Apples Baked in Sweet Wine with Dried Fruits, and Spices

Tuesday March 1st, 2022Tuesday March 1st, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

I remember the baked apples my mother used to make all the time, back when the fruit we got in Athens was not wonderful as Fuji apples are today. Costas who grew up in Volos, remembers the exquisite heirloom apples from Pelion he loved. They have now disappeared as the trees are grafted to uniformly produce big red apples with little taste or aroma.

Fuji are grown in Greece the last few years and they are by far the best –and more expensive. For this simple, plant-based (vegan) dessert I loosely follow my mothers recipe.

Unlike northern Europeans and Americans we don’t add butter to baked apples. I would serve these as dessert, but I know that some people would like to compliment game, poultry or hearty winter meats with baked apples.

6-7 Servings (more…)

Spanakopita-like Bread with Greens, Scallions, Herbs, and Cheese

Tuesday February 8th, 2022Wednesday February 9th, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

I usually have pieces of my basic bread or laganes dough in the fridge, so the other day I decided to use the wild greens Costas had collected from the garden to make this fast and irresistible greens and cheese tart, or pizza-like spanakopita. If you like, you can top the greens with a mixture of yogurt and egg just before transferring the skillet to the oven (see variation).

You can probably make this spanakopita-bread with store-bought, whole-wheat pizza dough, if you are not up to making you own bread dough from scratch.

For a 9-inch round bread, or 2 stuffed loaves (more…)

My Bread and/or Laganes (flatbreads)

Monday February 7th, 2022Tuesday February 8th, 2022 aglaia 2 Comments

Inspired from the traditional, fragrant festive Greek island recipes, this is the basic bread dough I use for various kinds of loaves but also for lagana (plural laganes) the flat, focaccia-like loaves that I make all the time, topped with any kind of seasonal vegetables or fruit —sliced fresh figs when in season, or wine-soaked dried figs in the winter, tomato or peppers in the summer, kumquat with spicy cheese etc.

Instead of baking the bread on the stone, I often heat a cast iron or clay casserole and when the loaf is ready, I carefully transfer it inside the heated casserole, close the lid and let it bake inside for about 30 minutes then uncover, and continue baking for another 20 minutes or until it is done. Baked inside the casserole the bread gets a more substantial crust.

I also flatten and roll pieces of the dough stuffing it with greens or broccoli. Lately I invented a pizza-like spanakopita, topping this beautiful dough with the mixture of greens, herbs, feta, and other cheeses –the same one that I use for my winter greens’ pie, where I combine not just spinach but also a variety of wonderful wild, foraged greens. I shaped the round bread-spanakopita in a non-stick skillet, and fried it for about 6-8 minutes, until the bottom started to brown, then continued to bake it in the oven.

Yields 1 large or 2 medium loaves, or 2-3 flat laganes (more…)

Very Lemony ‘Chess Pie’

Saturday February 5th, 2022Thursday February 10th, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

I came across a picture of this wonderful, lemony pie at the bottom of my old friend Ari Weinzweig’s inspiring weekly newsletter. I was very intrigued; Ari had no recipe, just mentioned that the pie was sold at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, part of his iconic deli empire in Ann Arbor.

I never heard of this dessert and was baffled by its name. Looking it up I found lots of recipes online. I chose the one from King Arthur Mill, since I love their products, and know that their recipes work, as I have occasionally used them as starting point for my baking.

I substituted olive oil for the shortening and butter in the recipe, as I always do, and added some carob flour to the crust, because I wanted to make it dark, thinking that the lemon cream would be light-colored, so the contrast would be nice. Of course the filling darkened considerably by the time it set, as the sugar-lemon-egg cream develops a deep dark caramel color…

In the notes, I read that the word “chess” in the recipe’s title “…some food historians say it’s a takeoff on “cheese,” as in English cheese pies, similar to American cheesecake — the filling is of a consistency similar to chess pie. Others say ‘chess’ refers to the chest in which pies used to be kept; due to the high degree of sugar, chess pies didn’t need to be refrigerated (though in these days of heightened awareness of food safety, we do recommend refrigeration). One final theory holds that chess refers to the simplicity of the pie itself. “What kind of pie is that?” “Jes’ pie.” Chess pie.”

For a 9″ pie (8 to 12 servings) (more…)

Flooded with Exquisite Eggs!

Monday January 17th, 2022Wednesday January 19th, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

The moral of the story is that the very fresh eggs from hens that roam around the fields in the winter are best eaten in savory, rather than in delicate sweet dishes.

Just before Christmas holidays, our friends and next door neighbors sometimes leave Kea to spend the end of the year festivities with their family in Albania, so Costas undertakes his favorite chore: taking care of their hens and cats.

We wish we could be able to have cats and hens, but, unfortunately, our dog does not permit it…

From the coop every night Costas brings at least five and often seven wonderful eggs, and after a few days we are flooded with an incredibly abundant lot! We enjoy them fried in olive oil, add them to pilafs and risottos, scramble them with whatever vegetable or green we have at hand, and occasionally we made paspala, the traditional Kea winter delicacy.

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