Monday breakfast

What I wanted for my Monday morning "breakfast without toast" required 5-10 minutes preparation the night before so that the chia seeds and to a lesser extent the other ingredients could absorb the kefir.  But it was well worth the planning ahead and the ten minutes the night before. And it certainly doesn't take longer to prepare than toast! Enjoy!


Ingredients

3 tablespoons chia seeds
1 tablespoon tahini
2 dried figs
1/2 apple
6 raspberries (fresh or frozen)
100-150 mls kefir

Mode

Place chia seeds in bowl which will be used for breakfast
Add tahini to bowl
Roughly chop the figs and place in bowl
Chop the apple into bite size piecesand and add
Mix all ingredients thoroughly
Add kefir to bowl and mix well
Sprinkle raspberries on top
Place in refrigerator overnight
Eat for breakfast and enjoy!!

Saturday breakfast!

It is hard to go past this as my yummiest breakfast!  No recipe is required here.  Just put the juicy black olives on a plate. I normally have six. Crumble about 100 gr of Greek fetta onto the plate. Grind black pepper on top!  Who needs toast when you can have olives and fetta?

Lunch!

I snapped a photo of my lunch earlier and not long later got a comment on Instagram that it was not at Couple Cinos, a cafe run by some friends!  True.  Well, Nemo, this is just to prove to you that I often prefer the comforts of home at lunch-time!

This is a quick, fresh lunch put together quickly from a range of ingredients that were on hand.  The flavours were lovely and I could easily have eaten more serves. However, the time has come to get on the straight and narrow after the eating excesses of the Christmas and New Year season.

For the wholegrain rice pilau, I used the remains of a packet of Tilda wholegrain pilau which I am very partial too.  It is wholegrain basmati flavoured with cummin, curry leaf and fenugreek.  If you wanted to add your own rice, I would add some extra cummin, curry leaf and fenugreek to get the added flavour. I like Vietnamese mint a lot, so I added quite a lot. You can add what feels good to you.


Ingredients

105 gr can pink salmon
200 gr cherry bocconcini
1 Lebanese cucumber
1/2 red capsicum
1 small carrot
Vietnamese mint
40 gr pomegranate seeds
150 wholegrain pilau
1 tbs lemon-infused olive oil

Mode

Drain the bocconcini and place in serving bowl
Chop cucumber and capsicum and add
Peel and cut the carrot in strips and add
Add the pilau, pomegranate seeds and salmon (including liquid from the can)
Stir to combine
Chop the Vietnamese mint and add
Sprinkle over the oil
Toss thoroughly until all ingredients are combined and the oil and salmon liquid cover the other ingredients.

Breakfast!

This is another in my series of "Breakfasts without toast" for those of you who don't believe one can start the day without bread (or sugar). I always do and I don't feel inclined to make and eat "bread substitutes" which just are not bread.  This is fairly similar to one I posted the other day, but includes Turkish apricots instead of Greek figs. And yes I know that there is "sugar" in fruit but I aim not to eat added, white and deadly, sugar.

Ingredients

3 heaped soupspoons strained yoghurt
1/2 apple
cinnamon
6 Turkish dried apricots
20 almonds
35 gr pomegranate seeds

Mode

Chop the apple roughly and place in breakfast bowl
Sprinkle with cinnamon
Roughly chop the apricots and place in bowl
Add almonds.
Spoon on the yoghurt
Top off with pomegranate seeds.
Enjoy!

Sweet potato, chicken and endive

I'm still experimenting with various ways of baking chicken in lemon juice. There seems to a be an endless variety of possibilities. This time I used chicken fillets, and cooked them with endive, sweet potato, and green peas! I also steamed the endive before adding it to the second stage of cooking in the oven. Again, I served it with wholemeal basmati, but it would be fine alone if you want to reduce carbs, or you could serve it with pasta. The meatless option is on its way!

Ingredients

600 gr chicken fillets (without skins)
2 dsp seasalt flakes
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp sliced ginger
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 sweet potato
2 tbs lemon-infused olive oil
juice of two lemons (about 150 ml)
1 cup of frozen baby green peas
1 bunch of baby endive

Mode

Preheat oven to 210c
Chop the chicken and arrange in a baking dish
Slice the sweet potato in rounds and then halve them
Add the sweet pepper to the baking dish
Sprinkle with salt flakes
Peel and crush garlic and slice ginger
Add garlic, ginger, turmeric and oil to chicken and sweet potato
Mix thoroughly
Roast for 30 minutes
Meanwhile squeeze lemons
Roughly chop endive and steam lightly
Remove the chicken from the oven and pour over the lemon juice
Add the green peas and endive and stir to combine
Return to oven and roast for another 20 minutes.

Chicken with chickpeas and endive

A couple of weeks ago when I was trying to solve the dilemma of what to cook for dinner, I came up with a recipe of chicken thighs with turmeric and broad beans. This was delicious and I commented at the time that chickpeas would be an interesting alternative to the broadbeans I used in the last recipe.

This recipe is different to that extent, but also because I cooked chicken drummettes and left out the chilli oil I had added to the chicken thighs. I also used a bunch of baby endive that I had on hand. I added the chopped endive fresh to the chicken and found that I needed to stir it a couple of times to ensure that it combined properly as the endive softened. Steaming the endive lightly beforehand would obviate the need for this.

The flavours were all delicious together and I served it on a bed of nutty wholemeal basmati which blended with it beautifully.

Ingredients

700 gr chicken drummettes
1 dsp seasalt flakes
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp sliced ginger
2 tsp ground turmeric
juice of two lemons (about 150 ml)
400 gr cooked chickpeas
1 bunch of baby endive

Mode

Preheat oven to 210c
Arrange the chicken drummettes in a baking dish
Sprinkle with salt flakes
Peel and crush garlic and slice ginger
Add garlic, ginger, and turmeric to chicken
Mix thoroughly
Roast for 30 minutes
Meanwhile squeeze lemons
Roughly chop endive and steam lightly if desired
Remove the chicken from the oven and pour over the lemon juice
Add the chickpeas and endive and stir to combine
Return to oven and roast for another 20 minutes.
If you have not steamed the endive, stir at least once during the second phase of cooking to ensure that the mixture combines properly as the endive softens.

Caprese salad with baby octopus and pomegranate

Today is a 41c/105.8f day in Melbourne and lunch was always going to be a salad from what there was in the refrigerator. Cherry bocconcini, tomatoes, cucumber, and basil seemed like a good caprese basis and I added some grilled baby octopus fortuitously purchased from the deli at my beloved Piedimonte's as well as the rest of the pomegranate seeds I had had for breakfast. For a vegetarian alternative, you could just leave out the octopus.

I used dry basil as I have some hanging up to dry in the kitchen and I wanted to use it, but fresh basil would go well and give a fresher taste.  And I just used the dressing that the octopus was in in rather than making anything special.  But you could add what you like, such as a simple oil, vinegar and garlic dressing.

Ingredients

200 gr cherry bocconcini
2 tomatoes
1 Lebanese cucumber
150 gr grilled baby octopus
Basil (dry or fresh)
40 gr pomegranate seeds
Dressing of choice


Mode

Drain the bocconcini and place in salad bowl
Wash the tomatoes, cut in wedges and add to the cheese
Slice the cucumber lengthwise and then crosswise (see illustration) and add to bowl
Chop each baby octopus in half or thirds dependeng on size and add.
Add the pomegranate seeds and basil.
Pour over dressing and toss thoroughly.
Serves two

Breakfast for a hot day

My friend, Trish, is always fascinated by what I have for breakfast as for her bread is the staff of life and she cannot imagine starting the day without her toast.  So this is for you, Trish! Because it makes me feel better, I try to eat as little as possible in the way of sugar and flour essentially.  And that means that I try not to eat bread - at least at home.

I do eat sugar in fruit and vegetables, and carbs in them and in rice and pulse unlike my more obsessive anti-carb friends. But I don't buy fruit yoghurt, for example, as it almost always has added sugar as well as the fruit.  My yoghurt of choice is plain Greek yoghurt (i.e. strained yoghurt) and I add my own fresh and dried and frozen fruit as well as nuts to it. Once I used to strain my own yoghurt, but nowadays there are many varieties available and buying it already strained means that what to do with the whey is someone else's problem.

This is the breakfast I had today to start a 41c day and to keep me company while I struggled with the use of a seemingly forever elusive and elastic Greek verb. Coffee was, of course, also needed as well as cat. I await the verdict of my teacher on my imperfect understanding of the verb, but my breakfast was yummy.

Ingredients

3 heaped soupspoons strained yoghurt
1/2 apple
cinnamon
2 dried figs
20 almonds
35 gr pomegranate seeds

Mode

Chop the apple roughly and place in breakfast bowl
Sprinkle with cinnamon
Roughly chop the figs and place in bowl
Add almonds and pomegranate seeds
Top off with the yoghurt
Enjoy!

Πρασινόπιττα/Prasinopitta

This is for you, Roza! I was planning to cook seskoulopitta yesterday when I had a conversation with my teacher, Roza, about how much meat we ate (or didn't eat).  This conversation, as well as reading regular descriptions from Giannis Makridakis about morning gathering of greens, reminded me of a hortopitta that I used to cook years ago and inspired this recipe. I can't remember exactly what I cooked in that pie but maybe it didn't matter: just lots of greens. As it was a Lenten dish, the filling was only greens.



This time I decided to try a combination of the two dishes.  This meant I included the egg and cheese from the seskoulopitta but also a variety of greens. I am on purpose fairly vague about the measurements for the greens: just do what is good for you. You might like silverbeet with just a hint of endive, or to make it the other way around with a predominant endive flavour. It's your choice. Or add what you pick in your morning gathering of greens for the day, if you are a Makridakis follower. I used Sambal oelek as I like cooking with it, but you could just add some finely chopped hot chilli instead. Maybe half a chilli? Or depending on your taste.

For all I know, Greek women have been cooking something like this for centuries. Nothing is new. But it was what I felt like cooking and eating yesterday and it was inspired by that conversation with Roza.



Ingredients

1/2 bunch of silverbeet
1 bunch of young endive
1 bunch dill
3 spring onions
375 gr ricotta
200gr fetta
1 egg
1/2 tsp Sambal oelek
3 garlic cloves
Phyllo pastry
Olive oil
Black sesame seeds



Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Roughly chop the silverbeet, discarding the thick stalks
Roughly chop the endive, discarding the base of the bunch.
Chopp the dill roughly, discarding thick stalks
Clean and slice the spring onions
Place the vegetables in a steamer
Peel and crush the garlic and add
Add Sambal oelek
Steam on the stovetop until soft, stirring occasionally
Meanwhile place the ricotta in a bowl
Crumble the fetta by hand on top
Add the egg and stir to combine
When the vegetables are cooked, add to the mixture and combine well
Using a pastry brush and olive oil line the bottom of a baking dish with about six layers of phyllo, taking care to oil well between each layer
Add the cheese and vegetable mixture to the phyllo
Fold the phyllo over the mixture and cover with several layers of phyllo brushing with oil between each layer
Fold in the edges and oil the top layer
Sprinkle with black sesame seeds
With a sharp knife cut the top of the pie into desired portions. DO NOT cut through the bottom of the pie
Cook for 45 minutes in 180c oven until top is crisp and golden
Leave to rest for 2-3 minutes after cooking
Then with a sharp knife cut the portions through to the bottom of the pie.



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Anne's Veal St Clements #blog12daysxmas Day 10

One of my all time favourite veal recipes is Veal St Clements from Two in the kitchen by Rita Erlich and my old teacher, Dennis Pryor.  This is my take on the recipe, inspired also by the two stage cooking process that Abla  (The Lebanese Kitchen) uses for her Chicken wings in garlic recipe. But again it is a modified version where I have reversed the stages so that the veal doesn't dry out.  It is also a shorter process than the long, slow simmer suggested by Rita and Dennis, but I think it comes up with the same delicious combination of flavours of veal, orange, lemon and red wine but through a different pathway.  Why don't you try both and see which you prefer?

I served the veal on wholemeal rice with sweet potato that had been roasted with whole garlic cloves and rosemary. 

Ingredients

500 gr veal schnitzel pieces
1 tsp salt flakes
2 cloves garlic
2 tbs lemon infused olive oil
juice of two lemons
juice of one orange
150 ml red wine


Mode

Preheat oven to 210c
Chop the veal into small pieces (about a quarter of the schnitzel)
Arrange the veal in a baking dish
Sprinkle with salt flakes
Peel and crush garlic
Add garlic and oil to veal
Mix thoroughly
Roast for 20 minutes
Meanwhile squeeze lemons and orange
Add red wine to citrus mixture
Remove the veal from the oven and pour over the citrus and wine
Stir to combine
Return to oven and roast for another 30 minutes.