Osso Buco Veal Stew

Το Osso Buco is the ideal piece of Veal Shank for a well-cooked Stew but also for the perfect Beef Soup. In fact, I recommend sautéing the Osso Buco in olive oil, so that it takes on color and flavor from each side, before it is cooked and accompanied along the way by selected vegetables and aromatic spices. Thus, an innocent Greek Stew can be deliciously hellish with its multi-layered, hidden deliciousness!
Some prefer to accompany this dish with Pappardelle, others with Oven-Fried Potatoes, Barley, Risotto, Polenta. This time we enjoyed it with a super extra Mashed Potatoes!
Yours!

work: 00:45′

time: 2h:15′

medeum:

Greek Style Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Back to basics: Greek Style Spaghetti with Meat Sauce!
In our Kitchens it was for years the dominant and almost the only dish of pasta with minced, made in another era by the grandmothers and mothers cooks of the house on demand young children & adults alike. It has nothing to do with the well-known sauce bolognese , with its many ingredients and long preparation, which arrived much later in our Kitchen along with some other famous Italian spaghetti or pasta. Another peculiarity of Greek Spaghetti is that it is served with pasta well cooked in contrast to al-dente but also with its few ingredients, which were in our poor homes.
The Spaghetti with Minced Meat of mom, with minimal ingredients and an incomparable taste! Minced meat seasoned with cinnamon & simmer to soften and mash nicely to include the spaghetti and flavor them. The grated mizithra or kefalotyri or grated parmesan, added on top, will take off its taste! This Greek dish has become a staple and a favorite in our home.
Yours!

work: 15′

time: 1h:30′

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:

Peppers Stuffed with Minced Meat

A delicious Stuffed Recipe over the established traditional, classic recipe made by our mothers and grandmothers, with whatever vegetables they had available or their bowl and including all the big vegetables that could empty their crumbs and filled with rice only, without minced meat, but always delicious and aromatic. From eggplants, potatoes, pumpkins and naturally mature, reddish, vigorous tomatoes. Everything was used perfectly according to the wishes of everyone in the family.
The current proposal is with peppers only without excluding the remaining vegetables, if you like. The filling with minced meat and aromatic herbs also give a very tasty dish. They are made easy and fast since preparing to fill the peppers is not difficult or time-consuming.
We prepare them early in the morning to smell the kitchen flavors and aromas and until lunch time will have been cooked and will be quite lukewarm to enjoy them with feta cheese.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 2h:00′

easy:

Chickpea Stew with Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Chickpea with a tomato sauce, delicious chickpeas, low cost chickpeas as daily cooking solution.
The roasted, dried tomatoes in the oven add to this different chickpea stew an amazing depth of flavor. Even if the chickpeas are not your beloved beans, I suggest you try them cooked this way. I bet you will be surprised and will definitely taste a delicious and hearty dish.
Yours!

work: 10′

time: 1h:10′

easy:

Frumenty Soup with Smoked Pork Shank

Warm spicy frumenty soup, cooked with onion, leek and fresh tomato and enhanced with smoked pork shank (syglino) and toasted croutons, is an ideal choice for the rainy and cold days in which our body asks food with carbohydrates and proteins, offering consolation, feeling wellness and homely warmth.
A traditional nourishing soup turns into an absolute comfort food to warm the body, rejoice and fill of the stomach.
Yours!

work: 15′

time: 45′

very easy:

Bolognese Sauce-Stuffed Lumaconi

The Bolognese sauce is a ragout -in the Italian version- slow cooked, which is made with meat chunks or minced. The heavy cast-iron pan is ideal for this kind of food in slow cooking.
Known to us all as "spaghetti with meat" may have a more delicious flavor, a more imaginative presence and why not, more festive!
We choose to accompany the Bolognese sauce with any pasta we prefer, tagliatelle or spaghetti. The Kitchen Stories proposes shells Lumaconi, filled with this wonderful sauce and sprinkled with parmesan.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 2h:00′

medium:

One Pot Stuffed Vegetables

Greek summer is combined with lots of fresh aromatic vegetables as a main dish, salad or appetizer at our table, but also filled in various ways. It is the time when we find them abundant and in their best time! But it is also inconvenient to turn on our home oven at high temperatures. That's why today I propose to make stuffed vegetables in the pot. Like they make and make by housewifes due to missing oven or for faster and more economic process. They are done in half time from the oven stuffed vegetables.
A variety of favorite vegetables, stuffed with rice and the crumb inside the casserole flavored with onions, mint and parsley. It is our One-Pot Meal. Everything in one!
Yours!

work: 1h:30′

time: 2h:10′

medium:

Eggplant & Meat Pie

Pies are a relatively easy, tasty, hearty and… and ultimately have only positive signs to adjectives and our palate.
One more pie therefore eggplant pie this time, with whole chunks of eggplant, fried and mixed with delicious minced beef, finished with cognac. The cream béchamel, is added to give the taste intensity and consistency.
The choice of adding the dry cottage cheese is to highlight the flavors of the cake with the saltiness and authenticity of a simple, traditional but delicious cheese. Taken together, wrapped in phyllo pastry and the final reason is the oven where the cake comes to complete the whole process.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:50′

medium:

The recipe

Eggplant & Meat Pie

can be found in the book «Μεζέδες».

Whiskey Burger

Juicy, spicy and drunk with whiskey super burger to deliciously accompany male population that will be "camping" in the living room or on our terrace with the first whistle of the referee for the start of Mundial 2014!
They will love them. Do not forget that the older children always remain children and junk food is their first choice!
Knead fluffy homemade burger buns and make a very spicy sauce full in whiskey. Packing them with crispy bacon and melted cheddar (no lettuce and the like, sinful). Sprinkle with lots of wavy chips of barbecue taste and put on the edge of each dish chili peppers Jalapeños pickle, to fire up the blood even more, to intensify ecstasy and passion and adrenaline flowing more abundant than beer.
Take care, do not forget them outside of the refrigerator, huh? Sacrilege…
Your Own!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Giant Beans with Celery

Dessert food. Delicious, hearty, economical and favorite for too many. Along with feta cheese and olives, warm loaf of bread and a glass of wine is a unique, tasty treat.
The combination of celery with giant beans is tasty and has proper nutritional value. The traditional cooking in a Dutch oven (Gastra in Greek) in the oven increases the flavor.
Those who have not seen this dish with a positive look, it is time to reconsider.
Yours!

work: 1h:30′

time: 13h:30′

easy:

Lentil Soup

Lentils! Enjoy a traditional Greek dish for the cold days of the winter.
Lentils are among the first plants that the man (and woman:) began to systematically cultivate and one of the more important legumes in our diet.
There are several varieties with different size and color of seeds, such as blonde, green and brown.
The lentils are cultivated since ancient times (circa 2,000 BC) and were known in ancient Egypt. Jews, Greeks and Romans cultivated and consumed them.
It is a legume with great nutritional value, rich in iron, phosphorus, carbohydrates, protein and B vitamins.

work: 0:20'

time: 1h:30'

easy: 4/10