Ingredients

500g thick spaghetti
1/3 tea cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 dried onion, cut in thin slices
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 country sausages, casing removed
1/2 tea cup of dry red wine
1 green bell pepper, cut in cubes
1 red bell pepper, cut in cubes
1 large aubergine, cut in cubes
800g fresh tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 tea cup of olives, finely chopped
1 sprig of fresh thyme, leaves picked
1 sprig of fresh oregano, leaves picked
grated kefalotiri cheese for serving
salt
freshly ground pepper

Method

Line a baking dish with greaseproof paper. Put the bell peppers and aubergine in a bowl, coat them well with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and then transfer them to the baking dish. Bake them at 200ºC for 10 minutes until they wilt. Cut the sausages in thin slices. In a casserole type pan warm the remaining olive oil and cook the onion and garlic for a couple of minutes until they get translucent but not brown. Add the sausage and stir it in for 2-3 minutes. Add the vegetables, pour the wine in and wait until all liquids evaporate. Then add the tomatoes, herbs and olives. Season with salt and pepper and simmer the sauce for 10 minutes. In the meantime boil the spaghetti and drain them in a colander. Combine them with the sauce, sprinkle with the grated kefalotiri cheese, mix everything well  and serve immediately.

argiro.com.gr

More than 20 varieties are cultivated up here, with their pink and white blossoms fluttering in the springtime breeze before the first harvest begins in June and ends when summer does, toward the end of September.

Yellow-fleshed, white-fleshed, clingstone and freestone, peaches come in many shapes, sizes and hues, but it is the latter, with its two halves separated from one another so easily, that is the star of the local canning industry, which is a formidable one in the north. Greek peaches are canned at peak freshness by state-of-the-art processors. Besides fresh, they come in many forms: frozen; as juice; halved, quartered, or diced, in syrup; sliced as a fruit compote; as an ingredient in frozen desserts, especially in ice creams and sorbets. Canned peaches are also a major Greek export, and about half of the annual 750,000 tons that are produced go to the canning industry.

Why Peaches are good for you:

How to savor them the Greek way: Cut a great peach in wedges and enjoy with a glass of N. Greek Chardonnay or Malagouzia wine. Or, mix it into a cup of Greek yogurt. For dessert, grill some peaches, drizzle with honey and serve with buttery Greek manouri.

By Diane Kochilas

Source: www.dianekochilas.com/healthy-greek-peaches

It can substitute honey almost in every recipe, so use it to make a dressing, drizzle over pancakew or yogurt, use it in baking (it is great with carrot cake and with anything that has pumpkin in it), as a glaze for turkey, pork etc.

Traditionally petimezi was used as a spread on bread especially for children, as it is very high in antioxidants and minerals. You can also make cookies with it called moustokouloura, when grape must (moustos) isn’t available any more.

I recently made this beef stew using petimezi and red wine vinegar and was amazed by the depth of flavours. The vinegar you use is very important so find a good one, but do not use balsamic.The vinegar counteracts the sweetness of the petimezi and the resulting effect is sweet and sour, but not as strong as a Chinese version for example.

Note: you can make your own petimezi if you boil down the juice you get from lets say 2 kg of white grapes, until it is dark and viscous, but I have never done it myself.

INGREDIENTS for 6 people

for the marinade

1 cup white wine
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped

for the stew

1.5 kg stewing beef cut into chunks
1/3 cup (80ml) petimezi
1/4 cup (60ml) red wine vinegar
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, finely sliced
2-3 berries all spice
the marinade

DIRECTIONS

Mix all marinade ingredients in a plastic container with a lid and add the beef chunks. Marinate for 24 hours, turning once or twice.
Drain beef from marinade and pat dry with kitchen paper. Keep the marinade and vegetables separately to use in the stew.
In a large pot heat 3-4 tbsp of olive oil and  brown the beef pieces from all sides. Remove from pot and saute the onions until they start to colour. Add the marinade vegetables together with the sliced carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes. Pour in the petimezi, vinegar, allspice, and 1/3 of the marinade. Wait until the alcohol has slightly evaporated (about 1-2minutes), give it a good stir and turn down the heat. Cover the pot and let the meat simmer until it is meltingly tender, about 2-2.5 hours. Every now and then check whether it needs more liquids and add some of the marinade. I actually ended up using all of it.
By the end of the cooking time you mush have a nice thicki-ish sauce (petimezi is also a thickening agent). Season well with salt and pepper and serve with mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, pasta or rice. This dish can very successfully be frozen or eaten the next day.

foodjunkie.eu

Method

1. Wash the fruits thoroughly and peel them with a sharp knife, trying to get a peel as thin as possible (without so much pith, which gives the liqueur its bitterness).

2. Put the ingredients in a glass jar, seal and steep for 20-25 days, gently shaking on a regular basis to help the sugar dissolve.

3. Using a double gauge filter the liqueur into elegant bottles.

Ingredients

1 litre tsipouro
½ litre brandy
6 cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1 whole nutmeg
500g sugar
1 tangerine unwaxed (peels)
1 orange unwaxed (peels)
1 bergamot unwaxed (peels)

By Argiro Barbarigou

www.argiro.com.gr

We order it by the kilo and we can go through several kilos in an evening. Glasses are continually being refilled by each other without anything being said. It's like a reflex or second nature to fill your neighbors glass when you see it is empty. And when the carafe is empty someone at the table just lifts it in the air and catches the eye of a waiter, the busboy or even the owner of the restaurant and in thirty seconds it is full again.

Retsina is my preferred wine and once in awhile if you are lucky, that is what is available in those barrels. But many tavernas these days have turned away from retsina and are making excellent wines, often as good or better than any well known commercial bottled brands, though you can find yourself in a taverna where the barreled wine is awful. Most restaurants are proud of their wine though not all the restaurants make their own. Some buy it from distillers by the barrel or by large jug, and in some touristy restaurants homemade wine, or hima, as it is called, is not even available and you have to take your chances with the wine list.

Lately many restaurants have been buying bulk wine in boxes and filling the carafes from them. But before you get upset I want to reassure you that many of these boxed wines are pretty good and in some cases it is the same bulk wine the restaurants have always had, but now it comes in boxes. But walking into a restaurant and seeing barrels stacked is usually a sign that they make their own wine and you should try that first before you try any bottled wine they may have. But my rule is to always ask for local wine (doh-pio) and then ask for hee-ma or wine in a carafe (karafaki) and hope for the best. It is rare that I will get a house wine so bad that I send it back and order a bottle from the wine list, but it does happen. I always ask if it's good (eeneh kalo?) and they always say absolutely (veh-vay-os). But what else are they gonna say? It's terrible? There are also many farmers on the islands who are bottling their own wine and you can often find them in tavernas and in the various traditional shops, supermarkets and even in the bakery.

To read the rest of this post, please visit Matt Barrett's greecefoods.com

It may be a karpoozi (watermelon) or it may be a peponi (honey-dew melon) but you will look at your wife or husband or child and say "I had no idea something could taste this good and not be bad for you."

For some reason vegetables and fruits taste better in Greece than they do elsewhere. There are many theories of course. Some say it is the absence of pesticides.  I have a theory of my own. Greece is made up of mountains and valleys. The farms are in the valleys. The water rains on the mountains and washes minerals into the valleys. The more rich a fruit or vegetable is in minerals, the better it will taste. Of course I can't prove this and since many fruits and vegetables are now grown on large industrialized farms or even imported, without knowing what you are eating and where it comes from you have no way of knowing why it is good, or in some cases is not. Just because you may eat the best tomato or melon in your life during your stay in Greece does not mean that you will eat delicious vegetables rich in minerals at every meal at every restaurant. But I can say with confidence that those restaurants where the Greeks eat, great care is taken in choosing the fruits and  vegetables that are served that day.

The Greeks eat seasonally. Take the horiatiki salata or as we call in the USA and other English speaking places, the Greek Salad or Greek Village Salad. Anyone going to Greece in the summer will find delicious horiaktiki salatas that consist of fresh ripe red tomatoes, green peppers, onions, cucumbers, olives, a big hunk of feta cheese, extra virgin olive oil, oregano and if you are lucky maybe some capers! Not at every restaurant of course. You could go to some tourist joint that serves tomatoes that are closer to green than red, a smidgeon of crumbled feta and one olive, topped with whatever crappy oil they got a good deal on. But I am talking about a good honest Greek restaurant. If you eat a horiatiki salata in season you will eat them for the rest of your life. In fact you will start a garden so you can have tomatoes like the ones you had in Greece. Another salad you may not be familiar with is the Cretan or dakos, which is like a horiatiki on top of a paximadi, which is a dried hard bread, though once the olive oil and juices soak in it is not hard for long. It is delicious and healthy too.

But what if you are not there in the summer? What if it is late spring or fall or winter and you order a horiatiki salata? You don't. In the winter months (winter meaning any season that is not summer) you would eat a lachano-marouli salata (cabbage-lettuce salad). Or a lachano-carota salata (cabbage-carrot salad). Or a plain marouli (lettuce) salata.

To read the rest of this post, please visit greecefoods.com

By Matt Barrett

On that note, the thought of roasting a whole chicken mid-week makes me cringe.

There’s that cold squishy giblet bag, trussing string, cooking and resting time, plus all that carving? Way too intense for a Tuesday.

During the week I purchase my bird pre-cut. No giblet bag, no string, no carving. It cooks in half the time and yet still has that slow-cooked taste.

Ingredients

For the Chicken

1x 3-4 lb. roasting chicken, cut into pieces*
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper

Marinade/Vinaigrette

2 tsp. lemon zest
¼ c. fresh lemon juice, about 2-3 lemons
1 tbsp. dried oregano
¾ c. olive oil
½ tsp. salt
3 sprigs fresh oregano
3 cloves of garlic, grated

On the side

1½ lbs. potatoes, skin on, cut into 1" chunks
2 tsp. olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Salad

6 large handfuls of mixed lettuce
1 pint of colorful cherry tomatoes
½ c. feta cheese, crumbled

Garnish

2 lemons for roasting
fresh oregano sprigs

* Your cooking time will vary (+/-) depending on the size of your chicken.*Make sure to reserve half of the marinade for your vinaigrette. Do not use all of it on your chicken!

To read the rest of this recipe, please visit theclevercarrot.com

The frying has its tricks, too. I always fry in olive oil, fully aware that it is a luxury many cooks outside of olive-growing regions cannot afford. You actually don’t need that much oil for this recipe, as the keftedes, like most Greek fried foods, are pan-fried not deep fried. What you will need is to pay attention to the oil. It should not be so hot that the keftedes burn on the outside but remain undercooked within. You can also fry in pure olive oil, which retains some of the good qualities of EVOO and is a lot cheaper.

To read more, please visit dianekochilas.com

By Diane Kochilas