Longing For a Greek Breakfast
For the past few years, there has been a movement in Greece to showcase authentic Greek breakfast items. Emphasis has been given to hotels, inns and restaurants that are frequented by tourists. This is being done because if you’ve visited Greece (and the rest of Europe), you may have had one of those “continental breakfasts”…you […]
Misko Pasta With Sausage & Red Pepper Sauce
Greeks have been preserving the Summer’s bounty for ages – anything from sun-drying tomatoes, pickling, curing olives to even meats. In Florina (where my parents come from), you can see red shepherds peppers air-drying outside of homes in the late summer warm and breezy air. These dried peppers can then be re-hydrated in hot water […]
Sauerkraut With Sausages, Pork & Caraway
Last Sunday I completed my journey into the world of ancient Greek cuisine by present the flavours and some of the ingredients that were enjoyed at that time. Some ingredients like olives, olive oil, grapes, wine, honey, grains are still present, other ingredients like eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are more recent additions to the […]
Spetsofai (σπετζοφάϊ)
Spetsofai is a Greek dish made of sausages and peppers. Think of it as a Greek stir-fry, a one pan dish.The first time I tried Spetsofai was in the city of Volos. It’s a dish that’s native to the province of Thessaly, which lies between Macedonia and Attiki. Traditionally, this sausage stew is spicy but […]
Thessaloniki Mustard
One of my favourite condiments is mustard and my affinity has nothing to do with that yellow ballpark stuff most of you are familiar with but it from my first taste of good mustard…in Thessaloniki of all places! My first trip to Greece was in 1974, accompanied by my mother who had not seen her […]
Macedonian Sausages
As my parents have related to me on many occasions, the family pig would get slaughtered just a few days before Christmas and the ritual of butchering the pig and using everything but the squeal. Chops, loins for the Christmas dinners, pigs feet, ears, tail & head would be kept outside until the Epiphany whereby […]
Zesty Prawns With Halloumi
I really enjoyed this dish as a starter. It fills the eyes, it looks exotic and there’s a lot of colour and flavour going on here. The star of the plate has to be all-Canadian BC (British Columbia) spot prawns. These prawns are in season from May and they can appear in markets for up […]
Ricotta Dumplings With Crispy Chorizo, Mushrooms and Sage
It’s less than a month away from Christmas and many of you are in the holiday mode with parties, work functions and thoughts of Christmas with family and friends. Some of your early birds have already begun shopping for gifts. The foodie in you (or your friends) always has room for another good cookbook. Why […]
Spetsofai Skewers (Σπετζοφάι-σε-σουβλάκι)
Regular readers of my blog will know that I like to share dishes from a Greek magazine insert in the daily Kathimerini known as Gastronomos. This magazine comes out each month and it features the month’s seasonal ingredients, introduces new products entering the Greek market and it showcases new artisan and crafted foods made by […]
Kostas Meat Market
Seeing as how it is Holy Week for the Greek-Orthodox, most of us are fasting in some degree and we’re also juggling the duties of preparing for the big feast that awaits us this upcoming Sunday for Easter. Toronto boasts of having about 120,000 Greeks in the Toronto area, over a dozen churches and our […]
