Cheese Pie with Sparkling Water

For those who don't have time to roll out a sheet of dough or don't know how, then ready-made phyllo crust is a good choice and we find it ready, fresh or frozen in the refrigerators of supermarkets.
I suggest you save this delicious pie recipe, which you can make with the filling you want and thus enjoy an easy and tasty pie and with cheeses of your absolute choice. The ingredient that makes it special and very fluffy with a crispy crust on its surface and with a wonderful taste is a can of Carbonated Water. A drink made from natural mineral water with natural lemon and lime flavors, extremely digestive and refreshing.
Try it at the first opportunity.
☯ If we want, we can prepare it the night before and put it in the oven the next morning. This way we will have a hot, fresh, delicious snack for a Sunday Breakfast.
Yours!

work: 0h:45′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Pies with Ricotta, Mozzarella & Gruyere Cheese

As has been repeatedly written here, in several recipes, savory and sweet, Kourou Dough -yogurt dough- is so pliable, soft & velvety, and which we love to make for its ease of handling.
The pies are filled with any filling we like. Here their cheese filling was, in addition to fresh Anthotyros (like Ricotta), straight from its source of production and from the first to start using fresh milk, Tyromalama (like Mozzarella) and Gruyere Cheese. The 3 most beloved cheeses of Crete were combined and made into pies.
Yours!

work: 1h:30′

time: 2h:00′

easy:

Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Pasta with Spicy Shrimp in Cajun & Creole Cuisine. This recipe is a spicy, but delicious dish, a unique pasta dish with great flavors, and very spicy shrimp, which give a characteristic intensity and flavor dynamic to any pasta they are added to.
If you are not a spicy lover, just reduce the spicy amounts, but know that it will be another, different dish.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 30′

easy:

Baked Eggplant with Feta

Simple things, concentrated flavor and Low Carb diet.
Grilled eggplant, sprinkled with a little feta cheese and chopped fresh cilantro to make a delicious and hearty appetizer. We enjoy in the terrace in the evening with friends.
Drinks at will in kind and in quantity!

The recipe

Baked Eggplant with Feta

can be found in the book «Μεζέδες».


Author Zambia G. Sifaki

work: 10′

time: 1h:00′

very easy:

Pulled Pork with Pappardelle

The succulent, juicy, delicious Pork Chunk (Osso Buco) is cooked in the pressure cooker until it becomes so tender that it falls off the bone. It gets its wonderful color and incomparable taste from the spices alone.
Its only ingredient is, apart from the spices, a single grated tomato, so as to balance, with its acidity, the sweet notes of the spices.
It pairs perfectly with pappardelle, sprinkled generously with grated cheese of our choice to enjoy the best home-cooked Italian meal.
We are sure you will love this ★family recipe, which we recommend to you today.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:10′

easy:

Fried Cheese Pies

Fried Cheese Pies, with excellent cheeses, are super tasty and easy to make. Like saying 3 in one!
I choose a lovely fresh country market sheet to wrap these triangular cheesecakes and enhance the flavor & their convenience for when I want a quick and easy snack for all hours of the day or for a larger production for several people…
Ideally and very often they become our favorites at a Sunday brunch, along with other delicacies Savory and Sweets.
Of course, they are loved by our family, they all love them bathed in Greek thyme honey.
Yours!

work: 45′

time: 45′

very easy:

Pie in Puff Pastry Sheet

Among the many and delicious dishes that the Greek Diet includes, the various pies stand out and write their own chapter in the impressively rich culinary narrative of the Pie.
With simple raw ingredients, pies were for many housewives the daily treat, and which accompanied a people with a tradition in animal husbandry and agriculture, satisfying their nutritional and practical needs. The traditional recipes of our country have a fixed place in our kitchen.

The tradition of a delicious pie still exists today with the ease of finding raw ingredients as well as ready-made sheets for quick selection for many workers, mothers and housewives.

Today's pie wrapped in puff pastry is a quick pie with delicious, many and different ingredients that make it delicious and filling.
Yours.

work: 40′

time: 1h:40′

easy:

Cheese Pie Cream

In Greek Traditional Cuisine, one finds many different types of pie, which vary by region, so each region in Greece has its own traditional pie as a point of reference. Sometimes they are the main appetizer or a tasty and healthy snack during the day!

With many variations, different ingredients, a different way of serving and many different names, pies are a characteristic traditional delicacy in every corner of our country. Savory or sweet, with or without foil, round, triangular, simple or complex, traditional pies are a big chapter in Greek Gastronomy.

Besides the variations in the sheet - fresh handmade sheet or ready-made sheet or even without a sheet - there is a wide variety of sheets, some thin and transparent and others thicker. Some pies are prepared with several layers of sheets in the pan and a mixture is thrown inside them, such as spinach, cheese, various greens or vegetables. The variety of pie filling has no limits. You only need your imagination and the pure and fresh ingredients of each place. In addition to the classic pie with cheese or greens, you can put meat, sausages, vegetables, frumenty, pasta and whatever else you want in the filling!

work: 20′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Cheese Bread

Delicious Cheese Bread complete and absolute in taste and content. A fluffy puff pastry, stuffed with Greek feta cheese and yellow cheese.
Easy & quick process without any effort, with the end result of this delicious bread, to become our hearty snack or to accompany a plate of pulses on winter days.
The dough can be made from the previous one and put in the fridge or stay on our kitchen counter all night, depending on the weather. The next day we complete the preparation and bake.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 3h:30′

easy:

Traditional Kalitsounia of Chania, Crete

In the traditional agricultural and urban Cuisine of Crete, the products that the rural populations, for centuries now, produce and consume on their own until communications changed, so that they can find them elsewhere inside or outside of Greece, played a leading role.
Some of these products had their place of honor on the big, important festive days of Christmas, Easter, August fifteenth… Then the housewives made the famous Kalitsounia in large quantities for family but also to friends, neighbors and visitors.
Today's Kalitsounia have their roots of Chania, whose inhabitants, due to the soil morphology of the place, had the main occupation of grazing sheep. As a result, dairy farming was a parallel profession, so that they could make use of the milk they had in the mountainous area of Psiloritis.
Try them!

※※※※※We wish you a Happy Easter 2021!※※※※※

work: 3h:00′

time: 3h:00′

easy:

Pasta Soufflé

A timeless souffle with basic pasta the striped penne (penne rigate) to wrap beautifully around the ingredients and their taste. This soufflé has a very "sinful" content, so sinful that we make it, eat it and do not approach the scales again for a couple of weeks… However I give the ingredients and their proportions and if you are "brave" you make it and enjoy it.
It remains a very tasty pasta dish that few will resist trying. Ideally eaten hot, like all soufflés. We have said that Souffle is not waiting, we are sitting at the table and we are waiting for it.
Yours!

work: 20′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Classic Spaghetti Carbonara

Never has a pasta dish given us so much delicious with just a handful of ingredients as this one! Italian Carbonara, if done properly, becomes a fantastic dish full of flavor and it’s a thing of beauty.

Of course, the Italian Carbonari (Furnace Charcoals Makers and Miners), the original inspirers of this dish and all their descendants did not use sour cream to make the pasta of this most famous, juicy, and creamy Spaghetti…

There is a hypothesis on the origin of the name, which connects the existence of black grated pepper on the pasta, so that it "blackens" their surface as if it were coal dust, a fact that can reasonably be considered to have happened to the miners who used to this dish, due to the easy finding of its ingredients for that time. A dish that we know historically was very popular in the popular neighborhoods of the time.
Yours!

work: 10′

time: 15′

very easy:

Ham Cheese Pie with Cream

Everyone likes this pie, I always make it with a puff pastry sheet to keep all the delicious, soft and fluffy filling inside. A sheet at the bottom, a sheet at the top and in between a filling based on a light béchamel cream, made with corn flour and which makes it look like a millefeuille.
We choose plenty of favorite cheeses & hams. I chose to put smoked turkey fillet but also any other ham, that you like, does to make it delicious. Make holes in the puff pastry to remove the moisture inside the pie and not to wipe the sheet, so that it becomes crispy.
Yours!

work: 20′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Parmesan Cookies

Savory miniature cookies with lacy edges and unique taste. The savory Parmesan cookies, a small "luxury" of taste, are perfect as an appetizer or a wonderful snack / accompaniment for our favorite drink, whatever it is. They are small, they are addictive, they are a bite, they are made quickly and easily, with minimal ingredients and within 20 minutes we enjoy them. Of the few recipes, that something is so rich in taste and with so few ingredients.
I promise you, once you make them once you will want to repeat them soon…
Yours!

work: 10′

time: 20′

very easy:

Little Aubergine Pies with Homemade Kourou Dough

A Kourou Dough -Yogurt Dough- so pliable & velvety, which you will love for the comfort of its management. The pies are filled with whatever stuffing we like. Wonderful Aubergine Pies were made here, very tasty & fluffy and where the tender, grated, biscuit dough competes equally with the wonderfully delicious stuffing with eggplant and Greek cheeses, such as Gruyère & kasseri or emmental. The blue poppy seed gives them an extra click of flavor.
A suggestion for a snack for the morning coffee but also for a beer or… why not, with an easy drink and fruity wine, iced & dry Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie -the most popular variety of Italy- on our summer terrace with dear friends.
Cheers!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Linguine with Mussels & Fresh Vegetables

Cook the mussels in a large frying pan, with the tomatoes cut into small bites, the sweet red pepper in thin strips and all other vegetables chopped! Quench with white wine while your linguine are cooked in another pot. Combine the two and toss them with your favorite spices, a little grated Parmigiano-Reggiano & chopped rosemary. Now pretend you're on vacation on the Italian coast or on one of our Aegean islands and enjoy excellent flavors!
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Spinach & Cheese Hand Pies for a Snack

If dough for pies and pie pastries isn't your strong point or you don't have time for complicated processes, then this suggestion is up to you. A velvety yogurt pastry, fluffy & soft, light & tasty with little ingredients, a little time and that's all.
Try making small pies (according to the detailed steps in the recipe), which will be easy to open phyllo sheet, stuffed with fresh tender spinach, Greek feta and yellow gouda cheese or whatever other yellow cheese you like to give it extra flavor and consistency in filling. Don't forget to add freshly ground pepper and paprika sweet or spicy to your taste!
Delicious and quick snack for a delicious meal that can be accompanied by a glass of wine in a small group of people.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Fluffy & Crusty Pizza

We make one, two or three pizzas since the dough is in separate pouches, adjusting the amount and the type of stuffing accordingly.
The dough we made the aromatic buns and then the Garlic Bread the rest of the dough left over from that recipe is put in polybag bags & in the freezer to make delicious, easy-to-make pizzas with delicate crust and simple ingredients, and most of all homemade ingredients, whenever we want. we have the solution «in our hands»!
The secret to this polymorphic dough is its time of maturing in the refrigerator for many hours or even in the freezer. Even when we take it out to room temperature after many hours to cook it continues to swell…
Today it became Pizzas.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 3h:00′

easy:

Three Cheese Garlic Bread

Three delicious kinds of cheese that melt and roll the homemade bread buns, lots of garlic, and roasted in the oven are these addictive garlic slices. Rich, creamy, and crunchy, they combine with too many dishes to dominate the Barbecue Grills. A juicy steak or fluffy burger will taste delicious with these buns! They are also consumed on their own as a meze/ snack with the drink of our choice. Here they were combined with roasted sweet potatoes and their taste was irresistible!
Their dough recipe is two posts behind and you can find it under the heading: «Pastry for Bread & Pizza».
Yours!

work: 15′

time: 30′

very easy:

Greek Pastitsio-Baked Greek Bucatini with Meat

When I started preparing it today, I remembered why I hadn't written this recipe before - though I had in the past posted a pastiche down like this made in individual portions - it's because everyone is making this dish, maybe slightly different, but it's a classic dish that everyone thinks is theirs the best way so it wouldn't be of much interest.
My own methodology will have some controversial moments, but I know my dish is particularly tasty to me at least and so I recommend it! Make this recipe if you want to see what it looks like and compare it with your own cooking method. It is also a suggestion for those who have never tried it, and although they have always wanted to know how this dish is made, now could be the perfect start to your test with so much step-by-step process!
The recipe is the inspiration of N. Tselemendes almost a century ago. It was and remains one of the most beloved recipes of Greek households. Made with layers of thick pasta, minced meat and Béchamel cream as a final layer.
It is not difficult but it is jagged and with the sink full of pots at the end…
Yours!

work: 2h:15′

time: 3h:00′

medium: