Table olives (Ελιές τσακιστές και παστές)

Despite the excess sunshine that we are still experiencing here in Chania, it's time to start picking olives off the trees in our olive grove to put into salt, lemon juice or vinegar to make olives edible as fruit (rather than to be pressed for olive oil). There are two main types of olives grown in Hania: lianes (very small fruit, only used for pressing into oil) and tsounates (used both for table olives and olive oil). Lianes are preferred for their endurance to stay on the tree without dropping off too early due to adverse weather conditions, but they are too small to be turned into table olives. They can be hand-picked or the branches can be "thrashed" by hand or machine tree by tree. Tsounates are not that sturdy; they drop off the trees at the slightest breeze, so nets are placed under the trees at the end of summer to catch them as they drop during the autumn and up to the middle of winter. They can then be gathered for pressing at a convenient time for the owner, but since they were already on the ground for quite a while before they were pressed, they will contain less oil than lianes. By the way, all olives start their life green; they all turn purple black over time.

Black olives are preferred for salting, while green olives are marinated in lemon juice, or salt and water; people choose whatever method suits their time and taste. Black olives are put in vinegar, also known as Kalamata olives, pointing the way to their origins, Kalamata. I have put olives in vinegar before, and they tasted delicious, but it's not common practice in Hania to do this, as the olive varieties grown here are different to those of other regions in Greece. Lemon juice (or bitter orange) and salt are the main preserving agents here. We don't eat olives straight from the trees; they are far too bitter.


The olives need to be large and firm. Pick them straight off the trees, not from the ground, and make sure they are as unblemished as possible. The fallen ones will be full of dackos flies and their eggs. These insects are harmless to humans, but cause great destruction to the trees and fruit. Separate the black olives from the green. Wash the black olives to free them of dust, then dry them well. You don't want any excess moisture when using salt. Place the black olives in a container that can be sealed with a lid, layering them in large-grain sea salt. When the container is filled to the top, close it and leave the olives in a cool dark place for up to a month to wrinkle and darken in the salt. Once you open the container a month later, drain them of the excess liquid that accumulates due to moisture. Take a cup full of olives and wash away the salt. Put them in a small bowl to serve. They can be kept in the fridge or at room teperature; They keep just as well both ways. While you're eating the washed olives, the salted ones will keep just as well in their original container. This method of preserving olives is really fuss-free.


Now for the bothersome green olives. They can be picked any time once they have grown to the size of an acorn nut, and should be firm and bright green. They need to be crushed with a wooden mallet on an easy-to-clean kitchen-top (or plastic bread board - I doubt a wooden one cleans well) before being placed in tap water for two-three days in order to remove most of their bitterness. Try not to smash the olives with the mallet; give them a firm tap so that they will open without the pip coming away. This job is a dirty one; anything the olive juice stains will remain there for life, unless you clean it off with bleach. Your fingers will turn as black as the black olives themselves. I always wear plastic gloves to do this job, as I don't think it would look too good going into an English lesson in the evening looking as if my fingers have developed gangrene. The best place to do this job is in the garden on a clear day when you won't feel the cold. I even keep an old T-shirt to wear just for this job. I have tried slitting the olives with a kinfe instead of crushing them, but they do need more time in the water (up to four days) and the taste is not the same, meaning I liked it, but not so my traditional Cretan husband. He has forbidden my use of this method.

Once you have crushed the olives, place them in a big open bowl of water, once again in a cool dark place for two-four days, depending on the method used to cut them. Change the water as often as you can; this removes the bitterness more quickly. After this period, drain the olives and pack them in glass jars, preferably big ones. You now have to start squeezing lemons for their juice, a tiring process than can leave you with hand-strain injury. The good part is that your hands will become as clean as they were before you started crushing the olives. Place a heaped tablespoon of salt (more if the jar is very large), and pour the unstrained lemon juice over the olives and a few tablespoons of olive oil to seal it, then close the jar with a tight-fitting lid. The olives will be ready in about two-three weeks, depending on the crushing method, their maturity at picking and individual taste.

Generally speaking, Greek dishes calling for olives cooked in meals, whether ripe or unripe, are NOT generally the norm, except treated ripened green ones in a tomato-stewed squid dish, where they are added in the last few minutes of cooking. I can't understand the reasoning why they are added in tomato-seafood dishes, but then puttanesca wouldn't be the same without black olives, would it?


The final method for marinating olives is to clean them by running tap water over them, place them in a clean coca-cola bottle, fill the bottle with tap water and add a tablespoon of sea salt on the top, before closing the bottle securely and leaving them in the bottle, WITHOUT opening it until about Easter time. Keep them in a cool, dark place. My bachelor uncles gave me this recipe. I have tried it in the past, and I prefer them done this way - they have a mature pure olive taste. We did not have enough green olives this time round to preserve them in this way, but I will try to remember to put some aside next year. When opening the bottle in April, beware: open it as slowly as possible, because the olives will have been fermenting all that time, and when you unscrew the cap, they may explode out of the bottle unexpectedly!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

See also:
A day in the field
The rape of the countryside
A summer garden
A winter garden
An autumn garden

Karidopita (Καρυδόπιτα - walnut pie)

Here is a party dessert that you can serve with ice-cream. I made it today because it is St Demetrius' Day, so my husband's celebrating his nameday today. It's a traditional Greek sweet, and it's unusual in that it doesn't contain flour. Walnuts added to a cake are also a firm favorite in Cretan cuisine, since there are so many walnut trees in the area.

You need:
250 g butter or margarine
6 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups ground walnuts
3 cups dry breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons of cinammon
1 wineglass of brandy
1 orange, both the juice and the rind
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Mix well the butter or margarine and the egg yolks with the sugar. Add the breadcrumbs and walnuts, along with the cinammon, brandy, baking powder and the grated rind of the orange.
In another bowl, beat till stiff the 6 egg whites, and add them to the batter. If the mixture looks too dry, add the juice of the orange, or the equivalent in milk if you prefer. Turn the batter into an oiled baking tin (or pyrex dish if you want to serve it in the pan it is cooked in) and cook in a moderate oven for 40 minutes.

For the syrup:
While the cake is cooking, boil up 3 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar along with a quarter of a lemon and a cinammon stick, till it becomes thick and syrupy. When the cooked cake comes out of the oven, cut it into squares (but don't lift the pieces out!), and pour the slightly cooled syrup over the cake. It may remind you of a baklava when you serve it, except of course that it isn't a pastry pie! Serve a piece of pie with a scoop of ice-cream; chocolate or vanilla go best.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PUDDINGS:
Apple pie
Bougatsa
Brownies
Tsoureki
Chocolate cake
Chocolate pancakes
Apple pie
Tiropitakia
Halva
Fruit crumble

Lazy Saturday meal (Κοτόπουλο με κάρυ - Λαχανοσαλάτα)

There are many days (plenty of them) when we can't be bothered with food. Today was one of them for me. A cabbage salad with grated carrot and slivers of pointy red peppers was dressed with salt, olive oil and wine vinegar (the common variety used in Greece). This was the accompaniment to some free-range chicken browned in olive oil with chopped onion, minced garlic and some more thinly sliced pointy red peppers, all doused with a bottle of ready made tikka masala sauce poured over it, in which it simmered for an hour - free-range chicken meat is tougher than indoor-reared chicken, so it needs a longer cooking time. Crusty bread is a must for the thick sauce that is produced by the various fats in the pot. We also had a choice of rose and white wine. A very simple, and very satisfying meal.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE SALADS:
Summer horta
Winter horta
Lettuce salad
Salad advice
Greek village salad
Cretan salad
Beetroot salad

Corn and tuna pasta (Μακαρόνια με καλαμπόκι και τόνο)

Here's a favorite lunchbox meal of my children's. I prepare it in the evening and pack it for them to eat at school the next day, but it's so quick and easy that you can even prepare it in the morning so that the children can take it fresh with them. Both the kindergarten and the primary school have refrigerators and a conventional or microwave oven, so I'm not concerned about food going off in their bag before lunchtime.

Open a small tin of tuna, and drain it of the oil or brine. Likewise with a small tin of corn (not the creamed variety). Boil some pasta (enough for two servings) till al dente. When cooked, pour in the tuna and corn. I don't add salt, but that's up to you. Add two full tablespoons of mayonnaise and mix everything together. Voila!

This lunch snack reminds me of the Marks and Spencers sandwiches we ate while on a train journey from Cambridge to London: buttered wholewheat bread triangles filled with corn, cheese and tuna. Yum yum!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PASTA RECIPES:
Puttanesca
Bologanise
Stir-fry noodles
Stir-fry beef
Blue dragon
Octopus stew
Pastitsio
Pizza carbonara
Mussels sauce

Guacomole (Αβοκάντο κρέμα)

Avocados are a relatively new fruit to Greece. The southern Greek climate is perfectly suited for their rapid growth, they are a sturdy plant not prone to serious attacks by pests and disease, and as their market value is high, the avocado has become one of the most popular alternative crops being planted in Crete. When they were first brought out onto the Greek market, the locals basically didn't know what to make of them. They thought of them as a fruit, so they served them after the traditional olive oil-y meal. They weren't sweet enough, so they sprinkled some sugar over them (thereby doubling the caloric value of the crop itself). They were then told to eat them as a salad, so they cut them up in a shallow dish and doused them in olive oil, not taking into account that the avocado itself was naturally endowed with its own lipids. I think that Greeks still view them as a mysterious crop. Avocado lends itself in Greek cuisine as a colourful addition to a tomato or lettuce salad, omitting the copious amounts of oil.

Here is my favorite dip, taking pride of place over traditional Greek dips such as taramosalata and hummus (but not tzatziki - that's a special one when made properly). With a hint of hot spice, it's perfect for chilly winter weather. Maybe it's the green colour; I even had my walls painted light green when I was living all by myself (and had control over whatever happened in my life, and made up my own rules about how I wanted to live). We have guacomole with bean or lentil soup, and dry roast meats. I love it with julienned vegetables (carrots, celery, cucumber) and crisps.

Take one soft but not bruised avocado. The one I used looked like the one in the photo; it was a South African imported variety (I'm still waiting for someone to give me some avocados fromt he village). Peel and stone it, put it into the blender with three cloves of garlic, some salt, a pinch of ground chili pepper, and the juice of a large lemon. Whizz everything together. If the mixture seems a bit gritty, and it isn't blending together, add a tablespoon of tomato juice or olive oil in the blender to smoothen out the lumps.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE DIPS:
Fava
Taramasalata

Our autumn garden (Ο φθινοπωρινός κήπος)

Here are a couple of snapshots of our garden at the moment. Notice that the peppers and aubergines have taken a new lease of life from the cooler weather; they are by far the most productive crops in our garden. We have also planted some lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli. They need constant watering, and we haven't had any rain since May. God help us through the winter (if there is going to be any).

Artichokes are an unusual vegetable; they are a favorite salad crop in Crete. The artichoke shrub dies down completely at the end of spring, and resurfaces in the beginning of autumn, in the same place where it had last been seen in the garden. The one in the photo is intercropping with a zucchini plant; I captured this shot because it looked so unusual - a summer vegetable and a winter vegetable entwined together harmoniously!

Apart from the artichokes, the rest of the winter garden is not doing so well; even if it is early October, the temperatures are still very high, averaging a maximum of 27-28 degrees Celsius daily. We really do want to see rain; winter crops (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce) are deperate for moisture, but all we can provide them with is dry brown soil.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

See also:
A day in the field
The rape of the countryside
A summer garden
A winter garden
Table olives

Banana cake muffins (Κέικ μπανάνας)

Banana cake is my favorite NZ tea-and-coffee accompaniment. Sadly, we never made it at home; my mother used to bake all the staple Greek sweets that my own family now enjoys in my own home, but she never made true NZ banana cake. She once made a Greek cake, to which she added bananas, but it still tasted like Greek cake, rather than the moist banana bread the Edmonds cookbook recipe turns into. We used to buy some as an occassional treat when we were in town. I remember a day when I was wearing my school uniform (a teal colour; most people would not know what the word 'teal' meant, let alone be able to visualise it as a colour), doing some shopping with my mother in James Smiths, or maybe Farmers, or was it Woolworths? It can't have been anywhere else, because they were my mother's favorite stores; you could find anything you wanted in them. If you wanted to buy someone a wedding gift, you went to James Smiths', if you wanted good quality moderately priced household goods, you went to Farmers, and if you wanted to buy lollies, you went to Woolworths. To get there, we had to pass the Dixon St deli where we used to buy salami and olives once the Italian grocery near our house closed down due to a sharp decline in trade when Wellingtonians began to take delight in visiting the new supermarkets and shopping malls that were sprouting up in the suburbs. We never did indulge in such activities as a trip to New World in Newtown, or Pak'n'Save in Kilbirnie. We lived just above Kent Terrace; we didn't need to go to Newtown or Kilbirnie. We had it all on Courtenay Place and Manners St.

I must have asked her then if we could buy some of the banana cake I was looking at in the window of a cake shop; I don't think it would have been on her shopping list. She bought two huge slices of it - each slice could have been cut into three decent portions. The aroma permeated our shopping bags. It smelt and felt like the cake my schoolmates bought in their lunchboxes. I was so happy when the shop assistant gave her the brown paper bag containing the cake. I couldn't wait to go home and have it with---

Before I had thought about how it would look in our banana-cake-less house, and how we were going to enjoy it as part of our tea, my mother suggested we could eat it by the Cuba St bucket fountain a few metres away from the deli. I hadn't expected this; without thinking, I just said 'OK'. She was treating me to some banana cake, so I felt I must reciprocate by taking her up on her offer. Mother and daughter sat silently, back to back (the outdoor seating was to blame) in the pedestrian zone, our shopping bags beside us, devouring the XL slices of banana cake by ourselves. I had a sudden panic attack, the feeling that I was in the wrong place. Two plump olive-skinned sheilas among a majority of paler faces, eating inappropriately oversized portions of a light dainty sweet,disregarding the ettiquette involved with eating banana cake. As I was sitting there with my mother gorging on my piece, the thought came to me that she never made this cake at home because she didn't know what to do with it. I wanted to tell her that we should have been sitting indoors, not outdoors, having a hot drink, stirring sugar cubes in a cup of tea sitting primly on a saucer, not scoffing it down in the middle of the street. I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to feel a stranger in NZ any longer, that she was a part of the melting pot culture that composed the genetic make-up of the average Kiwi, that there were plenty of other foreigners like her who were happy to be called a Kiwi, and they let their children be Kiwis just like the pale-faced lot. She had been in New Zealand for nearly 20 years at that point. By virtue of her years in the country, she had more claim to being a New Zealander than I did. I was tired of being a stranger in my own country, doing everything differently at home from what I did at shcool. We could make banana cake at home too, and eat it like the other girls did at school.

But we never did. So we sat there silently, not really knowing what to do with it now that we had it, so we did whatever came naturally to us. We were sitting there by chance, partaking in an experience that we did not want to be a part of. I wasn't being a fair dinkum Kiwi; instead I felt like a fraud, masquerading as a local in a Wellington Girls' uniform, hiding my true self. At the same time, I had a sense that I wasn't the good Greek girl I was supposed to be, either, because I was eating a huge piece of cake that I should have shared with the people who were passing by, especially the ones that smiled to us, mainly the Maori. They seemed to understand us better than the pale-faced lot. They looked more like us too with their dark features. Maybe just the lips; theirs were fuller than ours, but the shades of skin, hair and eyes were the same.

When I moved to Greece, the first cookbook that I bought on my first return visit to NZ was the Edmonds cookbook. I bought myself a loaf tin, and made banana cake regularly. I kept it in an old biscuit box with a Victorian scene on the lid. I ate it in small slices. I lived on my own, so I had no one to share it with. I had to eat it by myself. I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, three slices a day. I may as well have eaten a slice as big as the Dixon St deli's and got it over and done with all at once. When I got married, I made it for my husband. He didn't like it. "Why don't you try making a Greek cake, Maria?" I knew what he'd say next: "Now that you don't live in Greece, you can't expect to cook like a New Zealander, like you did back home." Alas, how could he know that my late mother only cooked Greek food? Now that I was in Greece, I couldn't cook Greek food, because all I wanted to eat was Kiwi food. I had severed my past in so many ways, but I could not sever my taste buds completely from Kiwi kai. I never felt I belonged anywhere.

I was adamant that someone would eat my favorite cake with me. It had to be someone who had no past experience of what constituted Greek food or Kiwi food, someone who couldn't compare one cooking style to another. Finally my banana cake companions came along: my children. And to make sure that they feel at ease about eating banana cake, I muffinise all my cakes now, simply because muffins make decent-sized servings that do not lead to obesity, as well as leaving no crumbs. They also make for easier lunch box packing. Here's the genuine dinkum Kiwi cake recipe of choice from the bible of Kiwi cooking, the New Zealand Edmonds cookbook, altered for my Greek kitchen and supplemented by an extra addition of healthy goodness with locally collected walnuts. The mixture makes 18 medium-sized muffins, something between the giant sized ones you buy from 'health' shops (just think how healthy it is to over-eat), and the mini-sized ones that may be served as hors d'oeuvres (kids would need at least two of those for their morning break).











You need:
a muffin tin lined with paper-cases (or a greased or lined loaf tin)
2 bananas
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 cup sugar
125g margarine
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
200g self-raising flour
2/3 cup finely ground walnuts

In a bowl, blend (or whisk) together the bananas, eggs, vanilla, sugar and margarine. In a cup, mix together the soda with the milk. When it is frothy, pour it into the banana mixture. Mix in the flour to make a batter which isn't runny. Mix in the walnuts and spoon the mixture into the paper cases. If you fill them to the top, they will rise into mini-cakes when cooked; otherwise, fill them 2/3 of the way up, so that they remain as big as the paper case. Cook in a medium-hot oven till the cakes are done (test them with a toothpick). Let them cool before you serve them. To keep them for a week, store them in an air-tight tin. They can also be frozen; they defrost well in a child's schoolbag, so that by break-time, they are ready to eat.

Coincdentally, there is no mention of banana cake in the fifth edition of Edmonds cookbook which came out in 1914, not forgetting that the first edition of the Edmonds cookbook came out in 1907. How on earth d'ja know that, you might be wondering. It is in my possession, among other bits of New Zealand trivia that I could not bear to part with as I've already discussed in my afghan recipe). My edition with the banana cake recipe was published in 1983, but I've seen similar recipes on the internet for banana bread, all using the same ingredients, more or less. When were bananas readily available in New Zealand? The British must have known them since they discovered the Carribean, but when did they become readily avaialble in New Zealand? There's a tricky one for all of us to think about. MissJilly also mentions a nice simple banana cake recipe which could be used alternatively.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE CAKES:
Apple pie
Chocolate cake
Simple cake
Carrot cake muffins
Chocolate muffins
Vasilopita
Walnut cake
Apple cake
Halva
Tsoureki

Carrot cake muffins (Κέικ καρότου)

Muffins are perfect for school box lunches. They take up less space in a condensed area, come in their own packaging and leave no crumbs. I found a recipe for carrot cake on the web and turned it into muffins. I omitted the cinnamon, mainly because it's not a favorite of my family's. I also put the walnuts (we don't use pecans in Crete) in a blender and turned them into crumbs. They don't get stuck in your teeth this way!

For the sake of convenience, here is the carrot cake recipe from joyofbaking:
1 cup (110 grams) pecans or walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
3/4 pound (340 grams) raw carrots (about 2 1/2 cups finely grated)
2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar
1 cup (240 ml) safflower or canola oil (but of course you can make this cake with olive oil)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C). Chop the nuts coarsely. Peel and finely grate the carrots. Set aside. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon. Set aside. In a mixer, beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 - 4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots and chopped nuts. Divide batter between two prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

I made the recipe into muffins, which turned out excellent; they had a crispy exterior, while they remained soft and moist on the inside, but I didn't frost them (we don't need the extra calories). My only complaint is that they didn't have a spicy or tangy taste; without the cinnamon, they were rather bland, so the next time I make them, I will add orange or lemon zest to the batter. I highly recommend this recipe. It epitomises health, in that it contains many natural ingredients that we don't usually eat in our daily diet because they need preparation: carrots need paring and grating, the walnuts came from a friend's trees, and I added olive oil (produced from local olive groves). You can improvise on this recipe by adding raisins and crushed pineapple to make the cakes moister and more chewy. You can also freeze the muffins in the same way as banana cake muffins and allow them to defrost in a child's lunchbox; by break-tiume, they'll be ready for eating.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE CAKES:
Banana cake
Brownies
Chocolate cake
Simple cake
Chocolate muffins
Vasilopita
Walnut cake
Halva
Apple cake
Tsoureki

Pizza (Πίτσα χωρίς μαγιά)

Here's a quick 'no yeast' based pizza dough that makes a thin, biscuity base. It's best eaten on the same day, as bread that does not contain yeast tends to dry out (whereas yeast products go mouldy instead). Mix some oil and margarine (about 1/2 cup worth) with an egg and a small tub of Greek yoghurt in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of baking powder and a sprinkling of salt. Then add the flour, enough to make a spreadable dough. Roll the dough out into a pizza or baking tin. I have a pizza tin that has holes in the base to allow the dough to cook better underneath.

For a filling yeast dough, look up my ladenia; it has now become a weekly treat for the whole family, and it is really easy to make. The dough requires very little kneading, it is easy to press out into a baking tin, and you can keep it vegetarian, as it contains a lot of olive oil, and makes a filling snack without the meaty toppings.

Top the pizza with a layer of thinly sliced ham, pepper rings, thinly sliced tomatoes and grated cheese. Cook till the pastry is crispy and brown, and the cheese is melted. Enjoy it once it's cooled down a little, as hot tomato burns!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PIZZA/PIE RECIPES:
Ladenia
Pizza with a yeast dough
Pizza carbonara
Chicken pie
Cottage pie
Spanakopita/hortopita
Kalitsounia
Leek pie
Sfakianes pites
Spiral pie

Banana chocolate lassi (Ρόφημα με μπανάνα)

I loved milkshakes when I was young, like my kids do now. I had no idea what went into them, but they sounded healthy because they had the word 'milk' in them. I stopped drinking milk for breakfast form a very young age, so I though I was doing myself a favour to have a milk-based drink; good for my bones, I would get myself to believe. We all know what lured me to them: they contain generous amounts of sugar and fat-based products, so that their taste is nothing like milk, and more like high-calorie addictive junk food. Do strawberry milkshakes really contain strawberries? If it's winter, strawberries will have to be imported (and therefore increase CO2 omissions), so it's going to be expensive, not to mention wasteful, to make. What about a banana milkshake? If it comes particularly yellow in colour, then it doesn't contain banana - banana flesh is creamy white, not yellow.

So what does go into a milkshake? For a start, the invention of milkshakes goes hand-in-hand with the progress in technology; no matter how hard or long you beat milk, cream, butter or ice-cream, you'll never get the lump-free smooth creamy consistency of a milkshake unless you use some kind of machine to do it. So milkshakes, unlike their name suggests, are an artificial drink. Milkshakes always contain a thickening agent like flour. The addition of (high amounts of) sugar also thickens liquids. Ice-cream is an easy option for making milkshakes, because it contains all the ingredients needed to make one: sugar and dairy products (not necessarily milk or cream), plenty of sugar and thickening agents like fat and flour. Worst of all, think how many scoops you need to fill a tall glass, as milkshakes are traditionally served in. Wouldn't you have been better off having one scoop of your favorite ice-cream rather than one milkshake? Although they had always been a treat in my youth - I don't think I have had more than a couple of dozen of them in my whole life - I stopped having them permanently once I became highly weight-conscious. My 5-year-old's having his second chocolate milkshake in his life so far.

Talking about milkshakes, why not try the lassi version instead? The Indian lassi drink is very popular these days. It's so much more trendy to say you're having a lassi than a milkshake. But it's the same thing, really, it's a milk-based shake. We've all heard of mango lassi. It was invented in a third world country, it is not a technology-based food item, and mango was the first fruit to be associated with it. But let's face it, we don't all live in countries where mangos are widely grown. Our mango tree produced just two this year, so I couldn't expect to make mango lassi the whole summer long. So why not try making lassi - or smoothie, call it what you like - with any readily avaialble fruit with a thick consistency similar to that of mango? A cheap and common alternative, despite its undesirably high level of carbon footprints required to get it to our fruit baskets, is the humble banana. I had a couple of over-ripe bananas in the house, the type that grow black spots on their skin, despite having no blemishes in their flesh. Beauty is only skin deep, but my children are too young to understand that, whereas my husband is too childish to believe it; he also scoffs at black-spotted bananas. Here's what I made with one. I did use a blender, because it makes life easier. But if the banana is really ripe, you can mash it up using a fork (I suppose).

You need:
a ripe banana
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/3 cup thick yoghurt (of course I used Greek strained yoghurt, but if you can't get that, try using more yoghurt than milk to get the right consistency)
1 teaspoon of honey (or more if you have a sweet tooth)
2 teaspoons cocoa (or children's chocolate milk powder - this is optional; I add it to make a more child-friendly version of a milkshake)
Make sure the banana, milk and yoghurt are very cold. Put all the ingredients into the blender. Blend till the banana leaves no lumps in the mixture. Pour into a tall glass. A straw helps.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE HEALTHY SNACKS:
Banana cake muffins
Apple cake
Carrot cake muffins
Chocolate walnut pancakes
Kalitsounia
Ladenia pizza
Marathopites
Prasopita
Fruit crumble
Sfakianes pites
Spanakopita
Tiropitakia
Dakos rusk
Corn fritters

Yiouvetsi (Γιουβέτσι - roast meat with rice pasta)

Here's a popular Sunday roast dish, an alternative to meat and potatoes. This meal contains pasta (usually in the form of rice), and the meat it is usually served with is the head of a sheep or goat. Sounds a little like offal, doesn't it? This is a delicacy in Crete, even more so since there is only one head, so it's usually reserved for the head of the family. The logic behind the recipe is that in the past when there were no fridges, and not much meat available in poor rural areas, all parts of an animal were eaten in some way, hence the birth of this dish. The idea of pasta in the oven is a recent addition in Cretan cooking; rice and potatoes are more traditional. You may be wondering who is going to eat this in my house; I have also included some other cuts of meat in the tin, so there will be plenty of takers. This meal is at its most delicious when you use free-range chicken meat.

To make this meal, you need to prepare the sheep's head. Put it in vinegar and water to soak for a couple of hours. Then boil it in salted water for about half an hour. Now you can place it in a roasting tin with other cuts of meat, and cook it in the same way as for Sunday roast. When the meat is practically done, add 250 grams of rice pasta along with 3-4 cups of water. The pasta doesn't need a lot of cooking time. Scoop up a serving of pasta onto a plate with a piece of meat on the side. Don't forget the salad!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE MEAT RECIPES:
Avgolemono stew
Sunday roast
Chicken
Rabbit/Hare
Mince
Curried pork chops
Tsigariasto
Stir-fry beef
Souvlaki
Pan-cooked pork chops

Salmon (Σολομός)

Salmon fillets need very litle cooking time, whether they are lightly fried or lightly grilled. I had some leftover salmon from yesterday's meal of grilled fish and salad. So I turned it into a cold salad for myself with boiled potatoes and courgettes. I chopped up the ingredients and dressed the salad with olive oil, lemon, some parsley and salt. Very nourishing, but nothing spectacular; no sauce to mop up, no piquant taste, all very bland. It reminds me of what the British cook.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE SEAFOOD RECIPES:
Bakaliaros - bakaliaraki
Octopus stew
Psarosoupa
Shrimp in lemon
Squid stew
Squid fried
Taramasalata
Mussels sauce

Mango lassi (Ρόφημα με μάνγκο)

Lassi is a kind of yoghurt drink originating in Asia. Milk is added to make it runny, and honey and/or spices are added for taste. I checked out a range of lassi recipes on the web (Jamie Oliver, elise, indiasnacks, bbc) and found that they all contained runny yoghurt and milk, the remaining ingredients all being a matter of individual taste. I enjoyed the drink in a Pakistani restaurant in London, but it didn't seem to taste the same in my own home. I tried making it with some tinned mango pulp, but it didn't taste that spectacular. Another time, I made it with fresh mango pulp from imported mango; very nice indeed, but I wouldn't say any more genuine. I wonder what the difference is between the yoghurt used in Asia and the runny Greek cow's milk yoghurt (a local variety produced in Crete) that I used. I could taste the tangy flavour of the mango (unlike with the canned variety). It made a refreshing breakfast. I whizzed the ingredients (along with some honey to sweeten it) in a blemder, and put the drink in the fridge. We have a mango tree of our own in one of our fields in the village - it gave us two mangos this year. For the sake of mango lassi, I hope it prospers.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE HEALTHY SNACKS:
Banana cake muffins
Banana lassi
Apple cake
Carrot cake muffins
Chocolate walnut pancakes
Kalitsounia
Ladenia pizza
Marathopites
Prasopita
Fruit crumble
Sfakianes pites
Spanakopita
Tiropitakia
Dakos rusk
Corn fritters

Cheese and honey pies form Sfakia (Σφακιανές πίτες)

These cheese pies are very popular in Crete. They are easy to make and use quite basic ingredients, but they do involve making a slight mess of your kitchen. Although I have made them on numerous occassions, they turned out best for me when I made them for the first time with a friend's mother's help, and just recently (9 years later) when another neighbour friend invited me to her place to make them together, so I was spared the hassle of cleaning up. They involve a little skill, in that when you roll out the dough-and-cheese mixture, you mustn't apply a heavy hand, otherwise the dough will break up, and the cheese will run out. Their name derives from a remote area of Crete (Sfakia) where they were originally made, and they are cooked in the typical style of the cuisine of the Sfakia region, using just oil and high heat.

To make about 15 pies (which can be deep-frozen stacked on top of one another with greaseproof paper between each layer), you need 1 egg, a cup of water, 1/2 cup of olive oil, some salt and approximately 1 kilo of flour for the dough. You also need approximately a kilo of mizithra for the filling. Mix well the egg, water, oil and salt together, and then add the flour, kneading it in well, until you have a soft dough that can be easily spread (not too firm and hard). You'll need almost a kilo's worth, depending on the temperature, humidity, and the size of the cup you used to measure the liquids. Put the dough aside for half an hour to let it become more elastic, so that it won't break up too easily when rolling it out. This dough is not the same as filo pastry - it is softer, thicker and more malleable.

These pies are made in a similar way to marathopites, except that they are slightly bigger. Take a knob of dough the size of a large mandarin (or a small apple). Open it up into the shape of a small saucer. Place a knob of dry mizithra (ricotta-style cheese) the size of a golf ball into the centre of the dough, and roll it up around the cheese so that it is hidden inside the dough. Take a rolling pin and LIGHTLY, not firmly, knead the cheesy dough into a bigger round on a floured workspace. Every time you roll the dough, turn the pie round, so that it turns round like a clock hand as you roll it out. This is to ensure that the cheese in the dough will spread out evenly. Stack the pies one on top of one another, separated by greaseproof paper. If you aren't going to cook them immediately, you should cover them with a cloth, and put them in the fridge. They freeze well, but you must freeze them individually on a flat surface, otherwise, they are difficult to stack, and they lose their shape.

When you are ready to cook them, heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan the size of the pie. Slide one in the pan, and cook on a medium to high heat till brown bubbles have formed on the side it is being cooked. Then flip it over and cook the other side. You can cook them as soft or as crispy as you like. When both sides are done, place the pie on a plate, and pour a tablespoon of honey over it. Repeat the process, starting from the point where you place oil in the pan. Stack the cooked pies on top of each other, pouring a tablspoon of honey over each one.

These pies can be served hot or cold. They make a spectacular desert at the end of a traditional Cretan meal.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PUDDINGS:
Apple pie
Brownies
Chocolate cake
Chocolate pancakes
Walnut cake
Apple pie
Tiropitakia
Halva
Fruit crumble
Bougatsa

Lemon cake (Κέικ με λεμόνι)

We own and manage 500 orange trees in the village of Fournes, in Chania. Even so, we still manage to run out of oranges at this time of year. The variety we grow is mainly Valencia orange, which is now growing on the trees, and will be ripe sometime after March. So how can I make a cake like my plain cake? The original recipe (GIOTIS Flour Mills) says to use 1/2 cup of milk and the zest of an orange or lemon. I adpated the recipe to use orange juice instead of milk. This time, I have used 1/2 cup of milk and the zest AND juice of a lemon. I then divided the batter into two and mixed some cooca in one bowl, but now that I've tasted it, this would make a refreshing lemon cake, and the cocoa part isn't necessary. It has a tangy taste, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE DESSERTS:
Apple pie
Afghans
Banana cake
Brownies
Chocolate cake
Koulourakia
Simple cake
Carrot cake muffins
Chocolate muffins
Chocolate pancakes
Gingernuts
Vasilopita
Walnut cake
Apple pie
Tiropitakia
Halva
Fruit crumble
Sfakianes pites
Chocolate balls

Lettuce salad (Μαρουλοσαλάτα)

The typical salad line-up in tourist areas of Greece is composed mainly of boring run-of-the-mill fare: tomato and cucumber, lettuce or cabbage or 'mixed' salad. It is presented in a boring way, and more often than not, contains sub-standard olive oil (or a substitute when the restaurateur is a cheapskate). Apart from the more unusual salad greens that are eaten in Greece (vlita, stifno, stamnagathi, and other horta), universally Western salad vegetables like lettuce and cabbage can be served in more appetising ways than we see on the typical Greek menu card. Here is one of my favorites; it goes with everything.

Tearing lettuce is supposedly more healthy than knifing it, but in this case, you must shred it with a knife, otherwise the remaining ingredients will not blend in with the lettuce. In Greece, we use mainly cos lettuce, rather than the frilly round variety (which I remember being more common in New Zealand). Cos lettuce is not as sweet or tender as the round variety. Add some grated carrot, sliced cucumber moons and some chopped vinegar-pickled small green peppers (our own crop - I pickle them myself). Season with salt, and dress with vinegar and olive oil. You could use mayonnaise instead of olive oil and vinegar, but that is not a Greek salad at all!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE SALADS:
Cabbage salad
Summer horta
Winter horta
Salad advice
Greek village salad
Cretan salad
Beetroot salad

Omeletta (Ομελέττα με πατάτες - frittata)

Here is our favorite egg and potato dish. We call this omelette, even though it is nothing like the original French version which the dish gets its name from. It's more like a Spanish frittata. Whatever you call it, it's more elegant than simple chips and fried eggs. My husband swears by frying chips in a conventional frying pan under a gas elelment for more flavour; we never use a friteusse (the little vat-type deep-fryer that sits on a kitchen benchtop covered in grease until spring-cleaning time), although it is handier than a frying pan, in that it doesn't spit out oil over your benchtop.

Fry some salted, chipped potatoes till they are done to your liking. Some people like them well-fried, others prefer them softer. I'm for somewhere in the middle. Drain them in a bowl. Remove all the oil except a light film covering the bottom of the frying pan (we never use a deep-fryer). Add some greens of your choice - I added julienned green and red pepper - and return the potatoes to the pan. Pour 2 beaten eggs over the chips and let the egg cook on the bottom of the pan. When it is ready, slide the omelette onto a large plate, and place it into the pan once again upside down to cook the other side of the omelette. I'm not a perfect pancake flipper, but I can manage this to a reasonable level. When it is done, slide it out of the pan onto the plate you used to flip it over. Serve it with a salad, and some good quality sausages (saveloys were my favorite in New Zealand - we buy them here from LIDL).

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE EGG RECIPES:
Avgolemono
Scrambled eggs with wild mustard greens
Frittata
Potato salad
Wild asparagus omelette

Rice noodle stir fty (Κινέζικα μακαρόνια)

I prefer to use leftover boiled chicken to make my favorite homemade takeaway: organic Chinese rice noodles in a stir-fry chicken sauce. The organic rice noodles are available in my favorite organic store in Hania the only one I trust. The noodles are actually cheaper than the supermarket BLUE DRAGON variety, which are mass-prodused and not very tasty.

Bring some water to boiling point, and drop the noodles into the pot, turning off the heat. The noodles will then soften in the water while you prepare the next part of the meal. Chop up some pre-cooked chicken into small pieces. Grate some carrot and/or courgette into the chicken. Mince up some onion, garlic and fresh ginger. Heat a little oil in a saucepan, and add all the ingredients, adding some salt, pepper and soya sauce. While the pan mixture is blemding together, drain the noodles, and add them to the pan. Add some water to the pan to make surre that the noodles don't stick to the bottom. Mix everything in until well blended. Serve immediately.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE ASIAN RECIPES:
Banana lassi
Chicken curry
Mango lassi
Stir-fry beef
Curried pancetta
Blue dragon

Plain cake (Κέικ με πορτοκάλι)

Here is the simplest cake I make, which keeps a week long and goes regularly into my kids' lunchboxes. It comes straight from the back of a packet of flour produced by the GIOTIS flour mills.

In a big bowl, mix together 4 eggs, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup 
(250g) margarine (I use olive oil these days), 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, the grated zest of an orange, and 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice (not the bottled variety - it ruins the taste). Mix the ingredients well (I use a hand-held electric mixer). Add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of self-raising flour, and mix it in to get a batter that is thicker than pouring consistency. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into a greased cake tin. Mix 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder into the remining mixture, and pour that on top of the other cake mixture. Bake in a medium-hot oven for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let it cool before slicing, otherwise the cake's form will be spoiled.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
MORE CAKES:
Banana cake
Brownies
Chocolate cake
Carrot cake muffins
Chocolate muffins
Vasilopita
Walnut cake
Tsoureki
Apple pie
Halva

Moussaka (Μουσσακά)

This dish takes a long time to make, so it's worth making it in big batches to freeze some for later. It tastes just as good when taken out of the deep freeze and cooked (or heated, if you choose to pre-cook the moussaka) in a conventional oven. I usually cook the moussaka and let it cool, after which it is much much easier to cut it up and pack into individual servings in clean tupperware, and pop it into the freezer. Apart from this, I also make some small tins of moussaka without pre-cooking it, which I serve to the whole family on one of my lazy cooking days. It is a heavy meal, but there are plenty of ways to make it lighter and healthier (we prefer the authentic version). And don't forget that aubergines are not easy to freeze, so this is one of the best ways to preserve fresh garden aubergine crop; you can freeze them raw or fried, in slices or shell as for yemista or papoutsakia. Remember to use frozen aubergine (shells or slices, fried or raw, filled or empty) straight from the deep freeze. They taste just like fresh aubergine when used this way. Do not let it thaw under any circumstances; it goes soggy and is completely unappealing.

The first stage involves cooking the mince. You should start cooking this before you deal with the vegetables so that it is ready when you have finished frying (or boiling) the vegetables. I cook this mince in exactly the same way as I have described for papoutsakia or pastitsio. The mince is ready when most of the liquid has evaporated.

While this is cooking, you can prepare the vegetables. You need about 5 medium round eggplants and 5 large round (rather than oblong) potatoes, for every half kilo of mince you cook. Slice the eggplant and potatoes into thin rounds (about 3-5mm thick). The thicker, the healthier, as they won't absorb so much oil. Now fry these rounds (first the aubergine, then the potato) in olive oil till they are just brown. Drain the slices on absorbent paper to soak off some of the oil. First place HALF the aubergines slices at the bottom of the baking dish, then HALF the potatoes on top. (A healthier version omits the frying; I've heard of some people who boil the eggplant and potato slices instead, and drain them very well before they put them in the baking dish, while others do not pre-cook the vegetables at all. Suit yourself.) In restaurants, you will see moussaka being served with a layer of courgette slices, too. If you choose to add a layer of courgettes to your moussaka, they definitely don't need pre-cooking. Slice them and layer them on top of the aubergines, whether you are going to cook or freeze it. This makes a substantial healthier meal.

Now pour the mince over the layered vegetables, taking care not to let too much liquid run into the tin if you have fried or boiled the vegetables. On the other hand, if the vegetables have not been pre-cooked, the excess liquid from the mince should not be drained away. Then layer the remaining vegetables over the mince, this time starting with the potatoes, and ending off with the aubergines. Make a bechamel (white) sauce (just like for pastitsio) and pour it over the moussaka. Grate some nutmeg over the sauce. Bake in a medium oven for 40-45 minutes. If the vegetables have not been pre-cooked, the dish will need more cooking time. Test to see if it is done by inserting a knife to feel the texture of the potato. Once the moussaka is ready, let it cool before cutting, otherwise it will not slice well. You will forever be told what a good cook you are if you serve this at a dinner party.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE MINCE RECIPES:
Biftekia
Chili con carne
Dolmades
Makaronada
Cottage pie
Papoutsakia
Soutzoukakia
Pastitsio