Pastitsio... Finally!

See that?  It's glory.  Pure glory.  Also very late glory.  You know how when you get sick for a week it feels like it takes 3 weeks to recover from the time you were sick?  That's what happened to us.  I woke up really sick the morning after making this amazing meal.  Then, after neglecting our blogging, we wanted to be able to commit to sticking with it a little better when we came back.  After another 3 or so weeks of that, we're still not feeling less busy, so I make no promises that consistent blogging will happen! But at least for today, we finally present Pastitsio! 

Greek Week Presents... Baba Ghanoush!

Whew! What an exhausting day at the Castle Farm! We made pitas, tzatziki, htipiti, hummus, and also baba ghanoush!  We don't necessarily recommend making all of these at the same time.  It's a lot of work for you and your food processor.

Anyway, we picked this baba ghanoush recipe from The Way the Cookie Crumbles because 1) it looked delicious and 2) she described an oven method of roasting the eggplants.  Though we ended up accidentally roasting them differently (we'll explain below).

Greek Week Presents... Hummus

Hummus is one of those things we always think about making and never do.  Since we were planning to make a bunch of dips for Greek Week, we finally had our opportunity to make it.

This recipe is pretty good.  If you like basic-but-good hummus, this is the one for you.  We prefer hummus with added flavors.  We're going to try a garlicky one next time.  Of course, maybe it's just unfair to compare it to all the other dips we made...

Greek Week Presents... Htipiti

What's htipiti?  Greek roasted red pepper and feta dip, of course!

This dip was AMAZING.  Like, we could just eat it by the batch. That probably wouldn't be a good idea though.  Plus, we have three other pretty great dips to eat at the same time.

Greek Week Presents... Tzatziki

Since we just gave you a wonderful pita recipe, it's only fair that we give you a few things to dip them in. No Greek feast would be complete without Tzatziki!

This recipe is a Castle Farm original, created through many test batches to find our favorite blend of seasonings.

Greek Week Presents... Pitas!

Greek Week continues on the Castle Farm Cookbook! To those just joining us, we are having a week long celebration to mark our blog's first birthday.

No Greek feast would be complete without an appetizer of pita and dips. We made pita pocketsa while ago, but we have never shared our favorite pita recipe with you.

Greek Week Presents... Grecian Meatballs!

Welcome to Greek Week!

In honor of our Blog's 1st birthday (they grow up so quickly...) this Saturday, we are sharing recipes of our favorite Greek foods all week!  That way, you can have your own Greek feast to celebrate with us.

Kicking off our Greek week is a simple, Greek-twist on a classic meatball recipe. We've made this many times and always love the result.  It's originally from our Perfect Greek cookbook.

Once upon a time there was... Tomato and Feta Fritters

These are also called ntomatokeftedes, which is a long Greek word that means tomato fritter.  We found this recipe over at Closet Cooking, where Kevin the blogger makes all kinds of delicious and beautiful food.  We definitely recommend checking out his site.  Anyway, Greek fritters...

I was super excited about making them, Cal was less convinced.  Once we finished them, Cal loved them, too.  They definitely take a little time, and aren't great for reheating.  Perhaps these would make a better party food than weeknight dinner, but you should still make them.

Once upon a time there was... Mediterranean Salad with Green Beans and Feta

So since we are trying to eat healthier we went looking for new, interesting salads.  We came across this one from Martha Stewart that seemed simple and interesting.  It's a good way to sneak in some beans for an extra nutritional benefit, too.

ingredients
1 head of romaine, chopped
8 oz green beans
2 naval oranges
1 1/2 c feta cheese
1 small red onion, sliced
15 oz can of white beans
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper

instructions


1. prepare green beans. in a saucepan, boil water, and simmer green beans 4-6 minutes until slightly tender. rinse with cold water.

2.  prepare orange.  peel and slice fruit.

3. prepare lettuce and other veggis.

4. prepare dressing.  whisk together oil and vinegar.  add salt and pepper to taste.

5. create salad.  toss together all ingredients. serve!

Here are our thoughts on this:  The dressing needs something, but we're not sure what.  (It's just a little boring.)  We still don't like white beans even when we hide them in a salad. Green beans in a salad is do-able.  Feta makes everything better.

So, we're not ready to reject this salad, but we think it needs a little work.  We would love to hear your ideas, Castle Farm Cookbook blog readers!

Here's the nutritional info:

pig, out!

Cookie Extravaganza! Greek Honey-Walnut Balls

For our next trick, we have Greek Honey Walnut Balls. I am not really sure if these are technically a cookie, but close enough. As loyal readers know, we really love Greek food. So if we are making a cookie extravaganza, naturally one of them has to be Greek. This recipe is based off of one we found at Christmas-Cookies.com, but we made a slight adaptation. We had a cinnamon stick, actually one from Greece, that we were excited to use in the syrup, but we couldn't break it in half!

And we didn't have whole cloves either, so we just used ground. Since these are really yummy, we can't even imagine the yumminess that they would have been if we had used whole seasonings. Here it is:

Once upon a time there was... Greek Salad

As you may know, Cal and I are world traveling farm animals. We have been to Greece - twice. So you could say we know a thing or two about Greek food. For example, here is us at a cafe in Athens enjoying wine and baklava.

What we have decided about Greece is that they have the best food in the entire world. So, we dabble in Greek cooking, and you will see us post many more Greek recipes in the future. Recently, we discovered a food blog we love, Elly Says Opa! Today, we are making a big Greek salad using Elly's Greek Dressing recipe and her chicken gyro recipe. We wish we still had some of our authentic Greek olive oil to use for this, but our house extra virgin will have to do. We do however have some greek salad seasoning that we brought back with us and will use then in place of just oregano.

ingredients

for the dressing

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 c red wine vinegar

2 heaping Tbsp greek yogurt

1 tsp greek seasoning mix (or oregano)

1/4 c extra virgin olive oil

salt, pepper

for the chicken

4 cloves garlic, smashed

juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 heaping Tbsp greek yogurt

1 Tbsp greek seasoning mix (or oregano)

salt and pepper

1 lb chicken

for the rest of the salad

lettuce

cucumber

feta cheese

pepper

whatever you want to put in it: olives, tomato, etc

instructions

1. marinate chicken. whisk together all the chicken ingredients in a small bowl. Add chicken. cover and refrigerate at least an hour.

2. make the dressing. whisk together all of the ingredients except the olive oil. Add the oil in a steady stream, while whisking to combine and emulsify. add salt and pepper to taste. refrigerate an hour.

3. preheat broiler. sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. broil until cooked through, about 5 min per side.

4. toss salad ingredients and dressing.

5. when chicken is cooked, slice and top the salad.

We really liked this salad. It was light and filling and yummy. Conveniently, we still had some leftover homemade pitas to complete the meal. Once again thanks to Elly Says Opa! for the excellent and authentic greek recipes!

Pig, out.