Savory Cake (or quick bread) with Olives, Cheese, and Pine Nuts

Friday March 18th, 2022Friday March 18th, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

This is a quite lovely meze-cake to enjoy in the garden, accompanied by crisp white or rose wine in the first sunny spring days. On this olivewood stand that I asked our friend, the brilliant wood-carver Panos to make for me the cake looks even more sumptuous. The basic idea comes from Les Cahiers de Delphine, the always interesting weekly newsletter.

Of course, I made quite a few changes, using local green olives instead of the black from Provence, and scallions, instead of the chives that are not available here. As I always do, I substituted olive oil for the butter, and grated aged graviera cheese for the parmesan, I increased the amount of pine nuts and sunflower seeds and added rosemary which gave a lovely aroma to the cake.

I baked it in a pan with a hole in the center, but you can of course use a loaf pan, or a simple round 8-inch pan. This meze cake is best slightly warm, or just cooled.

At least 8 generous appetizer pieces (more…)

Frittata-Strata with Squash

Thursday March 17th, 2022Friday March 18th, 2022 aglaia Leave a comment

Adding leftover, stale bread to various dishes is an old Mediterranean tradition dictated by the frugal ways of our ancestors. Strata is a kind of savory bread pudding, a frittata with vegetables or greens that are ingeniously complemented by toasted stale bread cubes.

Soups, salads, and frittata get even better with crunchy, toasted bread cubes. We especially love the flavor and slight crunch the croutons from heavy, unshifted flour bread adds to any vegetable in the frittata.

I slice and cube the leftovers of the mixed-grain, heavy, old-fashioned, wood-fired loaves that we get each week from our village bakery, toss with olive oil and roast in the oven, until completely dry. When cool I keep in jars.

It is wonderful added in any bean or vegetable soup, while on the islands of the Cyclades twice-baked bread often adorned the simple fish soups.

In our winter frittatas I often make with our neighbor’s incredible eggs, these delicious mixed-grain croutons complement beautifully the roasted squash omelet/strata that I make. (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…)