Vegetarian

Haloumi Souvlaki with Ouzo-Raisin Compote

Haloumi Souvlaki with Ouzo-Raisin Compote

Haloumi makes a great meze and dinner party treat. Check out my other recipes for haloumi, too. The grilled cheese haloumi sandwich is a terrific snack or light meal, too.   For 6 servings   2 packs Haloumi cheese 18 pearl or other small onions, peeled and whole 4 tablespoons extra virgin Greek olive...

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Braised Cretan Grains with Whole Onions / Xinohondros Stifado me Kremmydakia

Braised Cretan Grains with Whole Onions / Xinohondros Stifado me Kremmydakia

This simple, but delicious recipe makes a wonderful main-coure vegetarian dish. It is adapted from Feasting and Fasting in Crete by Diana Farr Louis. Look for trahana or Cretan Xinohondros, an unusual but very tradition grain product from the Eastern Mediterranean and Greece, in Greek grocery stores all across the world. This is a...

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Carrot Soup with Kalamata Olive Paste

Carrot Soup with Kalamata Olive Paste

On a chilly Sunday in Athens, still worn out from a marathon of holiday cooking, and too spent to have gone to the supermarket with the Saturday crowds, I cooked with what was left in the fridge. That turned out to be a bunch of carrots, a little ginger, a dollop of the only...

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Spicy Pasta Tossed with Spinach, Pine Nuts, Raisins

Spicy Pasta Tossed with Spinach, Pine Nuts, Raisins

Here’s a Greek recipe inspired by some of the new dishes I worked on for the winter menu at Pylos restaurant in NY, where I am consulting chef. It’s an easy but delicious combination of sauteed spinach and cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, shrimp, raisins, and red pepper flakes, called boukovo in Greece. The best...

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Greens in Greek Cooking: Boil or Blanch?

Greens in Greek Cooking: Boil or Blanch?

While it might seem odd to a non-Greek cook to boil greens until they are extremely soft, this is the way Greeks like to eat them. In Greek cooking, all sorts of greens, wild and cultivated, sweet and bitter, are boiled, typically in a big pot filled with salted water that is at the...

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Sweet Chard Pie from Naxos / Sefoukloti

Sweet Chard Pie from Naxos / Sefoukloti

Sefoukloti is a transliteration of the local Naxos pronunciation for “seskoula,” Greek for chard. This is one of the most unusual Greek recipes, a greens pie drizzled with honey. 8 servings 1 kilo (2 lbs.) chard (you can use spinach if you can’t find) 1 large bunch fennel 1 bunch fresh mint or myronia...

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