Beets

As a kid I remember eating beets once a year—on Palm Sunday when we would sit down to the customary Greek lunch of bakaliaro (fried salt cod), skordalia (garlic dip) and boiled beets made every year on this holiday. And I’m pretty sure I still ate beets only on Palm Sunday right up until I was married and began testing the cooking waters for myself. I now make beets at least every other week and I’ve even gotten my mom to make them occasionally (on days other than Palm Sunday).At first I would buy some fresh beets, boil them and then serve topped with some oil and

Pork Loin Conundrum

So I’ve tried my hand at roasting a simple pork loin a number of times. The result: a dry, tasteless slab of pork that no amount of sauce or gravy could save. I’ve rubbed, I’ve stuffed, I’ve plain old seared then thrown into the oven, but no matter what my approach, what I’ve gotten in the end is an awkward look my from husband as he sinks his teeth into what’s really shoe leather disguised as pork.Yes, my futile attempts at perfectly roasting or baking—whatever you’d like to call it—a nicely cut piece of pork have been discouraging. But I won’t give

Plaki

My husband and his friends usually get to go fishing twice a year, once early in the summer and once in Mid-September. They usually tag along on one of the day boats that set out from Long Island’s Orient Point. I must admit I usually nag at the fact that he gets to spend a whole day with his buddies—I don’t think I’ve gotten to spend more than a couple of hours (that’s total over the last four years) alone with friends since I had these two little beings currently running laps around my kitchen wearing a shoe on each hand. Yes, I said a shoe … on each

Biscotti

Biscotti are my favorite sweet to bake during the winter holidays. They are flavorful, so very versatile and they last quite a few days. Of course, they’re such a good treat and my husband and kids love them so, that I don’t limit them to just the holidays. I make them year round, except on horribly humid New York summer days when turning on an oven is not an option. But today’s dry, lower 80s forecast afforded me the perfect opportunity to make this batch for the Great Cooks Community September 2008 – Biscotti Bake Off. I used a basic biscotti recipe that

All about Figs

One of my favorite childhood memories is of climbing the large fig tree in my family’s yard every August to gather the sweet fruit along with my two cousins. We enjoyed the “adventure” of climbing the tree to pick the figs while our parents, grandmother and aunts indulged in eating the ripe fruit. My husband and I recently bought a one family home here in New York and much to our delight the yard contains a number of fig trees. This being our first summer in our new home, we were delighted to see that dozens of figs sprouted on the dense branches of our fig trees

Sofrito, of a different kind

KerkyraMy family is from the island of Kalymnos, part of a group of Greek islands known as the Dodecanese and located in the Aegean Sea. My husband on the other hand, is from Kerkyra, one of Greece’s Ionian islands and on opposite sides of the country. As we live here in New York, my in-laws live in Athens and my sister-in-law lives in Kerkyra, we’ve all gathered there the last four summers to spend a few weeks in each other’s company. I’ve come to learn what many of the island’s native dishes are and my favorite is something called Sofrito. It bears