The last party of the Season

The holiday season is not over until my friend Susan has her "after the holidays" party. There's always lots of good food, drink and great friends.

 Susan and her hand made pasta that she served at the party

 Antipasto dish

 Smoked salmon

Bread basket

This year, my contribution to the party was a Cannellini Bean dip, finished with zaatar, olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and a generous sprinkle of chopped parsley.

 Cannellini bean dip served with raw veggies for dipping.

It was a hit at the party and here's how you can make it:

Cannellini bean dip recipe

2 14 oz. cans of cannellini beans

zest of one lemon

juice of one lemon

3 large garlic cloves

1/2 cup of Greek extra virgin olive oil

For finishing

2 tablespoons Zaatar

1/4 cup toasted pignoli nuts

drizzle of olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Directions:

Drain beans from their liquid and place in the bowl of your food processor. Add the chopped garlic and lemon juice. Process until the beans are very smooth. Add olive oil and keep processing until the dip becomes fluffy and smooth. Add the lemon zest and process for another 30 seconds. Taste the dip and add more olive oil if you want. 

To finish dip, place the prepared dip an a shallow bowl.

Sprinkle the Zaatar over, add the pignole nuts and drizzle with olive oil to taste. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with vegetables or crackers.







I brought some thyme rusks to serve.

Enjoy!

Maria

"Archangel" Ruminations

Besides cooking, skiing, swimming, traveling and blogging, I had shared with you that I write fiction. I have been searching for an agent to represent the sale of my novel, "Archangel," to traditional publishers for four or five years(who's counting right?) without any luck.

Archangel mosaic, from the Panagia Kanakaria Byzantine Church in Lythrangomi, Cyprus

I'm very happy to announce that this is the year I'm going to publish. If Cameron Diaz has published a book, if the comedian Steve Μartin published a novel, if Sylvester Stallone published a novel, I think it's high time I published my novel. Not because I'm a movie star, like them, but because I'm a writer.

My working Manuscript of "Archangel"

The manuscript is almost ready, I have a book cover concept, I've chosen a book designer, and before the end of this year, were going to have a book launch! Writing a book is one thing, producing it is another! I'm learning a lot about book publishing(more than I care to know, really!) and I'm learning it fast.

I'm very excited to share this, but I'm also a little scared because I'm about to let the book go out into the world. We writers can be perfectionists and feel that a piece of writing is never quite good enough. Yet, if no one reads it, if I don't take the risk of people not liking it, people will never have the chance to read my book.

In the meantime, I will keep you all posted on how things are going.


Wish me Luck,


Maria

Oatmeal- a healthy hot breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oatmeal with fruit and nuts

On the frigid mornings of this year of the Polar Vortex and the unending snow storms, we all need something warm to wake up to. One of the easiest hot breakfasts is oatmeal. Dressed up with lots of colorful fruit and nuts, milk, and maple syrup it becomes a powerhouse to fuel your morning!

This recipe is for two servings. Just scale up if you want to feed more people. Start with the best quality rolled oats you can afford. I like the oven toasted Trader Joe's Organic Oats.

 Combine half a cup of oats with 1 cup of fresh water in a small saucepan.

 Bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

 Divide into two plates. Add blueberries, rasberries, bananas, walnuts, and a tablespoon of maple syrup or to taste. Add half a cup of warm milk and enjoy!

You can really use any kind of fruit you have on hand, you can add a tablespoon of peanut butter or almond butter for added protein or even tahini, which is sesame paste, another nutritious source of protein.

Enjoy!

Maria

Peinirli -Stelios' Greek Cheese breads

Well, we call the breads Greek, they are however made from recipes brought to Greece by the refugees from Asia Minor after the destruction of Smyrna by the Turks. My late father-in-law, Demetrios Sifniades, was one of those refugees who arrived in Athens in 1922. He became a baker. This is his recipe as adapted by my husband, Stelios.

 Start with lots of onions

 Make your yeasty dough

 Cook the onions in butter(yes, you heard me right, BUTTER!)

 Chop lots of Feta Cheese

 Roll out the breads

 Fill them with the buttery onion, cheese mixture

  Bake at 500 for 14-20 minutes

Ready to eat!

Peinirli

The dough

8 cups all purpose flour + 4 cups water

1 spoonful honey or sugar

2 envelopes yeast

2 teaspoons salt

The topping                                       

1.5 lb feta

6 whole eggs

1 lb onions

½ stick butter (another 1 and ½ stick after baking)

½ teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven at the lowest setting (mine is 170 F) and turn off the heat. Place a large platter in the oven for a few minutes and let it warm up. Warm 4 cups water to body temperature (about 2-3 minutes in the microwave), add 1 spoonful of honey or sugar and stir to dissolve. Add 2 envelopes of yeast (about 14 grams total), stir and let stand for 5 min. Mix 6 cups of  flour with 2 teaspoons of salt in the large preheated platter, make a hole in the middle of the mixture and add the water with the yeast. Work the mass with a spatula or with your hands (it gets messy) and make a soft and sticky dough. Cover with an oiled paper and place the platter in the oven for one hour, at which time the volume of the dough should be about double the original size (make sure the platter is large enough; if the dough tends to overflow, punch it down).

Remove the platter from the oven (which should be almost cool by now) and heat the oven to 500 F. Spread about 1 cup of flour onto a large wood block and transfer the dough on it. Kneed the dough adding more flour as necessary until you obtain a firm non-sticky mass. Divide into 10 equal parts and shape each one into a ball. Cover the balls with oiled paper and let stand for about 15 minutes. Then work five of the balls into oblong cylinders, flatten the middle with your fingers so that you get something like a boat. Place the boats in a non-stick 11 by 17 baking sheet lined up with the short sides of the pan. If the boats tend to shrink, stretch them some more in the pan and press the middle to maintain the boat shape. 

Fill the boats with half the topping (see below) and place them in the oven, about two thirds off the bottom, for 14-20 min (use the shorter time if you are planning to refrigerate the  peinirli and serve later after reheating; if planning to serve immediately, check after 14 min to make sure the bottoms do not get burned). While baking, prepare the rest of the balls in another baking sheet. Before serving cut the boats into 4 or 5 sections each. Melt butter in a small casserole and pour over the pieces. The recommended amount is 1.5 sticks for the whole recipe, but you can use your judgment.

The topping

While the dough is rising in the oven, chop 1 lb onions, place them in a casserole with ½  stick of butter and half cup of water and saute until the onions are tender and no water remains. Let it cool. Crumble 1.5 lb feta in a bowl and add the onions. Add 6 eggs slightly beaten just before the topping is to be used and mix well with a spatula.

Enjoy!

Maria

Reminisces in Red

On my daily walk around the lakes today, a man, who was walking his dog on the opposite side of the road, greeted me. I waived back and walked on. But the man crossed the street and his chocolate dog came to sniff my legs. I reached out to pet the dog.


"I like your red jacket. It's a great jacket," the man said.


"Thank you," I said, somewhat amused. People are often friendly around the lakes and I've made some great friends this way. I didn't recognize him or the dog, but since it's pretty cold out and we're all bundled up walking briskly, sometimes it's hard to readily know who it is.


"I bought a red jacket similar to yours for my young bride who was coming from overseas." he continued.


Even though Stelios had vanished at the bend of the road, rushing ahead to take the bread out of the oven before it became toast, and even though I wanted to return home and work on my novel, and even though it was cold and damp, I stopped. I was hooked. I'm a sucker for a good story!


"Where was she coming from?" I asked the man with the chocolate dog.


"She was coming from Israel and it was 1952. You have to understand that in 1952, a red coat was not very common like it is today. A red coat stood out then."

I can imagine it did in a world of pastels where women wore soft pinks and baby blues, and pale yellows.


"The only difference was that hers was made of faux fur. She wore it a lot."

I didn't have to do much math to figure out that the young bride had to be an old woman now. Maybe he had even lost the wife of the 1950's red jacket, maybe when he saw me coming down the road, he thought, for a fleeting moment, there she is, coming to meet me.


"When we went back to Israel years later, she cut it and made muffs out of the sleeves," he said circling his right hand around the cuff of his left.


"Where is she today?" I asked petting the chocolate dog.


"She's disabled," he said. "Can't lift her arms, no cartilage left in her shoulders."
"Sorry," I said. "Please give her my best, even though I don't know her. Tell her from the woman with the red jacket."
"What's your name," he asked.
"Maria, what's yours?"

"Bob," he replied as we parted ways and the man with the chocolate dog walked home and I quickened my step to get home and taste a slice of  my husband's warm bread.