Lemon & Lime Marmalade-DIY

Lemons and limes combine to create a fantastic flavor and a beautiful color and clarity to marmalade to the stretch onto our bread and biscuits or use it in other sweet concoctions in our Kitchen, as cakes, tartes, tortes, refrigerator sweets, sweet pies etc… At the time when lemons are in abundance we make and fill jams with lemon marmalade, where many of these become gifts for friends.
Lemons, high in pectin and acid, make a great marmalade although the actual flavor of fruit and its color varies.
We use only three ingredients to make this marmalade. Lemons, sugar and water. Without having to add pectin or other perfumes. Although the recipe is simple, it takes time to carry out, but the end result is worth it!
Yours!

work: 2h:00′

time: 1 ημέρα

easy:

Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Very tasty Sun-Dried Tomatoes are made from mature regular tomatoes or from anhydrous tomatoes (a special variety of tomatoes, which is common in many islands in the Aegean Sea and resembles the Italian pomodori or roma variety). Dried under the sun they evaporate the water they contain. On drying, tomatoes lose 88% of their weight while larger tomatoes lose 93%.
Sundried tomatoes have the same nutritional value as fresh and to produce a kilo of sun dried tomatoes need about 14 kg of fresh tomatoes. They are rich in lycopene, antioxidants and vitamin C. They are preserved in sterilized jars in olive oil and various aromatic herbs and spices, like coriander & cardamom.
Sundried tomatoes have a great variety of colors, sizes and flavors. They have many uses in the Mediterranean Cuisine. Traditionally they are served with olive oil, feta cheese & basil for a very tasty meal.

work: 20′

time: 2-3 days

very easy:

Blood Orange Marmalade

These wonderful oranges, blood oranges, with red spots on the skin and red flesh, made marmalade and is one of the most beautiful in the red scarlet color, and perhaps the most delicious.
Since childhood I was magnetized and impressed by their blood-red flesh! In the grand orangery of the grandfather, there were almost all sorts of citrus -and various varieties for some of them- from citrus (κίτρα) for their essential oil, which exported to Marseilles, lemons & lime to oranges, mandarins & blood oranges. Everyone with different tastes and sweetness but so beneficial to our body. Since then I have loved these fruits and it was the season, though very young, I ate lemon cut at 4 and sprinkled with salt. From this magical world of our orange tree a part of it has come to my property, thanks to the generosity of the people who so fought with their land.
Eternally grateful!

work: 30′

time: 12h:00′

very easy:

Black Grape Spoon Sweet

Spoon sweet of black grape, with very special blue-purple shades, deliciously tasty and very aromatic with the addition of spices, star anise and cardamom, which make the syrup sweet.
The ATTICA grape variety is a black, non-seed variety of table grapes, with a long-grained sapless berry, maturing at the end of July or early August. The grape itself is one of the most delicious edible grapes without seeds.
At the end of the article there are detailed instructions for sterilization and preserving products whose lifetime we want to prolong and to ensure that they will not be altered.
Follow them!

work: 30′

time: 24h:00′

easy:

Peach Compote & Jelly

This year our peach production was small. Some of these we enjoyed fresh and cool and some were made compote to keep them as long as we can and have them for various pastry preparations I had in my mind.
Basically the story behind this compote recipe was to make an ethereal blancmange (from the French blanc-manger). In retrospect, I realized the huge range of sweets, where we can use our hot or cold compotes. From the simplest dessert, such as on a velvety cream or yogurt, to something more complex, such as on or inside a fridge cake.
Today's suggestion is peach compote and jelly. Once the fruits have been prepared and made compote to become jelly it was the simplest dessert we could make and enjoy.
Yours!

work: 10′

time: 15′

very easy:

Aromatic Pickled Caper

We meet the plants of Caper to grow freely in nature. It is a magical plant that grows in places full of sunshine and hot to very hot summers and in very poor soils almost without water. But it insists on being and giving its little flowers -her immature buds- to become the Golden Apple of Discord among humans, birds and ants.
In order to make pickles, we collect, with respect to the plant, its flowers when they are small before they are blooming, its tender leaves and its fruits, and those small, tender, crisp, which are created after the flower is fertilized & inside there are the seeds of the plant.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 2h:30′

very easy:

Picking & Drying of Fresh Oregano-DIY

Oregano.
Ladies & Gentlemen, the Greater Oregano!
Native, perennial aromatic plant, medicinal, industrial, excellent flavor, and great bee-keeping plant, known since antiquity. Who knows if it is fresh and blooming, how many have collected and dried it, how many we use it, or how much it is unknown?
Rhetorical inquiries about the oregano in order to make an effort to approach the matter and see how we can harvest, drain or even cultivate -why not- our own oregano, not least the Greek village tomato salad with feta cheese and Oregano is our gourmet ambassador around the world!
And here I am going to tell you a secret… if you are near mountains, hills, and slopes go out and meet her. If you are urban, you can not have a balcony, a sunny window will be there, then cultivate your oregano and then everything else that smells like a oregano will never be yours anymore!
Its therapeutic properties, look for them and you will find, here today we learn to gather, dry it, scrub it to show its aromas and to put it in jars to taste our food and our mood!
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1 εβδομάδα

very easy:

Vine Leaves Maintenance 2-DIY

In an earlier post we saw a dry way of Vine Leaves Maintenance. Today Kitchen Stories suggests another way to boil the leaves and then freeze them.
The season of fresh leaves is in May and June, depending on which area we are talking about. Find and cut your own fresh spring vine leaves, the first ones that Greek vineyards make or buy ready-made cuts from your neighborhood and prepare them to get into your cupboards so you can use them at any time. And do not forget the best leaves are gathered when they are still tender only by the climates of the Sultanina variety or Debina variety.
The suggested method is simple and very easy. Packaged this way, they will keep perfectly in your freezer. Yours!

work: 45′

time: 45′

very easy:

Orange Spoon Sweet

A jar with precious gold, tightly closed with the colors of the sun of Greece, filled with syrupy orange peel in spoon sweet!
Eat a couple of rolls with plain cold water as the accompanying rice pudding, yogurt or a simple vanilla cream for a delicious dessert.
As a child I always wanted to watch my mother cooking in the kitchen. Fascinating creations, performed magical influence on my imagination, drunk by aromas of spices and entranced by the transformation of ingredients into artwork. I loved that he called "little assistant" and always had something to instruct me, that I with excess care and pride handled … serious role of sous chef! Of course I was doubly happy when she made what was dessert, Sweet Preserves Orange in rolls! (What a sweet word…)
Yours!

work: 2h:00′

time: 3 days

medium:

Pickled Octopus

Octopus!
The King of Meze in the Greek Summer and Lenten Days, with accompanying ouzo par excellence!
Here it was prepared to be pickled, to be closed in our most transparent jars and to be able to enjoy it as a precious meze whenever we want!

Octopus boiled and flavored in a Court-bouillon, meaning «short broth». This is an intensely flavored vegetable broth, spices and aromatic herbs (bouquet garni) and which contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, wine or lemon juice. Court-bouillon is usually for poaching, need not be elaborate, used for the preparation of crustaceans (lobster) and other seafood and is very simple, because the broth is not generally served as part of the end plate.
Yours!

work: 20′

time: 40′

easy:

Candied Cherries

Candied cherries, like Italian Amarena or French Griottines, in small quantity and in an easy and quick preparation, as will be used for making ice cream and which will soon show you.
It is not the known version of candied fruit, such as Orange Peels and others, which we use in cakes etc. It is semi-candied cherries. I chose the cherries to be cut in two and not remain intact in order to be incorporated into the cream and in which our tooth only will meet.
It is not jam nor sweets, we make for the winter. It is something between these two. Their syrup is more dense and flavored with whole lobe vanilla and lime peel.
Yours!

work: 10′

time: 30′

very easy:

Stuffed Vines Leaves with Pine Nuts & Currants

Today's stuffed vine leaves -dolmades gialantzi- (only rice without meat) have different ingredients than others, we have proposed here occasionally. They form different wrapping, they are like little ladies fingers, thin, oblong, delicate, with long grain rice. Pine nuts, raisins and cinnamon gives its Constantinople origins and give them tons of sweet aftertaste.
The step by step analysis of the preparatory process and will help those who want to try to make for the first time.
Yours!

work: 1h:30′

time: 2h:00′

medium:

Octopus Baked in Parchment Paper

Octopus makes delicious seafood, that professional and amateur anglers bring in our kitchen, ready to cook. The seafood, which together with the shrimp and other seafood, is almost inescapable condition to prepare the table of Greek Clean Monday.
Cooked in various ways and always remains tasty. The proposal here is to bake it closing in parchment paper. So close the juices and aromatic sea properties, achieving an excellent result.
This way baking in the oven, sealed with wax paper and aluminum foil, so as not to let air go out, octopus braise without burning or to stay wet, juicy and soft, cooked through to its own juices along with extra spices and its fragrances.
Yours.

work: 15′

time: 2h:15′

easy:

Orange Peel Sweet Preserves

Preserves with special and favorite scent of citrus made from orange peels, cut into thin sticks like matchsticks and with the outer peel intact. Ginger intensifies with its presence the superiority of the taste.
We enjoy it alone during all seasons but also accompany our sweet experimentation. With this we can decorate and garnish cakes and other desserts or serve creams, bowl of trifle, ice cream and yoghurt.
Yours!

work: 45′

time: 10h:00′

easy:

Tomato Sauce

Tomato Sauce, classic, delicious and for varied uses, flavored with oregano and basil. An easy sauce that accompanies perfectly meat and vegetable dishes. But also pizzas, bruschetta, sandwiches and of course pasta, any kind of pasta, where it takes off with its presence the flavor of the dish.
Tomatoes are rich in flavor, have high liquid content, have very soft flesh which breaks down quickly, and are a suitable composition to thicken in the sauce when cooked. All these properties make it ideal for a simple and attractive sauce.
Auguste Escoffier ranks it among the five basic sauces (mother sauces) of French Cuisine with:

• Béchamel
• Spanish Sauce
• Velvet
• Dutch sauce

work: 15′

time: 45′

easy:

Kernels Cherry Liqueur

Fragrant liqueur, amber clear color and light scent of bitter almonds and cherries. Drinking, either as an aperitif or as a digestif is sure to leave you with very good impressions. A liqueur that gladdens the eye and the palate.
The process is simple. Put the kernels of cherries in alcohol and wait a few days. Time will work in favor of its creation.
Yours!

work: 20′

time: 4 weeks

very easy:

Vine Leaves Maintenance

There are several ways to maintain vine leaves in order to have them for the whole year, without the cooling devices of our time. The drying, the bottles, the brine, the jars. Since ancient times yet, since they stored them in small clay pots, covered with olive oil since they did not have refrigerators, until our days with freezing.
The best time of harvesting the leaves is the months of May and June. The vine is preferably sultanas, which has the most tender and delicious leaves, and of course not sprayed.
Today's maintenace is called dry maintenance and is simple and quite easy. Prerequisite: the leaves are completely dry, otherwise you risk to make black spots from moisture and spoil.

work: 30′

time: 30′

very easy:

Octopus Carpaccio

The term Carpaccio refers to an Italian dish, which includes almost transparent thin slices of raw or poorly cooked beef or fish. Consumed seasoned with olive oil, lemon, parmesan flakes, spices and sometimes with white truffle (mushroom).
Also the term Carpaccio is often used to include recipes cooked. This is the case, for example, of Octopus Carpaccio. The recipe involves cooking the octopus before the Carpaccio process of production/cut.
I suggest you try to build and serve a dish of octopus meze, tasty and with interesting visual effect. With our classic snack with octopus in vinegar it will not leave many untouched. A delicious snack …
Yours!

The recipe

Octopus Carpaccio

can be found in the book «Μεζέδες».

wokr: 45′

time: 12h:45′

medium:

Oven Dried Tomatoes & Maintenance: Homemade

Dried tomatoes in the oven. This a straightforward and quick recipe, with endless possibilities to liven and spice every meal.
Add them in sandwiches, in sauces for pasta, in salads, savory cakes and of course as a spread for crostini or anything else you can think of.
Since they are often referred for home sufficiency or domestic luxury, lets make homemade dried tomatoes. I guarantee that they have nothing to do with those you tried from the S/M.
Try them!

work: 15′

time: 1h:45′

very easy:

The recipe

Oven Dried Tomatoes & Maintenance:Homemade

can be found in the book «Μεζέδες».

Candied Orange Peel

Simplicity at its best for this wonderful sweet bite. With "sparks" of orange essential oil to caress the palate and the constant desire for the next bite is the feeling, that leaves a candied orange peel. With chocolate coated -exciting blend- the enjoyment is completed.
The crisp texture, sweet & sour, slightly bitter chocolate is also opposed but perfectly balanced in this at all demanding candy, made by recycling ingredients, whose outcome would be, at best, in the bucket for compost.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 12h:00′

easy: