last night's briam! ) After the success of last week's Greek Roasted Vegetable Frittata (not counting the fact it got drenched in rain the next day), we thought a high-protein, low-carb frittata for Meat Free/Carb Free week would make a lovely Saturday night meal. Fire roasted peppers (capsicums) are used in quite a few Greek recipes. Many of the bottled fire roasted peppers you find in the stores are produ...

My partner Tony has been participating in Meat Free Week this week to raise money for animal protection organisation, Voiceless . Five days so far without meat and Tony's been doing it hard replacing his proteins with tofu. He can handle small doses of tofu but he needs to eat a lot of it to make up for the amount of protein that he normally consumes. For nutritional reasons, Tony tries to maintain a low-carbohydrate diet, so he needs more protein and fat than the average person to make up his energy source. Unfortunately, this means he needs to eat some animal proteins like chicken and fish (he doesn't eat red meat) because tofu isn't enough for his needs, but he does his bit by only eating free-range products. I respect and understand Tony's need to stay on this diet, however this morning he came to me with some very exciting news. Inspired by his week of going without meat and trying some different recipes using tofu, he is taking the compassionate step to go meat/fi...

I'm addicted to pistachio nuts. Well, I'm sure I could develop an addiction to any nut really, but pistachios have a special don't-mess-with-me-when-I'm-eating-pistachios place in my heart. Around 15 years ago when I was just a naive and ignorant young jet setter travelling around Egypt, I was a real wimp when it came to eating street food and didn't dare touch any of it. Luckily I had a bag of pistachio nuts from the Greek island of Aegina with me. For four days I survived on those pistachios. You'd think I'd get more sick from eating only nuts for four days than I would eating Egyptian street food. But these nuts got me through my ridiculous food phobia on that trip and I've loved them ever since. Pistachio nuts have been cultivated in Aegina for over 150 years and they are like no other pistachio in the world. Because of the combination of a warm climate, rich volcanic soil and close proximity to the sea, they are larger nuts and with a more intense ...

Vegetarian stuffed vegetables (Yemista), is a favourite dish among many Greeks, especially at this time of year during the Lent period. Stuffed with rice and herbs, it is often referred to as the king dish of Greek Lenten fare. You can find recipes for my take on rice stuffed tomatoes and ricotta and mint stuffed banana peppers elsewhere on this blog. Tonight I'd like to share with you another Greek stuffed vegetable dish which is the perfect blend of low carbohydrates, a healthy amount of protein, and a whole lot of yum. It's day three of Meat Free Week, with my non-vegetarian partner Tony going meat free and myself being a vegetarian going carb free. You can read more about why we're doing this here. Ever since my last failed attempt at stuffing a vegetable with ricotta, I've been wanting to create a non-exploding, ricotta-filled yemista that also has a point of difference. Last week when Tony and I were putting our heads together to come up with our menu plan for t...

It's day two of Meat Free Week and Tony has been particularly excited about tonight's meal. Since going on his virtually carb-free diet he's been missing his pizzas badly. He became quite a master at creating the perfect thin, crispy wheat flour pizza base, but when he began his new regime of cutting out almost all carbs from his diet at the start of this year, pizza was to be had no more. Until now. The discovery of a low-carb flour when doing his research for foods to prepare for Meat Free Week elated Tony to quite a height. "This means I can make pizza!" he came into lounge room squealing like a little kid. Soy flour contains almost one third of the amount of carbohydrates that wheat flour contains. In addition to this it has almost three times the amount of protein and is gluten free, so you can imagine Tony's delight that this is a flour that would fit right into his low-carb diet. After reading about many failed soy flour pizza-base attempts on the inte...

Ohhh we are so excited today!! It's the first day of Meat Free Week! And quite appropriately, today also marks the start of the Lent period before Greek Easter. Delightfully named "Clean Monday", it is the first day of the Greek Orthodox meat-free fasting period which lasts for 5 weeks, and ends at midnight before Greek Easter Sunday when an almighty feast to break the fast is laid out on the tables of Greek family homes all over the world. Here in Australia my meat-eating, non-Greek partner Tony has decided to take on the Meat Free Week challenge. For one week he will go without meat with thousands of other Australians as part of a campaign to raise money for animal welfare organisation, Voiceless . I'm already a vegetarian but to join in I am also changing my diet. I am eliminating carbohydrates for the week.  WHY I hear you ask. Well it's not just an arbitrary decision. Tony is a Type 1 diabetic and he is already on a low-carb diet which he can't really ch...

I'm aching all over from being drenched to the bone and dancing with frozen limbs for 8 hours straight, but we had an incredible time at the Neil Young concert yesterday. My wet frittata might tell you another story however. It rained almost the whole time, except for this brief sunny moment when I took the shot of the soggy Greek frittata and our pathetic and very unmotivated display of picnic food. Husky opened the show with a terrific set of beautiful tunes just as the sun peeked through a gap in the clouds, but before long the rain settled in again and it was all raindrop-pelting engines are go for the rest of the evening. Shane Howard followed with a great performance as the clouds thickened and the rain steadily fell on our heads. The enthusiastic crowd of around 5,000 were determined to endure the onslaught of cold, windy rain in order to see our hero, Neil Young. It was wonderful to be a part of such collective stamina! Our plastic ponchos did nothing to keep us dry – the ...

There are some major events going on this weekend in Melbourne. Four suburbs away from where we live, Formula 1 racing cars are tearing around our beautiful Albert Park Lake for the Grand Prix. The screaming din of these high-octane machines can be heard as far away as Sandringham which is almost 15 kilometres from the Grand Prix site. I have music playing here at home – a bit of Neil Young, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and some very loud Led Zeppelin thrown in for good measure – and I can still hear the constant gear changes of these noise polluting gas guzzlers. Thankfully, we are leaving town in about an hour to make our way 70 kilometres southwest of Melbourne to lovely Geelong where Neil Young (yes, the actual Neil Young ) will be performing at an outdoor concert. The event is known as "A Day on the Green" and several are held during the year with big-name artists on the bill, in the form of a half-day festival that is usually set up at a winery property. Victoria is home t...

Earlier this week I posted a recipe for Vegetarian Stuffed Tomatoes topped with Bechamel Sauce and mentioned the many and varied versions of this Greek dish known as "Yemista". Tony and I are planning on creating a cheese-filled yemista of sorts for one of our Meat-free/Carb-free week meals next week so I thought I should do a quick test run with some home-made ricotta to make sure it held up to the task. The ricotta performed very well indeed, perhaps a little too well... to the point of causing a scientific phenomenon known as Exploding Pepper Collapse. I think my choice of vegetable to stuff had a lot to do with the unfortunate result here. I've stuffed long, thin peppers before, but not with self-combusting cheese. Obviously the use of a self-standing vegetable like a plump tomato or a sturdy capsicum would avoid the gravitational tendency of ricotta cheese that, given the opportunity, will simply remove itself from its surrounds. And that's exactly why I condu...

Only one week to go for Meat Free Week! Are you taking the challenge? My non-vegetarian partner Tony is, and I will be joining him with a bit of a twist added to the challenge. Since I'm already vegetarian, we figured a way that I could get more involved would be to also change my eating habits for the week. Tony is on an eating plan designed for diabetics (he's Type 1 diabetic) which means no bread, no rice, no pasta, no fruit, no sugar, pretty much no carbohydrates except what's found in vegetables (in addition to proteins and some fats). In order for us to partake in Meat Free Week together, and to be able to cook together, I am taking on the challenge to go without carbs for the week. I love my carbs so this is going to be HARD for me. For Tony it means he'll just be replacing meat and fish with non-animal proteins which really won't be that hard at all. So as you can imagine, our usual eating preferences mean we rarely get a chance to cook meals together. We...