Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

W ent to the local Herb and Spice market and got some smoked paprika made from the Florinis type of red pepper. It is delicious....

I don't like sweets that are too sweet and syrupy similar to the ones made in North Greece and Turkey with syrup drooling all over the place where your throat burns from excess sugar.  On the other hand I love cookies with the back-taste of butter made from ewe's milk. These cookies are more or less similar to the European Butter Shortbread cookies. These are the Greek Kou - ra - bi- edes. (Κουραμπιέδες) and can be found in commerce and homes which make them only during the Christmas Holidays....

T he day after Boxing Day (26th December) is also festive. In fact all the days between Christmas and New Year's are festive. We were invited over to my cousin's home for lunch way, way on the other side of town (1 hour by car including traffic). I promised to cook for them Pork Hocks with sauerkraut and steamed baby potatoes. As previously posted on December 19th, I smoked the hocks so all I needed was to buy the sauerkraut and baby potatoes and I was....

F i rst time ever for me to bone a chicken was on December 7th 2011. Two days ago I repeated the affair with a 10 pound turkey and it came out beautifully, of course with the step by step explanation of Chef's Chef of Chefs Jacques Pépin as suggested by Chef John in one of his posts (Deboning A Turkey By Proxy) in Food Wishes.com.  If it weren't for Chef John I wouldn't have known about Jacques Pépin even though I had his book of practice since twelve years. So for Boxing Day I decided to make a Turkey Ballotine with our family's stuffing which....

 MY FAMILY AND I WOULD LIKE TO WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS DAY FULL OF HEALTH, LOVE COMPASSION, PEACE AND MOST OF ALL DELICIOUS FOOD !!

T here are many ways to make Baklava. One way is the one made by Maria on July 25th.  Another is our Greek Chef Patissier Stelios Parliarlos way with a distinctive change by me: type of butter used, quantity of syrup put at the end and cut.....

I apologize to my readers for using the wrong terms in my post dated December 19th 2011 about curing and smoking fresh pork, pork belly and hocks. It is now fixed thanks to Derrick Riches from About.com Barbecues Guide who showed me the light with subtlety. Thanks for your attention, Stelio

J ust a thought to share with you the next time you will be alone at home, expecting to have a late lunch at about 5 pm while you did not have breakfast yet...

O n December 7th I went to the Athens Meet Market to buy a slab of fresh bacon, 3 hocks, and two boneless halves of  fresh pork leg which I intended to cure for an average of 10 days, then to smoke them for the holidays...

Ok that's it! This posting is the last of the Mohecans! Four hundred and sixteen postings of every kind with pictures by somebody who had no idea at all what Blogging meant, is not bad. As from tomorrow I will start enjoying the holidays ....what holidays??....I am always on holiday, I am retired!! Now I don't even have to think myself to sleep every night thinking of what I am going to be cooking next day.  It was just like counting sheep!! However... in a few days you will be getting my Haxe with, beer, and sauerkraut boiled potatoes recipe. Haxe is the pig's hock in German which are presently being cured and should be ready in about a week. In another 5 gallon plastic container I have two pork boneless hams also being cured which should be ready in about 8 days.  Then there is the smoking which will take 1 day then our Holiday treats will be ready!...

A s I am proceeding towards the end of my Odessy and finally reaching my Ithaka .  An Ancient Greek proverb says that every person on this Earth is a Ulysses searching for Ithaka " and when this man succeeds in life, is content and happy, he can say that he has finally reached 'his' Ithaka ." I find this saying so romantic!! I am proposing easy recipes so I will be remembered as the "Guy with the hot food but easy recipes". This Tappas, finger food, appetizers, meze, whatever you would like to call it is easy, quick, and inexpensive....

Y ep! Today is Final Countdown No. 3.  The global economy is not helping the entertainment industry very much. The various cuts in salaries, benefits etc. is making everybody "tighten their belts" to the point of asphyxiation.  Therefore restaurant and catering owners have to come up with different ways of preparing tasty, presentable dishes with the strictest minimum cost so as to come out ahead at the end of the day....

C ountdown number 4. Oh yes one year's blogging is slowly coming to an end. I will not forget the help of a fellow blogger who took me by the hand through the very first steps. I cannot mention her name for obvious reasons.  God bless E.M.S.! I prepared a bit of a gigantic mirepoix using the left over button onions of yesterday, sliced carrots, and celery sticks....

O k everybody the Final Countdown Has Arrived. Today we start counting from 5 going to 4 tomorrow, to 3 after tomorrow and so on till we arrive to Zero and that will be the end of my daily posting. After that I will write at my leisure. This is one unbelievably delicious dish which goes very well with braised Pork Tenderloin (filet) with its wine porcini mushrooms and mashed potatoes....

Kayseri or Caesarea is the capital of Cappadocia pronounced (Kappadokia) in Antalia region of Turkey. The word Caesarea comes from the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, who was born by Caesarian Section (non natural way to deliver a baby). During his reign many areas of the Roman Empire were named after him including Caeserea in Israel. It is known that all that region was once Byzantine, then fell under the Ottoman Empire which later became Turkey. And to think all that all these places might still have been Greek if the Byzantines knew how to take better care of their affairs and not try to stab each others backs as the Greeks do now. Kayseri was well known for its culinary delights such as the Pastirma (dried meat) not Pastrami which is a totally different food, and Socuk (sausage). Today we are going to make a Kayseri Pie similar to the Basterma pie made on August 7th 2011 but with a difference : this one contains tomatoes....

A fter nearly a year of daily posting I sort of feel close to my readers and would like to believe that they are close to me. What would blogging be anyway if we cannot express our feeling, sentiments, ideas, mess-ups, successes etc. Today all three of us, (by now you guys should know that we are three in the family). Barbara was in Piraeus, Maria and I were running after three important meetings where both of us had to attend together. This meant there was no food at home for lunch. So here's what we did...

H ad leftover chicken and spinach from yesterday, ( I had boiled a skinless chicken for chicken salads, snacks, club sandwiches etc.)  sliced very thinly a couple of nice white onions, half used tomato,  added butter, salt, thick Greek yogurt, MILD Madras curry, Garam Masala, two ladles of chicken broth, freshly scissored cilantro and had today's lunch ready in ten minutes!!

M y heading is supposed be funny if you know good slang French. Poulet in French slang means policeman, but in proper French means chicken. So basically I mean Chicken sausage. In two words it is nothing but a stuffed boned chicken. On condition of course that you know how to bone a chicken which is not easy. Chef Jacques Pepin in his book "La Technique" very well illustrates on page 232 /technique 90 how to bone a chicken. E ven Julia Child said: and I quote "I am really thrilled with Jacques Pepin's 'La Technique'. It will be a classic for years and years to come, and there is nothing like it anywhere, including in France." Pepin goes on to explain the difference between a Galantine , a Balotine and a Saucisse de Poulet. The Balotine  is a roasted boned chicken and a Poulet en Saucisse is roasted boned chicken similar to what I am preparing in this post....

W e have finally learned how to make a Mexican salsa. This salsa is basically made of fresh vegetables. My fridge is full so is my freezer (don't know till when)  what can I do with the extra salsa...

The Right Honourable The Earl of Sandwich PC FRS "John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich , PC , FRS (3 November 1718 – 30 April 1792) [1] was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather, Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich , as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. During his life he held various military and political offices, including Postmaster General , First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for the Northern Department , but is perhaps best known for the claim that he invented the modern concept of the sandwich . " The above passage was copied verbatim from Wikipedia on Google. When someone is retired, it very often  happens that he or she, just does not want to do anything.Not even write a decent post for his readers. So this time I am going to share with you a very lazy sandwich I fix myself for lunch when I am in this state. Can you imagine not to even have the energy to make myself a spaghettata.?! Yes it is that bad... ...

Caution: Very Spicy Hot!! Ingredients For Our Salsa - You See The Long Greek Chilies.. T here are many things I don't know. I have this great urge to learn and share them with you. Like "Salsa" for example. I don't mean Salsa the Latin dance or the Greek salsa which means a sauce of any kind , I mean Salsa used with Mexican food.  Today I am going to learn how to make it which I know is very easy and I am sure many of you guys out there especially people of Alaska and the rest of United States know how to make. So...now for salsa...

I f you remember the Gnocchi Di Patate Al Gorgonzola post dated May 25th 2011, "G nocchi Alla Romana” is also a typical dish in Italy.  From the name you can see that the origin of this recipe is from Lazio (Rome's Football team)...

D ecember is the month for celebrations not only with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day,  Boxing Day, and New Year's Eve but also birthdays and name days in my family.

A Cucumber And Fresh Mint Raita. Courtesy of   Wikipedia on Googl H as it ever occurred  to you that the reason why people from India or Pakistan are good in mathematics and computer science is because of the food they have been eating generation after generation? Which means if we keep on eating Indian / Pakistani food morning, lunch and dinner for the rest of our lives our children may come out to be mathematics geniuses!!!.. Anyway I wouldn't mind eating it everyday. Coming back to our subject of fire extinguishing, the Raïta , is a flavored yogurt...