Recipe: Braised Green Beans (Fasolakia) with Lemon (Φασολάκια Λαδερά με Λεμόνι)

“If there are three Greeks in a room, you’re bound to hear five different opinions about the correct way to cook just about anything.”

Or so goes the self-deprecating joke at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Anchorage, Alaska. Although it may not be literally true, the joke helps lighten the mood at festival time.

For the annual Greek festival held in August, parishioners join together to make classics of the Greek table. The correct ways to make Moussaka, Fasolakia (braised green beans), and Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) trigger the most vigorous debates. Everyone knows the “correct” recipe, but none of them are the same.

At Mama’s Taverna, Lulu captured the essence of these debates as she described how Zoe came up with her wonderful Fasolakia recipe.

The truth is, Greek braised green beans taste great no matter the recipe. As I commented to Lulu, “I’ve sautéed, I’ve not sautéed, I’ve layered, I’ve stirred, I’ve added potatoes, I’ve added zucchini, I’ve cooked the beans plain, I’ve cooked them with meat, I’ve cooked them without and, shockingly, I’ve even made them sans tomatoes. In all their incarnations, I’ve NEVER had a pot of Fasolakia that tastes anything other than absolutely wonderful.”

I no sooner sent the comment than I started obsessing about Fasolakia made without tomatoes (the most common recipe includes them). I used to make tomato-less Fasolakia all the time. In recent years I’ve been stuck on versions with tomato, one of which I wrote about in February: Greek Beef and Green Bean Stew and two of which are included in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska (Fasolakia and Fasolakia with Zucchini and Potatoes).

Last night I made the tomato-less version. It was everything I’d been wanting. The braised beans and onions were soft and sweet, rich with oil and herbs, and tangy from the fresh lemon juice finish. This is a dish where bread is a necessary accompaniment; it’s a shame to let the remarkably good juices go to waste.

Fasolakia belongs to a class of Greek dishes called Ladera, which means “oily” (ladi/λάδι is the Greek word for oil). The oil and vegetable juices cook together to make a wonderfully unctuous sauce. However, for many today, traditional Ladera has too much oil. Adjust the amount of oil in the recipe to suit your taste; for the traditional version, use the larger amount.

When considering the amount of oil to use, keep in mind that olive oil is a heart-healthy fat. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Olive oil contains monounsaturated fat, which can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") cholesterol levels in your blood.”

The FDA says there is "limited but not conclusive evidence" that 2 tablespoons of olive oil daily can reduce the risk of heart disease. (Olive oil should be substituted for fats already in the diet, and not just added to what you’re already eating.)

This recipe’s dedicated to Lulu and Zoe.

Braised Green Beans (Fasolakia) with Lemon (Φασολάκια Λαδερά με Λεμόνι)
Serves 4 - 6 as a main course
In this easy recipe, the herbs and vegetables are layered in a Dutch oven and cooked without stirring until the beans are soft and tender. The beans shouldn’t be crunchy, and must be cooked through. Adjust the amount of olive oil as desired. Serve with slices of feta cheese, Kalamata olives, bread, and lemon wedges.

1 1/2 pounds green beans (6 cups cleaned)
4 cups thinly sliced onions
1 1/2 cups minced parsley
1/2 cup minced dill
1/2 cup minced mint
3 Tbsp. minced garlic
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 – 1 cup olive oil
1/4 - 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Lemon wedges

Wash the beans, break off both ends, and break them in half. Mix the herbs and garlic together.

In a Dutch oven, layer 1 cup of onions on the bottom of the pan, top with 1/3 of the beans, then 1/3 of the herb mix, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and drizzle with 1/3 of the olive oil. Repeat. Repeat again but finish with the remaining cup of onions before drizzling with the last 1/3 of olive oil.

Cover and cook over medium high heat until the pan lid is hot. As soon as the lid is hot, turn the heat down to low and simmer for 1 hour, or until the beans are very soft and tender. Stir in 1/4 cup lemon juice. Taste and add lemon juice, salt, or freshly ground black pepper, as needed. Serve hot or at room temperature.
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This is my entry for Heart of the Matter’s May heart-healthy herb challenge hosted this month by Michelle at The Accidental Scientist.

Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska on SKAI with Recipe for Tsoureki – Greek Easter Bread (Τσουρέκι)

Καλώς ορίσετε στο Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska!

Welcome to Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska!

SKAI, the Greek television and radio station, recently ran three articles by Lamprini Thoma about my efforts to cook Greek and Mediterranean food in Alaska and about Holy Transfiguration, Alaska’s only Greek Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, the articles no longer appear on SKAI’s website.

One article described how I wrote the cookbook Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska to help raise money for a new church building. This effort is very important because our church holds services in a converted house that is way too small for our parish. All proceeds from the sale of the cookbook go directly into Holy Transfiguration’s building fund. Many thanks to Lamprini Thoma for highlighting Holy Transfiguration’s efforts to raise money.

Another article had my recipe for Tsoureki (Greek Easter Bread), made using ingredients readily available in Alaska. Although we make the bread for Easter, it’s delicious any time of the year.

Alaskan Tsoureki
Makes 2 loaves
Like classic Tsoureki, Alaskan Tsoureki is rich with butter and light with eggs. However, maxlepi and mastixa, the flavors of classic Tsoureki, aren’t available in Alaska. Instead, we create special spice mixes that give wonderful flavor to our Tsoureki. When Alaskan Tsoureki is in the oven, the entire house fills with the wonderful aroma of sweet spices.


Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has moved as of March 2011. To read this post please go to


http://www.laurieconstantino.com/skai-tv-features-mediterranean-cooking-in-alaska/


Please click on over and visit my new site. Thank you!

Recipe: Smoky Tunisian Oven-Roasted Vegetables with Tabil (Τυνησιακό Μπριάμ)

It’s no secret to my regular readers that I favor oven-roasted vegetables.

Roasting vegetables in a hot oven concentrates and develops subtle vegetable flavors that are lost when the same vegetables are boiled, stewed, or fried. Briam (Μπριάμ), a classic Greek medley of roasted vegetables, is one of my favorite ways to serve an abundance of vegetables. (My Briam recipe is in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska.)

While Briam is what I make most often, grilled and roasted vegetable combinations are popular throughout the Mediterranean region; I like them all. For example, in Tunisia, tomatoes, onions, and peppers are grilled and mixed with Tabil (pronounced “table”), a spice mix containing coriander seeds, caraway seeds, garlic, and dried red peppers, to make a refreshing cold salad called Mechouia.

This weekend I needed a main course, not a salad, but really had a taste for Mechouia. Inspired by a Paul Gayler recipe in A Passion for Vegetables, I decided to combine Tunisian Mechouia with Greek Briam. I used a vegetable combination typical of Briam and, as for Briam, oven-roasted the vegetables. However, instead of the herbs used in Briam, I seasoned the vegetables with Tabil and quickly charred them, two essential elements of Mechouia.

The vegetables can be completely cooked on a grill, in which case, the oven-roasting step is unnecessary. However, when I’m cooking on a stovetop grill pan (as I was yesterday due to the snow), it’s much easier to quickly char the vegetables on the grill pan and then finish cooking them in the oven.

A benefit to pre-cooking the vegetables on the grill is this step can be done well ahead. Although you can skip charring them and completely cook the vegetables in the oven, I don’t recommend it because you lose the smokiness, an important flavor element in this dish.

Smoky Tunisian Oven-Roasted Vegetables with Tabil (Τυνησιακό Μπριάμ)
Serves 4 as a main course or 6 as a side dish
Adapted from A Passion for Vegetables by Paul Gayler (Lyons Press 2000)
This dish is a combination of Briam and Mechouia; it has Briam’s oven-roasted vegetable medley, with Mechouia’s smokiness and spicing. We like spicy food, so I use the larger amounts shown in the ingredient list for Tabil. If you prefer less highly seasoned food, use the smaller amounts. If you’re unsure, mix up the dry spices and add half to the vegetables along with all of the garlic; when the vegetables are done, taste and add more dry spice mix, as needed. Tabil tastes great with any kind of vegetable (or fish, meat, or poultry), so consider the list of vegetables as only a suggestion. Leftovers may be roughly chopped and added to vegetable or chicken stock for an easy mid-week soup.

Tabil:
1 – 2 Tbsp. coriander seeds
1 – 2 tsp. caraway seeds
1” – 2” piece of dried red pepper or 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
2 tsp. finely minced fresh garlic

Vegetables:
4 medium Yukon Gold or red potatoes
2 medium zucchini
2 red bell peppers
1 large fennel bulb
1 extra large onion
Olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

For the Tabil spice mix: Mix all the ingredients together.

For the Vegetables: Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Wash all the vegetables. Peel the potatoes, and cut into large chunks. Parboil the potatoes in salted water for 7 minutes, drain, and put them in a large roasting pan.

Cut the zucchini on the diagonal into 3/4” slices. Discard the peppers’ seeds and stems, and cut each into six lengthwise slices. Cut off the stalks and leaves of the fennel, and cut the bulb in lengthwise quarters. Remove most of the core, leaving enough so the layers of fennel stay together. Cut each quarter in half lengthwise. Peel the onion, leaving the stem end intact so the layers of onion stay together, and cut into 3/4” wide lengthwise sections. Put all the vegetables in the roasting pan, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper, liberally drizzle with olive oil, and toss the vegetables to coat them with oil.

Heat a grill pan until it's white hot (or fire up the grill). Quickly char the vegetables on both sides, but don’t cook the vegetables through. Char the vegetables in batches; for me, it's easiest to lay them out on the grill pan one at a time. As each vegetable is done, return it to the roasting pan. (I set the peppers aside, and peel them before adding them to the pan; this step is optional.)

When all the vegetables are done, sprinkle the Tabil over, and toss the vegetables to evenly distribute the spices. If the vegetables seem dry, drizzle with a little more olive oil. Spread the vegetables out into a single layer.

Roast the vegetables for 30 minutes. Serve immediately with couscous, green salad, olives, and plenty of bread for soaking up the splendidly spicy oil and vegetable juices.

Variation: For a saucier version, stir in one 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes (or 2 cups freshly diced tomatoes) just before putting the roasting pan in the oven.

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Oven-Roasted Vegetable Recipes

Roast Cauliflower with Dukkah (Dukkah, a Middle Eastern spice mix, enhances roasted cauliflower).
Oven-Roasted Vegetables (Λαχανικά στο Φούρνο) (How to bring out the flavor of vegetables by oven-roasting them).
Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Sweet Potatoes (Oven roasted vegetables are an ideal accompaniment to holiday meals.)
Roasted Beets with Celery Root Skordalia (Roasted celery root is a low-calorie, high-flavor alternative to bread or potatoes in the wonderful Greek garlic spread called skordalia.)

To find more oven-roasted vegetable recipes, Food Blog Search is a great tool.
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This is my entry for Antioxidant Rich Foods/Five-a-Day Tuesdays hosted by Sweetnicks.

Recipe: Falafel (Φαλάφελ ή Ρεβυθοκεφτέδες)

Falafel almost whipped me, but I prevailed in the end.

My friend Salwa, a Christian Palestinian, gave me her recipe ages ago, when I first started working on the book that became Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska (a fundraiser for Alaska’s only Greek Orthodox Church). She made the recipe sound simple. Initially, it wasn’t.

The first few times I made falafel were miserable failures. Because I couldn’t get them right before the book went to print, Tastes Like Home doesn’t include a falafel recipe.

After re-consulting Salwa and reviewing other recipes for this wonderful Middle Eastern treat, I finally had my Eureka moment and figured out how to make great tasting falafel every time. Trust me; if you follow the directions, falafel are simple.

For those who’ve never eaten them, falafels are crispy fried chickpea or bean croquettes, seasoned with herbs, cumin, and coriander seeds. Salwa serves hers with tahini sauce and tomato-onion salad. Falafels are delicious either on their own or in a pita sandwich.

Falafel (Φαλάφελ ή Ρεβυθοκεφτέδες)

Makes 25-30 small patties (serves 4 as a main course)
Adapted from Salwa Abuamsha’s recipe
To make good falafel there are four important rules: 1. Don't use canned chickpeas. 2.

Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has moved as of March 2011. To read this post please go to


http://www.laurieconstantino.com/how-to-make-perfect-falafel/


Please click on over and visit my new site. Thank you!

Recipe: Palestinian Spinach Pies (Παλαιστινιακή Σπανακόπιτα)

My friend Salwa comes from Beit-jala, a small village just outside Bethlehem on the West Bank of the Jordan River. She came with her husband to Alaska, where they are raising twin sons far from the violence that has disrupted the West Bank for too many years.

Salwa is an excellent cook. Interviewing Salwa and other church members was the highlight of writing Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska. Tastes Like Home is a fundraiser for Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, a pan-orthodox parish in Anchorage, Alaska.

We are working hard to raise money for a new church building, necessary because we now hold services in a converted house far too small for our congregation. Weddings and funerals overwhelm our current building and must be held elsewhere. All proceeds from the sale of Tastes Like Home go directly into the Holy Transfiguration Building Fund.

Last month, we sold Tastes Like Home at the Anchorage Museum’s Book Fair. I staffed the booth with help from other church volunteers.

Salwa spent several hours helping out at the Book Fair. When we weren’t talking to customers, we were chatting about food. Salwa said she’d been thinking about bringing Palestinian Spinach Triangles to church the next day for coffee hour.

Palestinian Spinach Pies? My ears perked up. I asked if they were similar to Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pies). Salwa said they were the same shape, but used pita bread dough instead of filo for the wrapping, so weren’t loaded with butter. She said the filling was spiced with sumac and did not include cheese, so was suitable for religious fasting days or vegans.

I grabbed a pen and started taking notes.

I brought the Palestinian Spinach Pies to a New Year’s Eve party, where they disappeared before 9 pm. I will happily make this recipe again and again.

Palestinian Spinach Pies (Παλαιστινιακή Σπανακόπιτα)
Makes 80 2 1/2” spinach pies
Adapted from recipe by Salwa Abuamsha
The spinach pies can be made with 2 1/2” up to 5” circles. Smaller spinach pies are typically made at home, and larger pies are more often seen in bakeries and street stalls. The pies can be made ahead, baked, and refrigerated (or frozen and thawed), and rewarmed for 15 minutes at 350°F.


Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has moved as of March 2011. To read this post please go to


http://www.laurieconstantino.com/palestinian-spinach-pies-vegan-friendly/


Please click on over and visit my new site. Thank you!

Menu for Hope

During the holidays, when our lives are filled with joy and our bellies with seasonal delicacies, most of us also remember those in the world who are less fortunate.

This year, I hope you will join me and donate to Menu for Hope by buying raffle tickets online for a wide range of food-related prizes.

Menu for Hope unites food writers, bloggers, and readers from all over the world to raise money for those whose survival depends on food donations from the UN World Food Program (WFP). This year, funds raised by the 2007 Menu for Hope campaign will be earmarked for a school food program in Lesotho, a tiny country entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, where one out of twelve kids die before the age of five and 56% of the population live on less than $2 per day.

For see the faces of people in Lesotho who will be helped by Menu for Hope donations, go here: http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/faces-from-leso.html

I donated one of the prizes being raffled. If you want to bid on my prize, designate prize UW05 when you donate to Menu for Hope. Because my prize contains food, I can only ship it to the United States or Canada.

My prize is a package including (1) wild oregano hand-picked from the salt-sprayed hills of a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea, (2) hand-crafted sheep cheese still showing the imprint of the reed basket in which it was made, (3) hilopites (egg noodles) made with indigenous Greek wheat flour, free-range chicken eggs, and fresh sheep milk, and (4) an autographed copy of Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska. (To see the hilopites being made, go here: http://medcookingalaska.blogspot.com/2007/11/opening-lessons-with-recipes-for.html) .

For more information about Menu for Hope, go to Chez Pim: http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/what-is-menu-fo.html#more

To see the Menu for Hope prizes from the West Coast of the US, go to Rasa Malaysia: http://www.rasamalaysia.com/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4-complete-west-coast_10.html

To see the full list of Menu for Hope prizes, go to Chez Pim: http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html#more

To donate to Menu for Hope, go here: http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4

How does it work?
Food bloggers from all over the world are offering food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone can buy raffle tickets online (through a site called Firstgiving) to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of your choice. This year bidding on prizes will take place from December 10 through 21. At the end of the two-weeks, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on the Chez Pim blog. For more information about Firstgiving, go here: http://www.firstgiving.com/Design/1/about_us.asp

Donation instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from US west coast donors at http://www.rasamalaysia.com/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4-complete-west-coast_10.html or from the complete prize list at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html#more .

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Specify the prize you would like to bid for in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form. Each $10 donated will get one raffle ticket toward a prize. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 tickets for UW05. Please write 2xUW01, 3xUW05.

Thank you so much for any donations you are able to make to Menu for Hope and for taking the time to read this post. If you know anyone who might be interested in donating to Menu for Hope, please send them the above information.

Happy Holidays, Laurie

Recipe: Fennel-Scented Black-eyed Peas and Wild Greens (Φασόλια Μαυρομάτικα με Χόρτα και Μάραθο)

When we return to Alaska from Greece, we carry home enough food to last until we next visit the island. We stuff our bags to the very edge of the airlines’ weight limit. Each year, one of the items in our luggage is dried black-eyed peas grown by my husband’s cousin Zafiris on an island in the North Aegean Sea.

One of my favorite ways to eat black-eyed peas is paired with wild greens, if they are available, and supermarket greens when they are not. I prefer the peas in a zesty broth to fight back the winter cold, and season them with a combination of bulb fennel and fennel seed.

Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has moved as of March 2011. To read this post please go to


http://www.laurieconstantino.com/cooking-with-greek-black-eyed-peas/


Please click on over and visit my new site. Thank you!

Cookbook: Greek Village Bread (Χωριάτικο Ψωμί) with Recipe: Dipping Sauce for French Dip Sandwiches

On the wheat-growing Greek island where we have a home, farmers grind their crop at local mills to produce rustic, fragrant, gold-colored flour. Bread made from this is slightly sweeter and has a grainier texture than bread made with America’s gluten rich flour.

You can come close to replicating the taste of Greek Village Bread by mixing commercial semolina and bread flours. Semolina provides the flavor, and bread flour helps the bread rise and improves its structure.

The bread is wonderful fresh or toasted. When it gets stale, Greek Village Bread works well as an ingredient in Fattoush (Tomato and Bread Salad) or Skordalia (Garlic Spread).

Sunday I made French Dip Sandwiches using fresh-from-the-oven Greek Village Bread and leftover roast prime rib from Thanksgiving, shaved thin and warmed through. For the dipping sauce, I used a mixture of minced shallots, dried wild thyme, dried chipotle peppers, red wine, and beef stock.

The dipping sauce was excellent, and much better than the too-salty “jus” often served with French Dips in restaurants. Even so, fresh, flavorful Greek Village Bread is what made the sandwich special.

The recipe for Greek Village Bread is in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, as are the recipes for Fattoush and Skordalia. Tastes Like Home can be ordered here.

Dipping Sauce for French Dip Sandwiches
Makes enough dipping sauce for two sandwiches
I’ve been making this dipping sauce for so many years, I no longer remember where I originally got the idea. My husband minces the chipotles cooked in the dipping sauce, mixes them with cooked shallots left in the saucepan after pouring off the liquid (and sometimes a little horseradish), and spreads the mixture on his sandwich.

2 1/2 cups beef stock
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup minced shallots
1 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
2 dried chipotle peppers
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt

Put all the ingredients except the salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium and cook at a slow boil until the liquid has reduced by half. Taste, and add salt or freshly ground black pepper, as needed. Remove the chipotles, and pour the dipping sauce into wide-mouth cups.

Serve the dipping sauce with thinly sliced roast beef sandwiches made with crusty bread or rolls.

Cookbook: Giving Thanks

I spent the days after Thanksgiving selling Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska at the Anchorage Museum’s annual craft and book fair. I saw lots of old friends and made some new ones.

Writing a cookbook and having it published can be unnerving; you send your recipes out in the world and don’t have any idea whether purchasers use and enjoy them. The feedback I received this weekend dispelled my worries.

A surprising number of people stopped by our table to say they had previously purchased Tastes Like Home and very much liked the book. I was particularly happy to hear people found the recipes clear and easy to follow.

It was a good weekend, for which I give great thanks. Ο Θεός είναι Μεγάλος.

Anatomy of a Recipe (with Recipe for Savory Fish Cakes / Ψαροκεφτέδες)

Before I wrote Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, I rarely wrote down recipes, though I occasionally made a few notes about what I had prepared. If I ever went back to the notes, and I rarely did, they were incomprensible, full of half sentences and incomplete thoughts. I could sometimes read my handwriting, but too often the content was less than clear.

“Butter, golf.” read one such note. “4 dill.” read another. “Don’t table.” Don’t table? The mysterious scribblings meant nothing to me.

When I began work on Tastes Like Home, I knew I had to do better, to write more clearly, to be more precise. As I worked my way through the dishes that I ultimately included in the book, I typed up the details of that day’s effort as soon as dinner was over. I thought I was being disciplined. I thought I was writing recipes. I thought that what I had written would make it simple to put the book together.

I was wrong, very wrong. When I went to organize the book that became Tastes Like Home, I discovered my dutifully typed writings were merely more refined versions of the handwritten notes to myself, albeit slightly more intelligible. To go in a book, everything needed to be completely rewritten, and then rewritten again.

Doing a project the size of Tastes Like Home taught me many things, among them the need to write complete and finished recipes contemporaneous with cooking a dish. I promised myself that if I ever thought about doing another book, I would reform my ways, and discipline myself to write finished and complete recipes in small bites, day by day, as the food came out of my kitchen.

Tastes Like Home, The Blog is how I am keeping that promise.

So what goes into writing a recipe?

Inspiration comes first. Inspiration from glorious ingredients, inspiration from restaurants or other people’s cooking, inspiration from conversations about food, inspiration from reading or research, or inspiration that springs mysteriously into my mind at odd moments, or during nights of insomnia. Inspiration is the easy part.

Once inspiration strikes, I plan the recipe in my mind. I carefully think through the components that make up the particular flavor I’m after. What ingredient is the focus of the dish? What are the high notes, or the subtle background flavors? As I think these things through, I often make a list of ingredients most likey to create the taste experience I’m after.

At this point, I enter the kitchen and start cooking, but a kind of cooking that is unlike my normal style. Normally, I don’t measure my ingredients. Normally, if I taste what I’m making and add something to give the dish a flavor boost, I won’t remember a day later what exactly I added. I’ll remember being happy with how my dish tasted, but exactly recreating it is impossible.

In contrast to my normal free-form style, when I intend to share a recipe with others, I measure everything, a task that requires a high degree of discipline (not my strong suit). I frequently stop myself mid-air as I’m about to add an ingredient, having realized it has not yet been weighed or measured. I add flavorings in smaller increments than normal, so I can find the exact point at which a recipe has enough, but not too much, of a particular flavoring.

And most importantly, I write down everything while I’m cooking. At least I try to do this, I really try. Sometimes I succeed. But not always, so my back-up strategy is to write the recipe in finished form within hours after I have finished cooking. At this stage, I remember exactly how I prepared the dish, and what went into it, and in what order.

If I don’t take notes while I’m cooking and don’t finalize a recipe the same day I cooked it, I make the dish again before I put its recipe in writing. I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out, so that anyone who uses the recipe will enjoy its flavors, just as I did when I originally decided it was worth passing on to others.

A couple days ago, I finalized a recipe for Savory Fish Cakes, called Psarokeftedes in Greek. I once enjoyed this dish in a seaside taverna in Greece, and wanted to make it using ingredients available in Alaska. The day before I made the fish cakes, we had fresh halibut for dinner; the leftovers were perfect for fish cakes. (Note: The Alaska halibut season closes tomorrow -- 11/15 -- at noon, so there is no time like the present to buy halibut.)

The Savory Fish Cake recipe turned out well. My husband pronounced them the best he’d ever had (and he is not shy about telling me when a dish could be better or that he never wants to eat it again). My friend Teeny had been over to take pictures of me cooking and I gave her some raw fish cakes to cook at home; both her and her husband pronounced them excellent. I loved them and ate too many.

Having succeeded in achieving the taste I wanted, I only had to write down the recipe, which I did immediately. My work is done. The recipe is complete and final and ready to be made again, in your kitchen and mine.

Savory Fish Cakes (Ψαροκεφτέδες)
Serves 4 – 6 (makes 12 fish cakes)
Savory Fish Cakes are an ideal way to use up leftover fish. However, if you don’t have any leftovers, you can quickly poach the fish needed for the cakes: cook 3/4 pounds of raw fish until done in simmering water, a little wine, a few peppercorns, 3 bay leaves, and salt. The shaped fish cakes can be made hours ahead of time, and refrigerated until ready to use. Although it is not absolutely necessary to chill the fish cakes before cooking them, doing so helps them hold together as they brown.

2 cups flaked, cooked halibut, rockfish, cod, or other white fish (5/8 pound)
2 cups cooked, peeled, and grated potatoes
1 1/2 cups diced onion, 1/4” dice
2 tsp. finely minced garlic
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon peel
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
1 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
2 Tbsp. minced fresh mint
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil for frying

Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together in a bowl; this is easiest to do with your hands. Divide the mixture into 12 portions; a 1/4 cup scoop or measuring cup works well for this task. Shape into flat cakes, and place them on a waxed paper lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until you are ready to cook.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Fry the fish cakes, in batches if necessary (don’t crowd the fish cakes or they won’t brown properly). The fish cakes are done when they are golden-brown on both sides and cooked through. Drain on paper towels and serve.

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This is my entry for Leftover Tuesdays, sponsored this month by Pam at Project Foodie.

Recipe: Roasted Beets with Celery Root Skordalia (Παντζάρια με Σελινόριζα Σκορδαλιά) (#109)

My latest CSA box from Full Circle Farm included beets and celery root. Although I prepare them a variety of ways, seeing fresh beets in pristine condition always brings to mind two of my favorite foods: oven-roasted beets and skordalia (pronounced skor-thal-YAH), an intensely flavored Greek garlic spread. The sweetness of roasted beets and the piquancy of skordalia make one of those perfect food combinations in which each flavor improves and completes the other.

Skordalia typically uses pureed bread, potatoes, or nuts as the vehicle for carrying garlic to the palate. The juxtaposition of beets and celery roots in the CSA box started me thinking about basing skordalia on celery root instead of the more traditional starches. Celery root’s subtle flavor, with hints of both celery and parsley, seemed as if it would combine perfectly with garlic. Two root crops, served together at the peak of their season, appealed to my sense of seasonality.

Celery root skordalia turned out just as I imagined: delicious and a terrific accompaniment for roasted beets. In addition to the pungent taste of garlic that is the hallmark of correctly prepared skordalia, the herby flavors of celery root added complexity and interest to one of my favorite dishes. Yesterday my skordalia was made only with celery root; it would also be good had I used a combination of celery root and pureed potatoes.One of the challenges celery root presents for the cook is that it is not uniformly shaped, and can look like a misshapen ball of tangled roots. Many people avoid buying celery root because they are not sure how to reach the edible portion of the vegetable. If you are one of those people, don’t worry, prepping celery root is easy.

Here’s how to do it: 


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Leftovers: I Love Them, You Should Too; or Don't Throw Away Your Pie Dough

Some time ago we went to a friend’s house for a wonderful, well-cooked meal. I helped her clean up afterwards, and asked where she kept her storage containers so I could stick the leftovers in the refrigerator. She laughed, and said, “Just throw it in the garbage; I don’t bother saving leftovers.”

Throw it in the garbage? Throw away perfectly good food, all of which has excellent flavor, that she had spent hours preparing? I asked her why she was throwing it away. She said no one in her house liked eating the same thing over again, and they all wanted freshly prepared food each day.

I didn’t argue, but I also didn’t understand. Wasting perfectly good food bothers me. I can still hear my mother admonishing me about “starving Armenians” whenever I take my eye off the ball and let food turn green in the refrigerator.

A moment’s digression: As far as I know, there were no Armenians in the small Pacific Northwest town where I grew up. The Armenian genocide occurred between 1915 and 1918. Why, then, is the phrase “starving Armenians” so firmly fixed in my mind? I called my parents to ask. The answer is their parents chided them regularly to not waste food because the “poor starving Armenians” would really appreciate it. When raising us, a reminder about “starving Armenians” was the talismanic way my parents ensured we would remain members in good standing of the “clean plate club.”

But where did the phrase come from? In the decade after World War I, the American people raised millions of dollars to assist Armenian genocide survivors. Relief organizations used the image of “starving Armenians” to help raise money (at that time, many Armenians were, indeed, starving). Adults reminded schoolchildren across the country, including my father in the Northwest and my mother in the Midwest, of the Armenians’ plight, particularly around mealtimes. My Dad said it wasn’t until he was an adult that he knew who the Armenians were; as a child he just knew they were starving and really liked spinach. (As in, “Boy, eat your spinach. The ‘starving Armenians’ would feel lucky to have it.")

Back to my leftover-tossing friend: She had worked hard to develop delectable flavors in the dishes she served us. Putting these flavors in the garbage along with the leftovers meant she couldn’t use them to heighten and improve the food she would be making over the coming week.

When we have leftovers, I think of them as complex ingredients that can be used to create new dishes, rather than as reheated dinners we have to slog through because people somewhere in the world are starving. By using leftovers as ingredients, I often hit on flavor combinations so desirable they become dishes I make for their own sake.

For example, there is a recipe in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska for a Palestinian Chicken and Onion dish called Masakhan. I used its leftovers to make chicken soup bursting with Middle Eastern flavors. It is now a favorite winter meal I make starting from scratch. Had I not saved and used the leftovers from Masakhan, I never would have discovered this complex and exotic soup.

Last night I decided to use two stuffed eggplants left over from the Imam Baildi we had last week. The flavors I had to work with were well-cooked eggplant with onions, parsley, and tomatoes. I thought about using the mixture as a filling for filo pastry, or for soup, or as the basis for a sauce, but decided I was in the mood for Melitzanosalata, the eggplant spread Greeks call Eggplant Salad.

Putting tomatoes and onions in Eggplant Salad may not be the most traditional way Greeks make the dish, but this combination of ingredients is commonly used in spreads and salads throughout the Balkans and Middle East. With a few minor adjustments, my leftover Imam became a new plate of Eggplant Salad that in turn became part of a lovely pre-dinner appetizer spread.

Once you start regularly using leftovers as an ingredient, it becomes easier and easier. Soup is always a good destination for leftovers, but be sure only to use ingredients with complimentary flavors. My grandmother would dump all the leftovers she had into the same soup pot whether or not their flavors went together. This is not a good idea.

Leftover meat works well in salads, or combined with rice, or incorporated into a pasta sauce. It can be used in fillings for stuffed vegetables or added to braised vegetables as flavoring. Hot sandwiches are another choice way to use leftover meat.

My mother is fond of making pot pies with her leftovers. She buys little aluminum pie pans, lines them with the dough she has leftover from making pies, and freezes the pie crusts for future use. When she has leftover meat and vegetables, my mother grabs the frozen pie crusts and puts together an effortless pie for dinner.

After my mother explained her clever pot pie techniques, she asked if I ever had leftover pie dough. Yes, indeed I have, but I always just throw it away, I said. This was the wrong answer. Using her best “Mother voice” she said, “Don’t throw leftover pie dough away; that is bad, bad, bad form. Even if you don’t want to freeze pie crusts, you should roll out the extra dough, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and bake it in the oven, which is already hot. It’s really good and you can eat it when your husband’s gone.” Okay, I said, okay. “Tell your readers not to throw food away. And tell them not to waste their pie dough.”

Consider yourself told. Don’t waste your pie dough.

Melitzanosalata (Eggplant Salad) with Eggplant Leftovers
This can be made with leftovers of baked or stewed eggplant. The proportions are based on having 1 1/2 – 2 cups of chopped eggplant and other vegetables after they are drained.

- Leftover eggplants, together with any onions or tomatoes that were part of the original eggplant dish; peels removed from the eggplants
- 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
- 1 - 2 cloves garlic, grated on a small-holed grater, or very finely minced

Put the peeled eggplant and other vegetables in a strainer lined with paper towels. Let the liquids drain off for about an hour. (I save and use these liquids as a seasoning in vegetable dishes.) Dump the strained vegetables onto a cutting board and roughly chop them. (The salad’s texture is better if you chop the vegetables by hand, so don’t use a food processor for this task.) Place the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Add the olive oil, red wine vinegar, and garlic to the chopped vegetables. Taste and add red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper, as needed. Serve with toasted bread, olives, pickled peppers, and cheese as part of an appetizer spread (called mezedes in Greek).

Cookbook: Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce (Hirino me Selino kai Lemoni)

Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce is a popular Greek stew with countless variations, but it’s a tricky recipe to get right. Too often the sauce overwhelms the pork, or goes in the opposite direction and vanishes into blandness. Some recipes taste good, but because the sauce is thick, gloppy, and pale, the finished dish looks very unappealing.

I’ve made versions of pork with celery more times than I care to count, and tinkered repeatedly with the balance of flavors and textures. In my version, the celery is just strong enough to balance the pork, and the eggless lemon sauce is bright and sharp.

If I can find it, I make this dish with leaf celery, which has a concentrated herby flavor absent in supermarket (stalk) celery, and a hint of bitterness that goes well with pork, a mild and slightly sweet meat. In Anchorage, leaf celery is found in Asian or farmer’s markets, and may be sold as “Chinese celery.”

When celery is served on its own, more likely than not it will be as part of a raw vegetable tray with ranch dressing, or filled with peanut butter for hungry dieters. Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce uses 8 cups of chopped celery, and provides a way to appreciate celery's distinctive flavor without it being overwhelmed by ranch dressing. You also won't have to cope with a wad of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

From start to finish, Pork with Celery-Lemon Sauce takes me about an hour to make. The recipe for it is in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, which can be ordered here.

Cookbook: Fasolakia (Green Bean and Tomato Stew)

My mouth began watering for Green Bean and Tomato Stew (Fasolakia) the minute I saw that Anchorage’s Costco had begun carrying two pound bags of green beans. Two pounds is the exact amount needed to make Fasolakia, a recipe in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska.

Fasolakia is familiar to patrons of old-style restaurants in Greece where customers are invited into the kitchen to choose from the day’s specials. My version is based on the countless bowls of Fasolakia I have enjoyed sitting under shade trees in outdoor restaurants, eating slowly to make it last, sipping wine, and watching the world go by.

The earthy bean flavor in Fasolakia, together with the sweetness of onion, the rich luxurious taste of tomatoes, and the fresh flavors of parsley, mint, and dill makes this an exceptional dish. Sometimes, when I want a heartier stew, I add chunks of peeled potatoes to the pot.

Flavors of Fasolakia: parsley, mint, dill, onions, beans

Fasolakia is a wonderful meal on its own accompanied by a slice of feta cheese and plump olives, or when served as a side dish with roasted chicken or meat. I always have plenty of crusty bread on hand to sop up the herb-filled sauce, and round out the meal with a glass of full-bodied red wine.

I’ve made myself hungry writing this. Luckily, there is leftover Fasolakia in the refrigerator.

Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska can be ordered here.

Cookbook: Imam Baildi (Baked Eggplant with Tomatoes and Onion)

When Maria was 13, her brother left their village to study for his university test in Athens and live with their Uncle Aristotle. Maria went along to cook and clean for her brother and uncle.

Before this journey, Maria had helped her mother in the kitchen, but had never cooked a meal on her own and wasn't sure where to start. A neighbor lady took Maria under her wing and taught Maria the recipe for Imam Baildi (often known simply as Imam), a dish popular in every country where the Ottoman Turks once ruled.

The name of the dish means "the priest fainted," and supposedly refers to the imam's reaction either to the incredible rich flavors of the dish, or to the high cost of the olive oil used to prepare it. When finished, Imam's layers of flavor mingle on your palate: slightly charred eggplant, rich sweet onions, parsley, and roasted tomatoes.

Maria's recipe for Imam Baildi is in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska.

To prepare this dish, a deep, narrow, V-shaped wedge is cut lengthwise out of small eggplants (in Alaska, Maria uses Japanese eggplants), and the wedge is stuffed with a mixture of onions, garlic, and parsley, which is baked with crushed tomatoes and drizzled olive oil.

Leftovers: Leftover Imam Baildi can be turned into a lovely eggplant spread (Melitzanosalata). The recipe for Melitzanosalata using leftover Imam is here.

Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska can be ordered here.

Cookbook: Hortopita (Greens and Cheese Pie)

When fall begins its descent, and the days start to shorten, our garden is lush with greens; they flourish in Alaska's cool weather. Anticipating the snow that fell this week, we recently harvested the remaining greens and put the garden to bed for the winter.

Swiss chard, spinach, beet greens, Italian chicory, and dandelions

Some greens (a mixture of cultivated dandelions and Italian chicories) I blanched and froze for winter use. Others I used to make Hortopita, which is similar to Spanakopita (Spinach Pie), but with a more complex flavor. Although Hortopita tastes bests when made with wild greens, and benefits from a combination of sweet and bitter greens, any mixture of wild or supermarket greens may be used. When combined with cheese and herbs in Hortopita, mixed greens make a magnificent meal.

Making Hortopita brings back happy memories of foraging for wild greens in Greek island vineyards, and sitting barefoot in the afternoon shade with my friends, cleaning our bounty while chatting about our lives and sharing village gossip.

The recipe for Hortopita is in Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska.

Tastes Like Home: can be ordered here.

Cookbook: Teeny's Big Fat Greek Dinner

Last weekend, Teeny had a very fun and very filling Greek potluck dinner. Those of us who owned Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska made recipes from the book.

It was an incredible feast: Tzatziki (Yogurt and Cucumber Dip), Melitzanasalata (Eggplant Spread), Hummus (Garbanzo Bean and Garlic Dip), Spanakopita (Spinach Pie), Kolokythopita (Squash Pie, Hortopita (Mixed Greens Pie), Roasted Kalamata Olives, Greek Salad, Greek Village Bread, Pastitsio, Roasted Lemon Potatoes, Paprika Pork and Cabbage, and Lamb with Garbanzos and Spinach, followed by a magnificent Coconut Cake for dessert. Needless to say, everyone ate too much.

I was happy to hear that those who used Tastes Like Home thought the recipes were simple to follow and easy to make. It was also nice that after dinner many of the guests bought copies of Tastes Like Home to give as gifts to friends and family.

Spanakopita, Hortopita, Paprika Pork and Cabbage, Pastitsio

The Greek potluck dinner was held to celebrate this year's successful Klondike Road Relay Race. Every year, various members of the Metcalfe family organize with their friends to form a Klondike running team. This year it was a Women's Masters Team, the Crow's Feet, and they came in second in their class. Congratulations!

Kolokythopita (Savory Squash Pies) made by Kim and Teeny, with help from Barb

Photographs by Teeny Metcalfe

Ingredient: Frozen Artichoke Hearts

Question: Several of your recipes call for frozen artichoke hearts. Where can I buy them in Anchorage, Alaska?

Answer: In Anchorage, Fred Meyer and Carrs/Safeway usually carry artichoke hearts (some brands are called artichoke quarters) in their frozen vegetable sections.

I generally have a package or two of artichoke hearts in the freezer, and use them to create quick dinners on days when my cooking inspiration is on strike. Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has three recipes in which artichoke hearts play a starring role: Artichoke and Dill Egg-Lemon Soup, Artichoke Pilaf, and Artichokes Braised with Dill. Paired with a crisp salad, any of these dishes makes a filling vegetarian meal.

Of course, the recipes may also be prepared with fresh artichokes. But using fresh artichokes just for the hearts requires too much time and effort (and costs too much) for a quick mid-week meal. I'd rather save fresh artichokes for steaming whole or grilling or stuffing; uses that allow me to enjoy the delicious leaves (which too often end up in the garbage when fresh artichokes are used for their hearts).

Cookbook: Gluten-free, Vegan, and Vegetarian, Oh My

Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has 182 recipes. All of the recipes use ingredients available in Alaska, and are easy to make in a home kitchen.

Recently, I've been getting questions about whether the book has recipes for those who don't eat meat, or are on restrictive diets. Tastes Like Home has:

Recipes for Special Diets:

• 137 Gluten-free recipes


• 100 Vegetarian recipes


• 69 Lenten recipes


• 61 Vegan recipes

Recipes from 8 countries:

• 139 Greek recipes


• 10 Armenian recipes


• 8 Egyptian recipes


• 7 Moroccan recipes


• 2 Lebanese recipes


• 10 Palestinian recipes


• 6 Romanian recipes


• 2 Serbian recipes

Recipes in all categories:

• 22 Appetizer recipes


• 29 Salad recipes


• 11 Soup recipes


• 14 Pites, Bread, Pasta and Rice recipes


• 25 Seafood recipes


• 9 Chicken recipes


• 24 Meat recipes


• 34 Vegetable recipes


• 14 Dessert recipes

Cookbook: "Tastes Like Home" Now Available

Wander the shore of a Greek island with the afternoon sun sparkling on blue Aegean waters. Jostle through teeming streets in an Egyptian metropolis at the edge of the ancient desert. Bargain for spices in a Moroccan market, or enjoy the shade of a cool Romanian forest.

Then turn the world upside down. Welcome to Alaska.

Immigrants from across the Mediterranean brought a rich culinary legacy with them to The Last Frontier, where they eased loneliness and softened a hostile environment with recipes from home.

Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska is a collection of traditional and modern versions of dishes that members of Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Anchorage, Alaska learned from mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins. The recipes were carefully tested and recreate the flavors of the Mediterranean using ingredients readily available in Alaska and North America.

Tastes Like Home includes the acclaimed foods that draw thousands each summer to Anchorage's popular Greek Festival, including Spanakopita, Tyropita, Dolmades, Moussaka, Baklava, Galaktoboureko, and Kourambiedes.

All proceeds from the sale of Tastes Like Home go to the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church Building Fund.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Architect's drawing of planned new church building