Lentil Moussaka

It would appear that I'm officially in the dog house.  Why you may ask?  Well favourite son in law has been cooking up a storm over the past while and I've become the designated blogger for his creations.  "R" has been "gently" reminding me that he's not seeing enough blogging happening.  He's right - we've been either busy for real or procrastinating.  At least Psychgrad has an excuse - between sleep deprivation, a toddler and a newborn, having a shower is a luxury.  

This time when "R" gave me one of his "gentle" reminders, the tone had changed somewhat.  He compared my not posting his cooking to continuously withdrawing from your bank account.  Eventually you're in the red.  Ugh!!!

With Christmas around the corner and Hanukkah in full swing, one might think that we'd be making lavish meals and incredible desserts.   Not so much.  Truth be told, I'd rather have a vegetarian moussaka than cheesecake anyway.   This dish is the full Canada Food Guide all in one dish.  Although a tad time consuming, the result is just so satisfying that it pays to take your time enjoying it.

*** Did I mention that "R" couldn't remember where he got the recipe from so if we've insulted anyone by not giving them credit for their recipe - my humble apologies,

3/4 cup whole green lentils

1 eggplant sliced

4-5 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 large carrot, diced

4 sticks celery, finely chopped

1-2 Tbsp dried mixed herbs

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes

2 tsp soya sauce

freshly ground pepper to taste

2 medium potatoes, cooked and sliced

2 large tomatoes, sliced

Sauce

2 Tbsp vegetable margarine

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1 3/4 cups milk

1 egg, separated

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 tsp nutmeg

fresh herb sprigs to garnish

• In a saucepan, cook the lentils until soft but not mushy.  Drain reserving the liquid in a separate bowl.
• Fry the eggplant until lightly browned, drain on a paper towel
• Saute the onion, garlic, carrot and celery with a little of the lentil liquid.
• Simmer with the lid on , stirring occasionally until the vegetables soften.
• Add lentils, herbs and diced tomatoes simmering for 4-5 minutes.  Add the soya sauce and ground pepper.
• Place a layer of the lentils in a large casserole dish and cover with half of the eggplant.
• Cover the eggplant with half the potato slices and all of the tomato slices,
• Repeat with the rest of the lentils and the other half of both eggplant and potatoes.

For the sauce:

• Melt margarine and add flour.  Lift the pan from the heat stirring vigorously to create a roux while making sure the flour is well incorporated.  Slowly add milk, stirring constantly to make sure you achieve a smooth consistency. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to add the egg yolk and nutmeg.  If you don't cool the sauce, you'll have cooked egg - not pretty.
• Whisk the egg white until still and fold into the sauce.
• Pour the sauce over the moussaka covering the whole surface.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until golden brown.   Garnish with herbs and serve.

Chef's notes:
Don't overcook the potatoes otherwise they'll just fall apart.
Use a large enough casserole that's reasonably deep to avoid spill overs

Parsley and Mint Meatballs

A while ago I had the pleasure of watching the Three Greek Sisters  create these Greek meatballs.  They just made it look so easy and the aroma while they were cooking was sheer heaven.  The friend I was with and I both agreed that this was a must try recipe and we've now added this recipe to our regular repetoire of "good things".

Follow the recipe to a "T" and you'll never be sorry with these entirely delicious and soft meatballs.  I've never used mint in a meatball recipe before but now I feel like "how can you make them without it".

1 lb. (500 g) ground beef, extra lean
1/2 yellow onion, minced
1/2 cup each fresh parsley and mint, chopped
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 Tbsp yellow mustard
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp oregano, dried
1/2 tsp salt Pepper, as desired

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with hands. Let mixture sit in refrigerator for at least an hour. Shape meat into bite-sized balls and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Place in a preheated 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until brown and cooked through.

I didn't serve Tzatziki sauce but here's a great recipe from Jerry's Thoughts, Musings and Rants and lower fat too.

Peter's Wonderful Spanikopita and Tyropita

It's always fascinating to me how things happen in spurts. Do you ever notice that you can be driving along and all of a sudden traffic slows to a grinding halt and seems to crawl for what feels like forever and then all of a sudden it's clear again? I don't get how that works. A friend once told me it's a mathematical wave. Alrighty then, all clarified. The other thing that I often notice is that you can have a couple of weeks of nothing really going on and then it seems that you're double booked every day and don't know what to do first.

Actor Boy's birthday was on the horizon. He was also performing the same day and Psychgrad was coming in from Ottawa. In addition, we had the whole family coming to celebrate AB's birthday. I truly didn't have the time to start messing around in the kitchen and decided that I was going to turn to fellow blogger friend Peter from Kalofagas. I've followed Peter's blog for years and have a lot of respect for his connection to his heritage and cuisine. I've replicated some of his recipes and haven't been disappointed once. When Peter announced that he would be selling phyllo pies I knew that, if I served something from Peter's kitchen, there would be absolutely no disappointments. Besides, I feel very strongly about helping out fellow bloggers. How many people do you know who are still stretching their own phyllo? Seriously!!!

I ordered a large spanikopita:

and a small tyropita:

served with a quick cole slaw:

and a quinoa and edamame salad:

When I picked up the pies, I have to admit, I was pretty stoked. They looked amazing and were scored for cutting and ready for the oven complete with very clear instructions. I even got carry out service to the car :).

My family is always pretty openly opinionated about the food that's served. Buying these pies from Peter was probably one of the smarter things I've done in a while. Everyone not only loved them but continue to rave about how great they were. Everyone took home leftovers which, for me, is a very huge thumbs up sign. I'd order again and again!!! If you're in the Toronto area, get in touch with Peter. He's adding things to his roster as I'm writing this post. The refreshing component to all of this is that Peter genuinely cares about the food he creates and has a fabulous sense of customer service and satisfaction. I even received a follow up email to make sure I was totally satisfied. My rating on the pies would definitely be a 5 out of 5!!!!

Ottawa Cultural Festivals

Growing up in Winnipeg, Folklarama was one of the summer festivals I looked forward to attending every year. Folklarama has been around for over 30 years and has grown to a two week festival with over 40 different cultural pavilions set up around the city. The festival typically draws about 425,000 pavilion visits.

In Ottawa, cultural festivals are smaller and usually initiated by individual cultural communities.  But, still well-worth checking out.

Here are some pictures of the food from a few that have taken place over the summer:

Recently, we went to GreekFest, probably one of the most popular cultural festivals in Ottawa.  I can't even imagine how much food they go through during this festival.

Chicken Souvlaki

Gyros Platter

Bougatsa

Baklava

The weekend before last, we checked out Ottawa's first Night Market.  The market was small (about 15 stands total), but it was a great start to what hopefully will grow and become an annual event.  

These ladies are making Turkish gozleme.

Baklava

curry fishballs

A third festival we attended, the South Asian Festival, took place earlier in the summer.  At the festival, we picked up a jar of Ishina's ready-made curry sauce.

I decided to make a vegetarian dish, using the curry sauce and a bunch of these vegetables:

Vegetarian Curry

2-3 zucchini, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
kale (as desired)
1.5 cups cooked brown rice
3 small carrots, chopped
2 garlic, crushed
3/4 jar of curry sauce
2 tbsp olive oil

Add olive oil to pre-heated frying pan.  Add garlic, stirring constantly to avoid burning.  Carrots take longest to cook, so I threw them in first, followed by the zucchini and tomatoes.  I added about 1/4 jar of sauce at this point.  After about 5 minutes, I stirred in the kale, rice and the remainder of the sauce.

Flavourful & healthy!  Great combination.

Tortellini Soup

I took the leap! I decided to graduate from my Canon SD450


to a starter DSLR, a Nikon D3100.

*Note: both pictures were pulled from Google Images.

I'm determined to figure out how to take decent photos in manual mode, but feel like I'm near the bottom of a steep photography learning curve. I took a half day crash course and spent most of the time wide-eyed and overwhelmed. My new challenge is to figure out how to take photos in RAW format and then edit them to look good. Any tips on editing programs to use (ideally open source or not too expensive)?

I definitely notice a difference in the pictures I take with the DSLR. Not necessarily for the better as of yet. So, you'll just have to bare with me and the varied photo quality.

*************************************************************************
I recently had a couple of friends over for dinner. I had been thinking about making this soup for a while and since the dinner was taking place on the same day as my photography course, I knew I wouldn't have a lot of preparation time. Annie's Eats is a really delightful foodblog that I've been following for a couple of years now.

Tortellini Soup
Annie's Eats


Yield: 3-4 servings
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. olive oil
½ cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp. dried oregano
1 (15 oz.) can diced tomatoes, with juices
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth (or chicken broth)
9 oz. tortellini, any variety (fresh or frozen)
3 cups fresh baby spinach, loosely packed
Salt and pepper
Grated Parmesan, for serving

Directions:
In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions to the pan and cook until beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Mix in the oregano and diced tomatoes. Add the broth to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add the tortellini to the pot and cook according to the package directions. One minute before the tortellini is fully cooked, stir in the spinach. Remove from the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm with grated Parmesan as desired.

I highly recommend this soup. It's super easy to make and tastes great. I'd probably add more vegetable broth next time. Go take a look at Annie's version of the soup. It makes a better case for trying the recipe than my photo.

It has been forever since I've shared something with Presto Pasta Night, so I'm going to send this dish over to Chez Cayenne, who is hosting this week's event.

Although the soup could be a meal on its own, I decided to make a spanikopita, a recipe we've posted a couple of time on here.

Galaktoboureko

Peter, of Kalofagas , my local go to guy for Greek specialties suggested that a must have at Christmas time is Galaktoboureko. When I saw the recipe my instinct told me this wasn't very figure friendly but then who am I to follow my own instincts? It looked fabulous and decided to give it a try.

Ingredients

7 large eggs, room temperature
10 cups of whole milk, room temperature (I used 2% lactaid and it was fine)
2 cups sugar
1 cup fine semolina flour
1 heaping Tbsp butter
zest of 1 lemon
1 package commercial phyllo
2 sticks melted butter (for brushing)
14x11 bakeware dish

Syrup
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

1. Place a large pot over medium-high head and add eggs, sugar and semolina and mix constantly over medium heat until incorporated. (note: follow this - it burns really easily if you leave it)
2. Add milk, zest and butter and continue to mix using a potato masher until custard has thickened slightly. Place a tea towel between the pot of custard and the pot's lid, cover and reserve off the heat.
3. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Butter baking dish. Count how many sheets of phillo in your package and divide in half. One half will go on the bottom, the second half will go on the top.
4. In the bottom of the pan, layer your one half of phyllo, leaving the edges hanging over the sides of the pan. Brush each sheet generously with the melted butter. Pour the custard over the bottom of the phyllo layers.
5. Fold the excess phyllo over and into the pan and evenly distribute the remaining sheets of phyllo to entirely cover the custard. Again, ensure that each sheet is brushed generously with butter.
6. With a very sharp knife, score the phyllo (just penetrating the top layer of phyllo) to make the desired size and shapes of your Galaktoboureko pieces. (this makes it easier to cut later and will also allow the syrup to be distributed completely.
7. Bake in the middle rack for 35-40 minutes or until the top is nice and golden-brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
8. To make your syrup, add the sugar, water juice and zest and bring to a boil and count 10 minutes for your syrup to develop.
9. Using a ladle, pur the syrup over the Galaktoboureko (1 ladle at a time) until the syrup is absorbed.
10. Carefully complete the slicing of your pieces (tracing your initial cuts); allow to cool for approximately 1 hour. Refrigerate uncovered over night to set. Serve cold or room temperature.



Notes: I should have cut the Galaktoboureko in smaller pieces. This is a very sweet and rich dessert and smaller amounts are preferred.

Verdict: I don't think I could make this unless I had alot of people over - I'd eat the whole thing - it's really a wonderful dessert albeit off the glycemic scale.


Peter said that when working with phyllo as long as you follow some basic rules it should be easy enough to work with.

1. Make sure you defrost frozen phyllo in the fridge overnight.
2. When working with phyllo use one sheet at a time and cover the balance with a damp tea towel to ensure it doesn't dry out (it can dry out really quickly)
3. Handle the phyllo gently - it's very fragile.
4. Make sure you brush melted butter on each sheet

A Big Meal on December 25th

For some Jewish people, celebrating aspects of Christmas is a common occurance. Do a Google search on "Jews celebrating Christmas" and you'll find several debates on whether having a Christmas tree (or Hanukkah Bush) is acceptable. It's hard not to feel like you're missing out on something when everyone around you is preparing for Christmas.



Growing up, we celebrated Christmas because there have always been non-Jewish family members. Actually, we probably celebrated it more than a lot of Catholic families (we had all nine reindeer in our basement next to a manger scene, with so many presents that you couldn't even touch the tree) -- a slight glimpse into the insanity that is my family.

Nowadays, I go on a "we're Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas" soapbox starting about 1 month before Christmas. Inevitably, I still get "Hanukkah presents" on Christmas. It's a losing battle.

Never ones to miss out an opportunity to cook way too much food, here's the feast we had at Giz's place.

Spinach Dip

(the recipe toward the bottom of the post)

Yorkshire Pudding

Turkey


Stuffing


Salad


Potatoes

Challah

Cabbage Rolls

Brussel Sprouts

Giz will tell you about the desserts -- there were just as many selections of desserts as mains and sides combined. It's a good thing there were 7 of us The seven of us combined hardly made a dent in the food.

Cocaine Cookies - Kourabiedes

If you've followed our blog for a while you may have heard me say that these cocaine cookies are my absolute without question very favourite cookie of all time. There's really no cocaine in them (but I guess you knew that). They're really a traditional Greek shortbread cookie called Kourabiedes (I'm sure you have to be Greek to be able to pronounce this properly).

Actor Boy's girlfriend is Greek so I wanted to make her feel at home by for the first time ever, making these cookies. And who did I turn to in my time of need - my fellow Toronto Greek blogger - Peter of Kalofagas . Not only did he point me in the right direction - he also gave me other options that could work - hmmmm, maybe I'm not so done as I thought.




Here's Peter's recipe:

Kourabiedes

(recipe is for 2 baking trays/80 cookies) Note: Absolutely dead on 80 cookies

1 lb. clarified butter
1 cup icing sugar
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups of roasted almonds, coarsely chopped
1 shot of brandy (I used cognac)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 heaping Tbsp. of baking powder
5 cups all purpose flour
Extra icing sugar (for powdering)

1. Using a mixer and a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and continue to mix.
2. Slowly pour in the vegetable oil while still mixing
3. Add your brandy to a large glass and then add baking powder; stir until dissolved. Add this mixture and the vanilla and continue mixing until blended.
4. Start kneading the mixture with your hands (try not to say yuck too often)while slowly adding the flour until the flour has been absorbed. Add the almonds kneading them into the dough mixture.
5. Break off pieces the size of a walnut and form them into your shape of choice (I made crescents) Place each formed cookie on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Reapeat process until all the dough has been used.
6. Bake in preheated 350 F oven for 30 minutes*. When slightly cooled immerse cookie in 2 cups of icing sugar and coat completely.

Notes:
This is the type of cookie you don't want to be indulging on regularly - it's very rich but man - oh so delicious.

*My oven may be fast but I found my cookies were done between 18 and 20 minutes.
They're a delicate cookie - throwing them around will cause them to break rendering them suitable only for the baker :)

Wedding Story: Part 3

Warning: R's Equal Opportunity Kitchen Exposed post is in progress. He has been spending way too much time in the office writing this thing. Giz...be afraid. Be very afraid.

But first, I bring you the 3rd installment of The Wedding Story...

With the first full day of events impending, Giz and I headed to the Byward Market to stock up on supplies. We had about an hour to get a lot done. So, I was literally dragging Giz from place to place telling her to put the camera down and get a move on.

She did manage to sneak in a few shots.

Unlike the Farmer's Market, the stands at the Byward Market contain a lot of produce that is not local. This has led to quite a debate, locally. Including a petition. Last year, the addition of a colour-coding system was added to inform customers of the distance the produce has travelled to get to the market.
Red means Canadian.
Blue means imported.
Green means from within 100 kilometres of Ottawa.
Yellow means organic produce from anywhere.

There are still some problems with this system as the stickers are not always prominently displayed, produce from different regions are often sold in the same basket and there is the occasional mislabelling.

One of the main benefits of the market is that there are a bunch of small stores in the area that are there year round (even when the stands close for the winter).

There are two cheese stores very close to each other (I get the names confused). They're both good. I think the one we went to was The House of Cheese. Or, maybe it was International Cheese & Deli.




One of the best reasons to go to the market is to visit La Bottega, a store specializing in Italian food.


At this point, we were beyond late and I was stressing. So, Giz was very restricted in her picture taking. We picked up the remainder of what we needed and returned to the apartment to get the "day before" preparations under way.


Thankfully, I had a barrage of help Saturday morning to get everything done. Life is so much easier when other people do your work for you. I miss my entourage (sniff sniff).

Here are some shots from Saturday dinner (some are blurry -- there was just too much going on at once to take good shots).

Cheese Platter


Included a mix of cheddar, brie, smoked gouda, havarti and cranberry goat's cheese.

Orzo Caprese Salad (Melissa - you know I'm obsessed with this stuff)


I made the pesto without pine nuts because one of the guests is deathly allergic to nuts (slight challenge).

Lemon-Dill Salmon


Not the most beautiful dish in the world -- but it was a big hit and super easy to make. We marinaded the salmon for 30 minutes with olive oil, lemon juice, dill, salt and pepper. HUGE HIT.

Here you can also see a bit of the green salad we served along with the baguette (some fresh, some made into crostini). Guests had an option of bruschetta or portabello tapinade.


Also a favourite, here's the spanikopita (easy to make ahead of time, freeze and warm up). You can also see Giz's towel cake in the background.

Chicken Skewers (sorry, kind of blurry) -- the platter was a gift from R's mom.

Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

Icing

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups icing sugar
4-6 tbsp water

Make sure shortening and butter are at room temp. Mix them together to smooth out, add vanilla, then icing sugar (a little bit at a time to avoid a counter disaster). Add water as needed (depending on desired consistency).

This 3-tier stand was a wedding gift (from Giz, of course). The top layer is some leftover banana loaf and the other layers are the famous Blueberry Crumble Bars that everyone was making last year. I used a mix of blueberries and a saskatoon berries to make them.