Ingredients (for 2-3)
* 2 small cans of tuna
* 150 gr of noodles
* 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
* 1 can of ‘cream of mushroom’ soup
* 2/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1/3 cup chopped onion
* 1/2 cup low-fat milk
* 1/2 cup of bread crumbs

Execution
1. Cook the frozen peas and the noodles together, al dente (3-4 minutes less than what’s directed in the pasta package). Drain, and set aside. Preheat the oven at 400F.
2. On the stove, use a deep frying pan and pour the olive oil in it. Under medium heat lightly fry the onion in it. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon.
3. Add the cream of mushroom soup, milk, and stir until the mixture becomes smooth. Turn off the heat.
4. Pour the tuna can’s content into the mixture, and very gently stir 2-3 times. Add the noodles and frozen peas and stir gently again a few times.
5. Pour the whole thing into a baking dish. Spread the bread crumbs on top. Bake for ~30 minutes until the bread crumbs start to get golden brown, and there’s not a lot of liquid left in the dish. Serve hot.

Ingredients (for 2)

For the fish
* 2 fillets of tilapia (thawed)
* 1.5 cups of white flour
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup of olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
* Two wedges (1/4 each) of a lemon

For the rice
* 2/3 cups of Thai or Indian rice
* 1/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1 tablespoon of butter
* 1 teaspoon of turmeric
* The rest half of the lemon

Execution
1. On a pot, start boiling some water (3-4 cups) under high heat. Vigorously wash the rice with some cold water so its natural white powder substance goes away. Pour the rice into the boiling pot, along the turmeric.
2. Wash the fish with some cold water. Pour the flour on a clean surface, and coat the fish.
3. On a deeper dish, add the paprika and beat it well with the egg. Coat the fish fillets on both sides with the egg mixture, and then coat them again with the flour.
4. Bring the olive oil in a big frying pan under medium heat. When hot, add the fish and fry well on both sides for a few minutes. When done, remove them from the oil and let them rest and dry in kitchen paper towels.
5. Three-four minutes before the rice is done, add the frozen peas. When done, drain the rice/peas, and bring them back to the pot. Add the butter, and squeeze the half lemon too. Stir a few times under a medium heat, until most of the liquid is evaporated, and then remove from the stove.
6. Serve the rice and tilapia with wedges of lemon, and some toasted bread.

This nice vegetarian dish, which a variant I had today for lunch, only has 200 calories.

Ingredients (for 1)
* 45 gr of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest penne rigate (140 cals)
* 1 small onion or shallot, chopped (4 cals)
* 1 clove of garlic, minced (2 cals)
* 10 thin slices of zucchini, cut into halves (5 cals)
* 50 gr of red, yellow and green bell peppers, coarsely chopped (16 cals)
* 1/2 cup of fat-free vegetable (or chicken) broth (8 cals)
* A half of a big tomato (15 cals)
* 40 gr of eggplant (10 cals)
* Black pepper to taste
* 0 calorie non-stick spray

Execution
1. Cook pasta as per instructions, drain, set aside.
2. In a cooking pan, spray with the non-stick spray. Add the onion, zucchini & peppers and stir fry until the vegetables become softer and brown-ish.
3. Grate the tomato and eggplant using a cheese grater. Add both into the cooking pan.
4. Add the minced garlic, black pepper and vegetable broth. Cover, and simmer for a few minutes until there is almost no liquid left in the pan.
5. Toss the pasta in, mix well, serve, and enjoy.

I am not religious at the slightest, but my brother’s family is. They were fasting during the first 15 days of August (Orthodox Christians usually fast before Christmas, Easter and leading to Mother Mary’s day). Greek Orthodox fasting disallows all blood animal products, meaning that eggs, dairy and meat from fish/birds/mammals are disallowed, but shellfish are allowed (because they have nothing that resembles red blood — obviously a convenient technicality even if the Bible mentions pork and shellfish as unclean in general). On Good Friday, olive oil is disallowed too.

As a kid I was forced to fast for Easter (usually just the week before), and I hated every minute of it (even if I loved the Easter time in general). Truth is, while my mother is an excellent cook, she has a limited repertoire when it comes to recipes and ingredients. She only wants to eat and cook the recipes passed to her by her mother. She is extremely closed-minded regarding new ingredients and tastes (I can easily picture her face of disgust when I mention mushrooms or shellfish, for example). This severely limited our tastes during the Holy Week, making it almost as unbearable (on purpose, I suppose) as the tortures Christ had to undergo for the week.

So here are some very nice recipes I have gathered that could really make the fasting time pleasant. They are all Mediterranean-inspired, and delicious, all carefully cooked by Kalofagas — a Canadian Greek cooking blogger. Some of the recipes might include some dairy elements, but these can easily be omitted without diminishing the taste of the dish.

- Mussels Saganaki With Mustard. Omit the feta cheese. Great with mushroom wild rice.
- Vegetarian pizza, with non-dairy (fasting) cheese (sold in some places in Greece). I did this twice for my brother and his wife in August. I used non-dairy hard cheese, bell peppers, chili peppers, tomatoes, olives, onions. Mushrooms are equally nice but unfortunately in my home area, Epirus, very few people trust mushrooms so I didn’t use them.
- Prawns saganaki. I cooked this last night! It was delicious. Omit cream cheese.
- Prawns Tourkolimano. Again, omit feta cheese.
- Grilled Sesame Scallops. Great when served with some pasta or fries.
- Tomato Fritters (omit the egg) and Kolokithokeftedes (again, use fasting cheese). Serve with a fasting dip, like the Macedonian Makalo (which is the Greek version of ketchup), or Hummus.
- Tagliatelle With Zucchini, Tomato and Fresh Herbs. Add some stir-fried shellfish or mushrooms to make this recipe even better.
- Potato Salad for Good Friday (no olive oil). And another potato salad too.
- Vegetable soup.
- Briam Florinis.
- Thai Green Curry With Scallops & Shrimp. Might be a bit difficult to get all the ingredients in Greece.
- Soup With Mussels and Ginger. Omit the heavy cream.
- Greek Chickpea Soup. Substitute chicken stock with vegetable stock (note: not all vegetable stocks in the market are vegetarian).
- Scallops Provencal.
- Shrimp With Capers and Dill
- Octopus and Pasta Bake
- Cuttlefish Lemonato, and Artichokes a la Polita
- Dolmades Gialantzi
- Black-Eyed Pea Salad, and Octopus With Vinegar
- Ladenia (Greek pizza)
- Kampanoules With Peppers and Basil (omit the cheese)
- Seafood Pasta
- Shrimp With Mastiha liquer
- Cuttlefish With Saffron and Potatoes
- Melitzanosalata (Eggplant Salad)
- Spanakorizo. Another local variety asks for more spinach, and some lemon too.
- Rice salad
- Shrimp Salad With Avocado and Pasta Shells
- Roasted Red Pepper Dip
- Imam Baildi
- Rice Salad
- Leonidio, Tsakones and Eggplant (replace feta cheese with tofu)
- Fassoulotavas Makedonikos
- Shrimp and Pasta

And of course, there are all the “normal” Greek fasting foods, ranging from bean soups to lentils (in this lentils recipe omit the sausage, and use olive oil), and from yemista (use some olive oil) to green beans (use some olive oil).

My late grand mother told me ~15 years ago that during the World War II she had to eat quite some “stinging nettle soup” (σούπα τσουκνίδας) to survive. Since then I’ve been meaning to learn how to cook this food, but it wasn’t up until 10 days ago when I asked a great aunt of mine (now in her mid-70s), that I learned how to cook it. Since then, I also learned that Scandinavians, Turks, Romanians, some villages in France, and native American Indians also eat nettles. I haven’t tried the recipe as it’s not the right season to harvest them, but I am transferring the recipe as told by my aunt.

So, first, you need to wait for the time that nettles grow, around February-March. You have to use some thick gloves in order to not get irritated by the nettle stinging. Harvest the nettles while young, before they have bloomed. Wash well.

On a big pan put lots of water, bring it to boil, and cook the nettles until tender. Drain the water away, and bring the nettles into a blender to make them a puree (traditionally, Greeks would use a wooden tool to “beat” the nettles until they become somewhat mashed instead of puree). Add some water on a pan, bring to a boil, and add the nettle puree.

While stirring, add some salt, tender onion greens (chopped), one garlic clove crushed, olive oil, a bit of lemon juice, and just enough of white flour to get the soup thickened. Eat warm.

As a variation, for these modern days we live in, I guess you can also use some vegetable stock instead of salt, to give it a more distinct flavor.

My mother, Barbara, is showing us how to cook macaronopita (also makaronopita), a pasta-based Epirus-Greek pie recipe. One of the best foods to take with you on picnics or trips.

Shot with a cheap Kodak V1233 digicam. The video has no editing niceties or direction, it’s just a point-and-shoot handheld video at my mother’s kitchen. HD version here.

A recipe directly from my mother, which is different than the main courgette pie recipe found in Northern Greece (less sweet). This is one of my favorite pies, and very few people know this particular version of the recipe.

Ingredients (for 10)
* 1 kg mexican courgette/zucchini (it must be this kind, rather the more common kind)
* 1 cup of olive oil
* 1 big onion, chopped
* 2 cups flour
* 1 egg
* a bit of mint
* some salt
* some water

Execution
1. Peel off the courgettes and cut them in very thin slices inside a big bowl. We add some salt on the slices and we use our fists to dry out their juices completely. This is the most difficult part of the recipe, as you need to put out quite some physical strength to dry out the courgettes from their juice. Place the dried zucchini on a separate bowl and throw away the juices on the first bowl when done.
2. Later, we add and mix in 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of olive oil, the chopped mint, and the onions, and we stir well, for all ingredients to become one. We oil a big baking pan, and we put the mass everywhere in the pan using our fingers to even everything out in the dish.
3. In another bowl we add salt, the second cup of flour, 3 tbspoons of olive oil, 1 egg, and a bit of water, and we beat them all in order to make a non-stiff batter. We add that mix on top of the courgette mass on the baking dish and we use our fingers to evenly distribute the batter too.
4. Add the rest of the olive oil on top and distribute it too, and we then bake it at 250 Celsius (over 400F) in an already warmed-up oven, for over an hour, until well golden brown.

We can buy organic, free range chickens everywhere in the world. But even these organic free range chickens look just like any other industrialized chicken. Here’s the real organic, free range, corn-fed chicken. From my grand-mother’s hens. Meat that resembles duck, not chicken. More real than the real thing.

Uncooked:

Cooked:

I know I am not pregnant, but while I was browsing the net tonight my tongue suddenly filled, out of the blue, with a familiar food taste: fried goat or sheep organs and intestines. Oh, God, I missed (true) Greek food so much. There is no way I can find such animal parts here in the US to cook something like this (I am afraid that I might even get jailed for asking a butcher where to find such animal parts). The vast majority of people don’t even eat goat meat here, let alone its guts.

I remember how my mother prepares them very well. My uncle (or occasionally my father) would slaughter and skin the free-range goat from his own herd (he’s got over 200 goats), my aunt who doesn’t like cooking this involving recipe much would bring the guts to my mother (who doesn’t mind it) within the hour, and then we would share the final outcome.

My mother would find a 40cm length, 1 cm width, stick/branch from a tree, clean it up to make it straight and then she would pull the branch into the intestines to turn them inside-out. The branch is a very good trick to turn intestines inside-out, because it’s imperative they are cleaned well with lots of cold water on the inside, because it’s their inside part that’s mostly dirty (as this is where food goes to become poo in the animal). I can’t explain it how the branch turns the small intestine inside-out, but it does, you have to try it to see it for yourself. You also clean up well with lots of cold water the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and spleen. Remove any parts that are not directly part of the organs. If you see discoloration or weird spots on some of the organs, you throw away either the entire organ, or you clean it up very well by removing these cancerous parts (yes, sometimes goats and sheep have cancer).

Then, you put them all to boil in a big pan, uncovered. In the first few minutes that they will start to boil, floating blood will come out of them (it will look gray, not red), and you need to use a spoon to remove the blood from the boiling pan. After a while, no blood comes out anymore. You remove the water, you put new, clean water in the pan, and you boil again. Boil for 30 mins, and then you throw that water away too. You change the water yet once more if the animal is old (older animals are more smelly than young ones). For the final water change, you add new cold water, you boil again, but this time you cover. You let the guts cook for over 1.5 hours (much less if you have a pressure cooker). Then, you remove the water again, and you let the guts get cold so you don’t burn your fingers while carrying out the next step.

You take a knife and you cut all the guts in small pieces, about 1″ in size (2-3cm). You put lots of olive oil in a big frying pan, you add your guts in there (you probably will need to fry twice, as a full goat’s guts won’t fit in a single frying session), you add lots of oregano, some salt & pepper, and you fry until they become dark in color and rigid. You add 1/5 cup of lemon juice on each of the frying sessions and you fry for 2-3 more minutes.

Then, they are ready to eat, usually with home-made French fries (also with oregano and salt on them). It’s a lot of work to properly clean and prepare this recipe, but it’s yummy, yummy, yummy. Another way to cook the intestines instead of boiling/frying them is to rotisserie them on a horizontal stick, just like this (press enter on the URL to view image). This is called “Kokoretsi” and you can ask for this dish on most grill houses in Greece.

As for the stomach of the goat, we keep that aside, along with some of the intestines, to make a soup called “patsas“. Another favorite of mine. My mother makes one of the best patsas ever in an avgolemono-like recipe (as in my recipe on the link, but with no rice or chicken, but with lots of garlic and the rest of the technique as described there).

Regardless, they are lovely animals too, not just tasty. Sheep are my favorite animals, but goats are really smart.

Inspired by a “Pasta Pomodoro” dish called “Tortellini alla Panna” (not the same recipe though). We had the following tonight with JBQ and we liked it a lot. A very rich dish.

Ingredients (for 2)
* Cheese tortellini for two
* 3 slices of uncoooked bacon
* 150 gr of chicken breast
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/4 cup milk
* 1/5 cup white wine or champagne
* 2 tbspoons of frozen spinach
* 1 garlic clove
* 2 tbspoons olive oil
* Some basil (or sage or parsley)
* Black pepper to taste

Execution
1. Cut chicken into strips. Cook pasta as per package instructions and boil the chicken strips with it too. Drain, separate the chicken from the pasta, and set both aside.
2. Cut the bacon in small bits. In a pan heat the olive oil and start frying the bacon. Stir occasionally.
3. Two minutes later add the chicken into the saucepan and fry it together with the bacon for a few more minutes. Stir occasionally.
4. Cut the spinach, garlic and basil in small bits. Add to the frying pan and fry all for another 2-3 minutes until the bacon is crispy and the chicken has taken some color.
5. Add the wine, and cook for one more minute. Add some black pepper. Add the milk and the sour cream. Stir for a while to melt all ingredients together and turn off the heat when the sauce is still creamy.
6. Mix the pasta in it, stir everything for 30 more seconds and immediately serve. Enjoy!