Day 30: March 23, 2015 - Sweet Mini Lenten Cretan Pancakes - Μικρές και Γλυκιές Νηστίσημες Κρητικές Τηγανίτες

When we think about pancakes, we think about breakfast.  However, in Crete, pancakes are not exactly what we know in North America.  Pancakes are small fried bits of batter and topped with a syrup made from honey -- not maple.  So, why are they called pancakes?  We believe that it is because of  the shape.  These are crispy and chewy little discs with a soft centre and delicious toppings.  You have to eat these when they are hot or warm, and we believe they will not last longer than that, anyway!

For this recipe, you will need the following:

2-3 cups water

1 TBSP oil

1 TBSP lemon juice or orange juice

1 tsp salt

4 cups flour

honey and sesame seeds OR cinnamon and powdered sugar as needed for the topping

Pour the flour and the salt into a bowl and combine them well.  Make sure the salt is fully distributed throughout the flour.  Having two ingredients that are white in colour, and a mixing bowl that is white, makes for difficult photography.  But, it gets better!

Make a well in the centre of the flour.  Into that well, add the oil and lemon (or orange) juice.  Mix these together well.  The mixture will start to look like the beginnings of a pie crust, with little crumbles in the flour.  Then, you need to start adding the water, cup by cup to make a thin batter.

A thin batter will fall off a spoon easily, will not hold any shape, and will pour as easily as mustard. There may be some lumps in your batter.  These may disappear as the batter sits, so do not worry.

Have ready a deep pot with oil heating.  These pancakes are deep fried.  The oil should be hot, but not fully boiling.

With a large soup spoon, drop the batter spoonful by spoonful into the hot oil.  You have to make sure that the spoonfuls do not touch each other in the oil.  Here is why:  When you drop the batter into the oil, it sinks to the bottom of the pot.  Then, as the pancake cooks, it will start to rise to the top of the oil. As soon as it floats to the top, turn it over to get a little colour on the second side of the pancake.  The hardest part about making these is achieving the round shape when you drop the batter into the hot oil.  After four or five tries, we got it!  Then, we realized it was not difficult at all.

When the pancakes are light and golden in colour, floating at the top of the oil, remove them and place them onto a paper towel for a moment to collect any extra oil.  But, while they are still hot, put them in the clean dish (off the paper towels) and squirt honey all over the pancakes.  Then, sprinkle sesame seeds over the tops.  The sesame will stick to the honey.  Serve warm.

The other topping for these, after having fried the pancakes, placed them on paper towels to drain some excess oils, you can put them in a bowl or dish and sprinkle cinnamon and icing sugar on top.  A neighbour of ours told me that she has a zipper-seal bag with cinnamon and sugar combined, and puts her hot pancakes into the zipper bag, shakes them in the cinnamon-sugar, and then, puts them on a serving plate.  She tells me that her grandchildren call them Yiayia's doughnuts!  Who needs a doughnut shop when we have Yiayiades in the world!

We tasted both the honey/sesame topping and the cinnamon/powdered sugar topping.  Both were fantastic!  The interesting thing about these pancakes is that the dough, itself, is a little salty -- not sweet at all.  The different toppings made these pancakes taste like two completely different treats.  The traditional topping is the honey/sesame, but the cinnamon/sugar is a good back-up plan if ever you do not have the other ingredients.   

"The love of money is (and is called) the root of all evils,  because it produces hatred, thefts, envy, separations, enmities, storms, remembrance of wrong, hard-heartedness, murders." 

St. John of Climacus (From the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 17, Section 14)
Source of quote: 

http://www.carmelitepriory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf

Day 29: March 22, 2015 - Monastery Fasting Cookies With 4 Ingredients - Νηστίσιμα Μπισκότα Μοναστηριού Με 4 Συστατικά

Food from the cookbook Greek Monastery Cookery by Archimandrite Dositheos is sometimes involved, and other times, the recipes are quite simple.  When we saw the recipe for fasting cookies that had only 4 ingredients, we had to try it.  How could anyone pass up an easy cookie like this?  We were not sure what to expect in texture, but, surprisingly, it was a tasty, soft treat with great texture and lingering sweetness.  We understand, now, how the monks would make these, eat one, and be satisfied with just one.

The measurements for this recipe are approximate.  The directions were given in grams (weight), and we converted the measurements to cups for our own convenience.  Therefore, the measurements may not be completely accurate, but they worked out fine.

For this recipe, you will need the following:

3 cups white almonds
1 cup powdered (icing) sugar
3 TBSP honey
1 teaspoon rosewater (can use vanilla, almond extract, ouzo, orange water, or other flavouring)

The directions in the cookbook tell us to mill the almonds.  We took that as grind them, and for that, we used a food processor.  In fact, we put all the ingredients in the food processor and mixed until they reached "a tight dough," as the book directed.  We thought a tight dough meant that we could form a shape with the dough and the shape held.  It was not a smooth dough, although we could have blended it more to make it smooth.  We like the texture of ground almonds, so we left texture in our dough.  The honey, powdered sugar, and water made a nice glue to hold the almond crumbles.

Once the dough is made, make cookie shapes.  We chose to make small balls and flatten the balls with fork tines.  This is a classic method when making peanut butter cookies.  We rolled balls of equal size out of the dough.  Place the cookie balls on a paper-lined cookie sheet, allowing a little space for the cookies to spread.  Then, press the fork into the top of the cookie.  This will flatten the cookie ball into a disc, and will leave the lined imprint of the fork.  Doing this gave us nice round cookies.

Bake the cookies in a "moderate temperature oven."  We baked at 350º F (about 175º C) until the cookies turned light brown.  They baked for approximately 9 minutes at 350º F.  When we saw the cookie edges turning brown, we checked the bottom of the cookie.  Once we saw a nice, even colour on the bottom of the cookie, and it moved freely across the parchment paper, we knew they were done.  There are no raw ingredients to worry about remaining uncooked.

After a moment of cooling the cookies  so they are cool enough to touch, but still warm, sprinkle powdered sugar on top of them.  We used a sifter to make the coating even and light, covering the top of each cookie with the icing sugar.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before serving.  When you sprinkle icing sugar on cookies, you always know when someone takes a cookie before they make it to the table!  These are delicious, flavourful, and just sweet enough.

"Run from places of sin as from the plague. For when fruit is not present, we have no frequent desire to eat it." 

St. John of Climacus (From the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 3, Section 9)
Source of quote: 

http://www.carmelitepriory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf

Day 28: March 21, 2015 - Lenten Spaghetti with Tarama - Νηστίσιμο Σπαγγέτι με Ταραμά

By now, you may know how much we enjoy the recipes of Diane Kochilas.  We read through her cookbooks to get ideas, to verify how to make something, or to find new dishes to make. Having owned Diane's books since the 1980's, we particularly appreciate her references to the Ikarian diet, given that members of our own family also share an Ikarian background. Her latest book on Ikaria and the Ikarian diet is an excellent book that all readers should get their hands on.

Recently, we found that she had an easy version of Linguine with Poor Man's Caviar (a.k.a. tarama); we recognize, however, that she gives credit for this recipe to local Scarborough (Toronto, Canada) legend Peter Minakis (www.kalofagas.ca).  And, although we did not have linguine noodles on hand, we did have spaghetti , which is just a thinner noodle, so we knew it would work.

We like easy recipes with few ingredients.  Who doesn't?  We had read other recipes for the same dish, but those recipes had many ingredients, many of which we did not have on hand.  And, when you want to make dinner that is quick and uses the items you have on hand in the pantry or the fridge.  That was the other appealing part about using Kochilas' recipes.  This took about 20 minutes to complete from start to finish, which means less than 30 minutes from the time we got home from work to the time dinner was served.  Now, spaghetti with tarama is on the list of dishes to make for company.

As  you read the ingredients list, you will see that one of the ingredients is Bukovo, which is the Greek term for red pepper flakes.  In our house, this is a staple that goes with many meals.  We use the red pepper flakes, various hot sauces, tabascos, and dried chiles for different dishes.  But, we are aware that we are a little different that way, and not everybody likes spicy foods.  We do, so we thought that this time, we would add just a little more zing to the dish, and we used a red pepper pasta.  It is made with pepperoncini peppers, so the strands of pasta have a nice little bite.  Since the spiciness would be in the pasta, we were able to use the Bukovo for garnish, or as needed per individual.  There are a variety of pasta types and flavours to use, you just have to pick out what you like.

For this recipe, you will need the following:

1 pound of spaghetti (we used a spicy (3% hot pepper) Divella spaghetti) or linguine (about 500 g)
6 TBSP oil
1 medium onion, chopped (can use spring onions, scallions, red onions, or white)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup glanced sliced almonds
6 TBSP tarama (not taramosalata) (see our entry from March 1, 2012)
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 teaspoon Bukovo (red pepper flakes) to taste
salt and pepper to taste

In one pot, boil the salted water and cook the pasta.  Cook the noodles long enough to your liking.  We prefer when noodles have a little bite (al dente), and others prefer very soft noodles.  When the pasta is done, drain most of the water, leaving about 4 TBSP in the pan with the noodles.  Let that pan sit while you cook the topping/sauce.

Here we are toasting the slivered almonds

In a dry sauté pan, toast the almonds.  Do not add oil; the nuts have their own that will help the browning process.  Toast the almonds long enough that they become a beautiful golden colour.  The almonds will brown quickly, so you have to keep moving them around the pan.  This will take about 4 minutes in total.  Our almonds were a little crushed, so the small crumbles of almond browned a little more than expected.  We did not mind, because they tasted delicious, even if they looked a little burnt.

Now, in another pan, sauté the onions and the garlic until the onions are soft.  They should not turn brown, merely translucent.  Once the onions are soft (about 5 minutes), it is time to add the other ingredients.  Add the tarama, almonds, lemon zest, and a bit of bukovo.  You may want a little more bukovo, if you want a spicier dish.  Mix this together until the ingredients are well combined.

Let the onion/tarama mixture heat through, mixed well, and then, it is time to add it to the pasta.  Pour the contents of this pan into the spaghetti pot, and mix well.  You will notice that the little bit of water that was in the spaghetti will help mix the sauce/topping all around.  Mix everything together enough to get all of the noodles coated.  Then, squeeze the lemon over the spaghetti.  This will brighten and freshen the flavour of the sauce/topping.

Serve immediately while it is warm and fresh, and enjoy!

This should take most people less than 30 minutes to prepare.  We would love to know how your dish turned out.  We especially enjoyed the different textures in the dish, from the soft onion, to the crunch of the almonds.  Husband found the layers of flavour very complex.  There was a slight bitterness from the lemon zest, a slight bite from the bukovo, and the tarama was creamy and a little salty. All of the flavours and textures together made this a great meal.  For us, this is a winning recipe not only for the ease, but also for the taste. Thanks to Peter Minakis for the original recipe and Diane Kochilas for the modified, simpler version. Our own modification of using slightly spicy spaghetti made, in our opinion, for a more piquant version that all in our own family enjoyed tonight!

A man will know his brotherly love and his genuine charity when he sees that he mourns for his brother’s sins, and rejoices at his progress and graces.

St. John of Climacus (From the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4, Section 47)
Source of quote: 

http://www.carmelitepriory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf