Gigantes "Plaki" - Baked giant beans in tomato sauce

Butter beans or "Giant (= Gigantes) beans", as we call them in Greece, is a classic dish of pulses and very popular all year round. They don't need much preparation and they are a light, nutritious and very tasty dish

Ravani with yoghurt and almonds

Ravani is a semolina flour cake with plenty of syrup poured over it. It is a traditional dessert which you can find in various regions of Greece and the recipe differs a bit from area to area. The most famous one comes from the area of Veroia, upNorth Greece. One of the classic versions is the one with dessicated coconut sprinkled on top. The common thing they have though is the semolina flour and the syrup. Not a complicated recipe and for those who don't mind the syrupy desserts Ravani is an excellent example of this kind

Tzatziki.... revisited and transformed into a salad!

This is an alternative for the classic tzatziki. Something totally different than the traditional creamy tzatziki but still very tasty and with such an easy preparation that it will surprise you

Home made pitta breads

The famous Greek pitta breads with the many uses! For your pork or chicken gyros or kebabs or even individual small pizzas! In a frying pan or under the grill or (even better) on the BBQ!

Braised amaranth greens (horta vleeta) in tomato with feta cheese

The vleeta greens (amaranth) besides being used as a salad, can be cooked in other ways and become a nice light meal or as a vegetable to accompany various meats. Here we have a tasty old recipe which my mother very often cooks during the Summer months when the vleeta are in their high season

Baked lamb "Kleftiko"

The word of this dish derives from the Greek verb "klevo" which means "to steal" and there is a story behind it. As a recipe it seems that it goes back to the (at least) 1800s during the period of the Greek Revolution against the Ottomans. Back then, the Greek rebels were hiding in the mountains and often they would need to steal some goat or lamb so to be able to feed themselves. They would cook their meals in a very subtle way so the Turks could not spot their hide-outs by the smell or the smoke of the food while it was cooking. What they were doing was to seal all the ingredients of this dish in a clay pot, then bury it along with hot coals under ground, cover with soil, and allow it to braise slowly until done. Nowadays, still, the dish can be found cooked in a clay pot or wrapped in layers of baking paper and baked in the oven for hours. Some people add vegetables like potatoes, sweet peas and carrots in the baking paper and often Kefalotyri or Kefalograviera cheese in cubes. This, though, confuses things because in this way what we have is a totally different recipe called "Exohiko" ("Countryside")! In which, traditionally, the meat and the vegetables are tightly wrapped in layers of phyllo sheets pastry