Summer Fig Salad with Halloumi - Σαλατα με συκα και χαλλουμι

 After a long absence I am back to start sharing with you some great summer recipes and update you on my food related projects!

Since the last time I posted a blog I traveled back to Cyprus for one more time (shortly after my trip during Easter) where I stayed there with my family for a few weeks.

I flew back home urgently to see my father who was gravely ill. A day after I arrived, my very dear father passed away. The loss is huge but life goes on.

How do you say a final good bye to someone you love so deeply?

Personally, I can’t so I continue living with the many fond memories I have of my father and I continue to keep him in my heart.

On a daily basis, my father continues to touch me and speak to me through the flowers and trees in my garden (most of them he has planted) and through my cooking. Thanks to him,  I learned to love both of these…

Today I will share with you a simple but yet tasty and healthy salad that my father loved.

Some of the figs on my fig tree are already ripe – the few figs that usually get ripe early on in the summer, are called Maggiles - ματζιλεs in my Cypriot dialect.

Green Salad with Halloumi and Figs

Growing up I had figs and halloumi with my father in our garden many times. We would cut the figs right off the huge fig trees, peel them and then pair them with a bit of halloumi and have a hearty but healthy breakfast. We would do the same thing at my father’s grocery store but there my dad would go to the vegetable stand and pull a few strands of fresh cilantrto, arugula and lettuce to eat them along with the fruit and the halloumi.

What a better combination of the pungy taste of the arugula, to be paired with the aromatic cilantro and the crunchiness of lettuce. Then the to pair two opposites tastes such as salty from the halloumi and sweet from the figs gives an unparallel taste.

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup romaine lettuce

3 scallions

1 cup chopped arugula

Pepper

225 grams halloumi(approximately half of the halloumi)

6 fresh figs

For the dressing

½ cup virgin olive oil

1 lemon

Wash all the vegetables in cold water.

Get rid of any excess water on the leaves.

Finely chop the arugula, cilantro, lettuce and scallions.

Slice the halloumi and cut into small cubes.

Peel the skin off the fibs. Cut in the middle. If the figs are very large, cut into quarters.

Place all the chopped vegetables in a large salad bowl.

In a separate smaller bowl whisk well the lemon, olive oil and pepper.

Drizzle over the salad.

Add the halloumi.

Toss well. Add the figs on top of the salad.

Serves 4 - 6

Enjoy with your friends and family!

Καλη Ορεξη

Tip of the day

Here is a tip on how to “force” figs to ripe faster. :-)

Take a small food brush, and brush their bottoms with some olive oil. This will help figs ripe faster!

 

Enjoy the Summer – Καλο Καλοκαιρι

Fish Plaki - Ψαρι Πλακι

My dad's garden

My dad's garden

I am back after being absent for a few weeks. I went back home to Cyprus to visit my parents and my immediate family. I have to admit that it was a very emotional visit since my father hasn’t been well. I spent a lot of quality time with both of my parents and was mostly with them while in Cyprus. As I expected it was extremely hard to say goodbye and leave them behind in a very fragile state of health…

While I was back home I baked with my sister traditional Easter pastries as well as other delicacies and consumed a lot of these creations :-). I was able to bring  back with me a couple of new recipes which I need to try out soon and share with you.

… and since Easter is long gone, I decided to share a different kind of recipe today using fish and seasonal vegetables. I will share my Easter pastries’ recipes later on in the year.

Easter Pastries - Flaounes

In today’s recipe I use whole fish something that’s unusual in the U.S. It’s a very common way of cooking fish back home though. I hope I can encourage you to try it out. It’s a simple, yet easy and healthy recipe to execute.

Snaper

 

Fish Plaki

2 ½ pounds whole fish – snapper or other similar fish

2 ½ pounds red potatoes

1 ½ cups chopped tomatoes

2 medium onions

2 cups chopped parsley

1-2 lemons

1 cup olive oil

3 garlic cloves

3 bay leaves

Salt

Pepper

Peel and slice the potatoes – ¼ inch thick. Place in cold water so they don’t turn brown.

Wash and slice the lemons; set aside.

If using whole fish, clean it from the intestines and the scales. Wash in cold water.

Peel the onions and cut in semi-circles. On high heat sauté the onions in half of the olive oil. Add the finely chopped garlic. Slowly add the chopped tomatoes and bay leaves. Let them cook for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Lastly, add the chopped parsley. Stir and remove from the heat.

In a deep baking dish place the potatoes in layers. Season with salt. Drizzle over them the remaining olive oil.

Place the fish on top of the sliced potatoes. Place a few lemon slices on top of the fish and then pour part of the tomato sauce.

Fish Plaki

Cover with parchment paper and bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes or until you can easily fork the fish.

A few minutes before removing from the oven remove the parchment paper so the fish can get a nice golden color on top.

Cooked Fish Plaki

Serve immediately.

Καλη ορεξη!!!

Makes 4-6 servings

 Till next time stay well!

How about some pita pockets?

 









I know that I have been away from my blog a little bit longer this time. A lot has been going on but it's all good. I am preparing for a trip back home to see my family while I am taking care of things on my U.S. home front. I am looking forward to going going back home and as always I dread the good byes. Over the years, I have come to accept that I am terrible with saying goodbye to loved ones and I wish I never had to do it. The truth though is that in life everything has an expiration date ... and we need to savor the moment, get the most out of life experiences before they come to an end!

These past few weeks, I have also started preparing my vegetable garden. Added lots of new soil and got rid of all the weeds. I will keep you updated... My goal is to enjoy some nice tomatoes, eggplants and zucchini this year.

I have also been continuing with my cooking classes something that's very fulfilling to me. I just had a great class two days ago. It was a full class with 18 people attending my hands-on class on Mediterranean vegetarian dishes. It was a lot of fun meeting new friends and also seeing some of my old cooking pals. We cooked, we joked a lot, we listened to Greek music and in the end we all enjoyed a nice meal together. What else can I ask for!

So my creative baking juices have been flowing these last few days and they have resulted into some action :-). The result is some pita bread! Easy and fun to make. I love pita pockets - they are so versatile! I use them to make sandwiches, serve them with dips, bake them and make simple pita chips for snacks and just eat them as part of any meal throughout the day.

Growing-up we used to eat pita bread along with our kebabs. We would always eat pita pockets that were filled with kebabs, chopped parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions - yum! We would also make a variety of sandwiches with pita pockets which as you might already know can be different sizes and shapes.

Remember that you can always use white whole wheat flour which is a lot healthier than just white flour. I have started experimenting more and more substituting that in all of my recipes.

Pita Bread

2 teaspoons dry yeast

1 cup and 2 ½ ounces lukewarm water

1 1/3 tablespoon olive oil

3 ½ cups white whole wheat unbleached flour

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl combine the dry yeast, olive oil and lukewarm water.

Stir well and add ¼ cup flour in that. Cover with a towel and set aside for

5 – 10 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Place in the hot oven the baking sheets you will be using.

Add the salt, and the remaining flour.

On a floured surface, start kneading the dough with your hands for about five minutes or until the dough is shiny, has a lot of elasticity and doesn’t stick to the hands.

Place back into the bowl. Spray some olive oil all over it and cover with a moist towel. Place in a warm area and let it rise for an hour and a half.

Divide into 12 round balls.

Place them on a baking sheet and let them rise for another 10 minutes.

On a floured surface, roll out each one of them into a 5-7 centimeters circle with approximately ½ centimeter thickness. 

Set them aside for another 10 minutes before baking.

Place on the hot non-greased baking sheets and into the oven.

Bake for about 1 ½ minutes on each side.

The dough will puff up creating the desired pocket.

Flip once. Let them cool off on a wire rack.

 Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tip of the day - storing pita bread in the freezer.

You can store them for a few months. After your pita pockets have cooled off completely, you can stack them in a zip log bag separating them with some parchment paper. Close the bag and store in your freezer. Take out as many as you need each time and then place back into the freezer.

Enjoy!

I hope to communicate with you once more before I take off for Europe but if I don't make it I will make sure that I post my baking Easter creations from Cyprus.