Greek Horta

Horta is a Greek word used generally for greens. It is a real staple in Greek cooking, and generally speaking is a pretty standard recipe, although the greens used are really interchangeable, and basically depend on what's available. I used vlina, a form of Amaranth. It's what is known as callaloo in the Caribbean. It's somewhat spinach like in taste, but a lot stronger, as it takes much longer to cook down. I found it in my local Greek grocery store, and a HUGE bunch (like a foot by a foot) cost 99 cents.

Other popular substitutes are rapini, dandelion greens, or beet leaves. Anything green and leafy, basically.


The recipe couldn't be simpler.

You'll need:

1 large bunch of vlina, or other greens
a splash of vinegar
salt
lemon juice
olive oil
a clove of garlic, thinly sliced (optional)

Pull the leaves and smaller stems off of the bigger pieces of stems (I'm not a huge fan of those parts, you can chop them up and use them if you want), and put the leaves into a large bowl filled with cold water and a splash of vinegar. Let them sit, and if necessary change up the water until the greens are clean. 

Boil some water in a large pot with a good amount of salt (2-3 tsp). Add in the greens to the boiling water, and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until they are good and wilted.

Drain the water, add a few good splashes of olive oil, the garlic (optional - this is my own personal taste) and a big splash of lemon juice. Taste, and add salt if you think it needs it.

This is great as a side dish, or even as a lunch with some tzatziki and bread. Yum!

 Have a great day!

Feature Friday August 5, 2011 & What-You-Eat Reveal

First off, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Roz over at la bella vita who just featured my recipe for Nutella Mascarpone Calzone this morning!

I've also been meaning to say thank you to Miz Helen and Jacque at the Soda Parlor for featuring me last week!

 

This past Wednesday, I started a new feature called What-You-Eat Wednesday. I featured the horribly processed ingredients of a mystery food, if you can even call it food. Here's what I posted. 
Milk Fat and Non Fat Milk, Fruit Base (Strawberries, Bananas, Crystalline Fructose, Inulin Fiber, Strawberry and Banana Flavor with Other Natural Flavors, Food Starch - Modified, Citric Acid, Sucralose, Potassium Sorbate as Preservative, Red 40, Blue 1)Inulin, Whey Protein Concentrate, Food Starch - Modified, Kosher Gelatin, Sodium Citrate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Cultures, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3. contains Live Active Yogurt Cultures Including: L-Acidophilus and Bulgaricus, Bifidobacterium Longum and S. Thermophilus. As I said, the first couple of ingredients were sort of a give away on this one, but I still think it's ridiculous. This mystery food is actually Weight Watchers' Strawberry Yogurt. Paola, you were pretty much on the nose.  

 I think fat-free yogurt is really gross. Not only because of the weird slimy texture or the fake taste to it, but also because most of the fat free yogurts in stores today can hardly even be called yogurt at all. My recommendation is to look for a natural yogurt, if you like even a low fat yogurt, but one with real ingredients. Then add your own ingredients. A little honey, maybe a touch of natural jam. Some nice ripe or even frozen fruit and a splash of real vanilla. It's different, but when you do this and eventually try fat free processed yogurt again, you WILL realize how gross it is. 
On to today's Feature Friday!!!!
This week there are two recipes I want to feature, because they're both so great, I couldn't pass one up.
First is from a new follower of mine from the Red Door Kitchen. This week, she (at least I get the impression she's a she, she smartly doesn't post her name from what I can see) featured a wonderful looking Classic Chicken Alfredo. It looks creamy and delcious, and it's something I haven't had in a while and am thinking I should do so pretty darn quick.

You should definitely go check out her blog. It's got lots of GREAT recipes.
The second recipe I want to show you this week is from Julie over at Little Bit of Everything. This week, she tried out one of the recipes she found online for Green Bean Salad with Goat Cheese. Now... I don't know how you all feel, but in my books, anything combining green beans with goat or feta cheese is bound to be a good thing. What I though was interesting about this beautiful looking salad was that there is no oil in it. But you know what? I think that green beans are in good season right now, and they probably don't even need it, especially with all the other great things that go into this salad. 

Julie has a great blog and you can go check it out here.
Thanks for stopping by. If you have a recipe you would like featured on Feature Friday, please let me know! And if you are featured, feel free to grab a button. Happy Friday everyone!

Calamari Spaghettini

So... I bought some Calamari last week, intending to fry it up just like my father in law does. But the day I took it out of the freezer, I just wasn't feeling all of that oil. So I decided to do something a little different, which I later realized is sort of a classic Italian dish: pan fried calamari with spaghetti (spaghettini in this case) and tomato sauce.  This is what I ended up with:

Ingredients (4 servings)

1 lb of cleaned calamari
A few good glugs of olive oil
Lemon Juice
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup fresh oregano
1 tsp dried chili flakes
1 bay leaf
S & P to taste
1/2 an onion
14 oz can tomato puree
1/4 cup of white or rose wine
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley
1/2 lb spaghettini
Fresh Parmesan

So I started off by chopping up all of the garlic and fresh herbs. I let the Calamari, which I sliced up thinly, sit in 2 of the cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp fresh oregano, 1/2 tsp chili flakes, salt and pepper, and a splash each of olive oil and lemon juice. Let it marinate for about a half an hour.

Fry up the onion, finely diced, in some olive oil until they are translucent. Add in the chili flakes, salt and pepper, and at the very end the rest of the garlic. De-glaze the pan with the wine, and cook it out for a minute. Add your tomatoes and the fresh oregano, on the stem if you want (you can just pick it out at the end) and the bay leaf.

 

 Turn up the heat and bring the sauce to a slow boil. Turn it down and let simmer for about a half an hour. When coming to about half way through cooking, put on the water for your pasta and salt it to the point that it tastes like the ocean. Cook the pasta until al' dente, but save about 3 or 4 ladles full of the water before you drain it. 

 When everything is just about done, fry up the calamari in about a tbsp more of olive oil. It's important that you don't overcook it, because it'll be sooo rubbery it won't even be worth eating. I ended up cooking it in batches so that it wouldn't be too watery (since it was frozen calamari), and it took about 2 minutes for each batch. If you do end up with water in the pan, add it right into the pasta, it's good flavour! I knew it was done because the outer edges of the rings sort of stuck out, making the ring sort of concave. Does that make sense? You can sort of see it in the above picture, and I also gave it another squirt of lemon juice and served it in a bowl on the side to add directly on top of he pasta so it wouldn't disappear into the tomato sauce .

So, I like to put the pasta into a big bowl, and serve it family style. Add in a few splashes of olive oil so it doesn't stick together. Also add in the reserved pasta water, some tomato sauce, fresh parsley and lots of Parmesan. Give it a good stir, and then top it with more parsley and cheese, and serve it up with the calamari on each plate!

 

This is how much wine my husband poured himself because he saw I wouldn't have a full glass.... He's so funny.... And yes, that's his GI Joe shirt in the background.

Enjoy!

What-You-Eat Wednesday

No weigh in this week. I honestly didn't think to weigh myself before breakfast, but I also didn't have a great week this week. I'll keep you posted!

So I've decided to introduce another new feature to my blog. Welcome, dear readers, to the very first edition of What-You-Eat Wednesday. Inspired once again by Dr. Will Clower's Fat Fallacy, each week, I will be posting the ingredients to a commonly purchased, likely diet-friendly food, but will not reveal its name (or where I got my info) until the next day. I hope you'll try guessing what it is!

Ingredients: Milk Fat and Non Fat Milk, Fruit Base (Strawberries, Bananas, Crystalline Fructose, Inulin Fiber, Strawberry and Banana Flavor with Other Natural Flavors, Food Starch - Modified, Citric Acid, Sucralose, Potassium Sorbate as Preservative, Red 40, Blue 1)Inulin, Whey Protein Concentrate, Food Starch - Modified, Kosher Gelatin, Sodium Citrate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Cultures, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3. contains Live Active Yogurt Cultures Including: L-Acidophilus and Bulgaricus, Bifidobacterium Longum and S. Thermophilus.



The point of this feature is to make you think about what you are actually injesting. I will let you all decide if these products are worth eating.


I feel like if I was reading this myself, I might be able to figure out what it is. But, come on, talk about processed! I'll give you a clue: Mireille Guiliano recommends eating the real version of this twice a day. Take a stab at it! 


Have a great day!

New York Style Pizza Sauce

So when I started making pizza using the breadmaker a little while back, I knew I'd have to find something to a New York pizza, something that the hubster absolutely loves, and I do to. Actually, though, our favourite New York style pizza doesn't come from New York City at all, it's from Lake George, a little place on Canada Street called Capri. Whenever we make it down there, we go at least twice. Our favourite New York pizza is just cheese, or pepperoni and cheese, although otherwise I prefer pizza that also has green peppers and mushrooms on it, what we call an All Dressed here in Quebec.

ANYway, the thing about New York pizza is the thin-ish crust and the specific tomato sauce. I searched far and wide, and finally came across what I consider to be a great recipe over at www.seriouseats.com .

In the past, I've always gone to tomato paste for a nice pizza sauce, but it turns out that the trick is using canned tomatoes. Here's the recipe.

New York Pizza Sauce (enough for 2 12 inch pies):

1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 medium cloves garlic, grated or finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
pinch red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
2 six-inch sprigs fresh basil with leaves attached
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and split in half
1 teaspoon sugar

• Puree the tomatoes in a food processor until you have only very small chunks
• Heat butter and oil (I sometimes just use the oil), and cook the garlic for a minute or two, along with the oregano, red pepper flakes and. 
• Add the remaining ingredients except salt, bring to a simmer and reduce until bubbles barely break the surface. The first time I made this sauce, I thought the idea of adding onion halves was strange, but really it just adds another mild level of flavour rather than a stronger onion taste. Cook until the sauce is reduced by half, about an hour. Season to taste with salt. 

That's it! I have a friend who's husband works in the pizza business, and apparently sometimes ketchup is a good addition for sweetness. I'd say if you're going to try that, omit the sugar, at least at first. Here's a cheese pizza I came up with.

Serve with a salad. My only issue here is trying to stop when I'm full!!!

That's all she wrote, folks. Have a great day! If you want a good pizza dough recipe (although I don't claim this one has anything to do with New York style pizza dough, I just roll it thinner), check out my post for Nutella Mascarpone Calzones.

Cheesy Bruschetta Chicken

Like it or not, one of the perks of being a teacher is being home in the summertime. It just gives you time to relax and do things at a more natural pace. I was looking in my freezer, trying to figure out what to take out for dinner. Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, one of my favs. I was thinking something tomato-ey, but knew it was a little hot for a cacciatore. Over the course of the day, I thought about what I had available. Some ends of two local cheeses, one goat, one brie-like cow cheese, fresh tomatoes, and of course my herb garden. AH! Bruschetta, chicken, and gooey cheese. How can you go wrong?
So I came up with this recipe, which I served with a green salad with the addition of basil, chives, oregano, feta, and a standard red wine vinegar dressing  (note to self - the hubster will pretty much eat any vegetable if I stick feta cheese in with it...). Oh, and of course a couple of good glasses of wine.

Recipe (serves 3-4):

Chicken:

6 chicken thighs (or 4 chicken breasts)

1/4 dried basil

1/8 tsp garlic powder

Red chili flakes and s & p to taste

About 4 oz stinky, gooey cheese (whatever you like)

Bruschetta:

2 chopped tomatoes

3 tbsp fresh chopped basil

2 cloves of chopped garlic

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 sundried tomatoes, finely chopped (optional - I didn't have any, but they are a great addition if you have them on hand)

s & p to taste

Season the chicken thighs with dried herbs and spices. I swear, I never use garlic powder, but I knew if I used fresh garlic in this case, it would burn, and I wanted that extra layer of flavouring. Roast chicken in the oven on 425°F for about 35 minutes. Check by poking a hole. If the juices run clear, it's cooked. Broil skin if not dark enough.

While the chicken is cooking, add all the bruschetta ingredients into a bowl. It's pretty juicy, but great for bread-mopping purposes....

Slice up your cheese into smaller pieces. Remember, in this case a little goes a long way, you don't need to kill it with the cheese. A minute or two before the chicken is done, stick a couple of little pieces on top of each thigh and stick it back in the oven until it starts to ooze.

Plate the chicken, and smother it with the bruscetta, and serve it with a grean salad. Don't forget the wine!

Happy Sunday!

Feature Friday - July 29, 2011

Welcome to the second edition of Feature Friday, the day where I feature a recipe that really embodies what the Mediterranean Diet is about: whole foods, fresh, seasonal ingredients, and simple, wonderful flavour.

In the short time that I've been writing this blog, I've been so excited to find other blogs who do focus on these ideals, and this week I'm featuring not only a recipe, but a blog. Roz, from la bella vita, really gets this whole lifestyle, and her blog is amazing and inspiring. You should check it out, and I definitely suggest you follow her. Earlier this week, Roz shared her idea for Panzanella Frittata, which not only is full of fresh, delicious ingredients, but also uses up left-overs, which is a real necessity in my books. We've all been in that spot where, at the end of the week, we find we've put things in the fridge with the intention of using them up, only to realize that we've missed the boat and it's too late.

Roz' Panzanella Frittata features a leftover Panzanella, which is a classic tomato-bread salad with fresh basil, which she took the bread out of, fried up a little, added eggs and baked into a beautiful, fluffy, browned frittata. It looks beautiful and delicious!

In the summer, personally I find that I'm driven towards salads and bbq, but recently I've been reminded that eggs are actually a perfect vehicule for showing off the fresh ingredients of summer. In this case, fresh tomatoes, basil and red onions. As another example, I recently took a trip to the farmer's market and bought some duck eggs, which are wonderfully fluffy and highly nutritious (and would be an excellent option for this recipe), and cooked them up with fresh chives and local cheese. Eggs are also perfect for summer, because they are so quick to cook up. Roz' recipe only went into the oven for 10 minutes.

Thanks for the inspiration Roz. I look forward to reading more of your recipes in the future! Dearest Reader's, check her out today!

If you have a recipe you'd like to have featured on Feature Friday, please let me know. And if you do get featured, feel free to grab my button!

Have a fantastic Friday all!