Posts

Honey & Oat Cake

Image
Imagine tucking your teeth into a moist, buttery, honey flavoured cake, that is melt-in-your-mouth soft. Well, you can now not only imagine, but taste it also! This cake is the definition of comfort food in my book. It's a recipe I created after trial and error, when I was responsible for creating a honey cake that would be served to over 1.000 people at a charity event in Greece. It had to be easy and fast to make, utilising the honey and oats that were kindly donated to us by contributors of the event. I am happy to say it was an instant hit and everybody loved this final version, as much as I did. All you have to do to have a great outcome, is use the finest ingredients: fresh butter, good pure honey-Greek preferably-and the best oats. The only 'hassle' in making it is that you have to melt the butter with the honey over low heat but other than that, it's really simple to make. I hope you make it your 'go-to' honey cake family recipe, as it is a fav...

Translate

Red Onion Soup

Image
Yesterday, it was snowing all night long here in London and today has maybe been one of the coldest days I’ve ever experienced in my life!  The only thing I can think of cooking in freezing weather like this, is soup and only soup.  Here’s my go-to onion soup, which has been on this blog since 2012 and in my house since...forever! It’s a warming, hearty soup that is best combined with garlicky croutons and Parmezan flakes.  Oh! A glass of red vino goes very well with it too!  It’s really easy to make, but it does need around 50 minutes to cook, so plan ahead. You can use white onions too and you can substitute the red wine with white-if you don’t have any red at hand that is. Don’t worry about the specifics of the ingredients too much-I have made it in variations and it is always good.  Serves: 2-4 Prep & Cook time: around 1h        INGREDIENTS : 1/2 kg red onions, cut in halves and sliced 1 clove ...

Calves Liver Salad

Image
This salad was inspired by a popular Georgian salad, served at weddings and family get togethers. I have posted it on this blog in Greek since 2016 and have been meaning to re-shoot the pics to post it in English for some time now, as I've re-made a few times it when I found good calves liver here in London. Of course, whenever I made it again, it was ready by the time the daylight had vanished, so I never got to take new pictures! However, it's always a crowd pleaser, especially with my children who don't eat liver so easily. This salad is too good not to share here, and liver-lovers will definitely appreciate a new liver-based dish that's light and refreshing. The original Georgian recipe is made with boiled liver, walnuts, garlic, onions, cilantro and pomegranate. This version was made with what I had in hand mostly, I added some extra greens-spinach, mint and some sweet baby green peppers from Crete I had at the time. I omitted the pomegranate as it wasn...

Banana Cookies

Image
On my mission to translate and re-shoot photographs of this blogs most popular recipes, these fluffy banana cookies had to be amongst the first to remake. They have been on the blog since March 2013 and they are always in the Top 10 recipes my readers use. Honestly, I don't wonder why. They might not look as pretty as any other cookie here, but boy do they taste good! When you have ripe bananas at hand, make these cookies. They are crunchy on the outside, with a cake-like texture in every bite, filled with aromas from the spices used, and lots of banana flavour. They could be little bites of banana cupcake, but in a cookie. They could be banana cream pudding, but in a cookie. I am done describing, you have to taste them for yourself to know what I am talking about! The recipe originally calls for nuts but I hadn't used them in their original version. They do suit them really well and add a different element to their texture, but the downside is they add a little ti...

Apple Sheet Cake

Image
This post will be brief and sweet. This sheet cake is one of the easiest apple desserts you can make, after an apple crumble. It's made with olive oil and lots of apples and nuts, keeping it spectacularly crumbly and moist at the same time! I have had it here-on the blog-in Greek for ages, but since I have been making it really often this time of year-kids love it, I love it- I finally dedicated some time to reshooting photos of it, so that I can give you the English version. The cake itself is very versatile: you can add raisins or cranberries, swap the almonds with any other nut you like and 'play' with the sugar contained, removing some Demerara and adding some white crystallised sugar to make it lighter in texture. The only 'hassle' in making it, is roasting the almonds/nuts for a few minutes, and grinding them. A hassle well worth it and totally forgotten about when you are enjoying a warm piece of this fragrant cake with a spoonful of custard on it! Oth...

Pina Colada Cake

Image
One of the things I have missed the most from Greece since living here in the UK for the last 2 years is the full 3 months of summer holidays my children would have. British schools close for a mere 6 weeks, whereas in Greece school is out mid June, until mid September! I feel blessed to have been able to spend all their primary school summers on our tiny little island of Kasos.  My children literally hate me-cannot say I blame them, I sort of hate myself too-for cutting their holidays SO short and this month especially is very difficult for all of us. We are all on autopilot, just waiting for it to end, so that we can get on a plane and spend what is left of the summer on our island. Each year, before departing from Athens to Kasos, I would clean out the pantry and as we would travel to our remote island by boat-16 hours to get there with the fast route, 24 with the slow one-I would load the car with all the forgotten goods I neglected to use during the winter. The year I c...

Berry Custard Treat

Image
It's officially spring. One of the loveliest seasons to be in London. Everywhere you look trees are bursting with gorgeous pink or white blooms, Magnolias and Camelias are in full bloom and everything suddenly has turned green. With spring, come fresh spring fruits as well! I came across these amazingly smelling berries, strasberries and pineberries and although they were a little pricey, I HAD to get them. They literally smelled like strawberries used to smell when I was young and honestly I wanted my kids to try them, as not even organic strawberries come close to these. Strasberries are a variety of the garden strawberry, smaller in size and with a deep red colour. They were developed by a German breeder in 1925, and they were nearly extinct until a Dutch farmer reintroduced them as a commercial variety. Pineberries are also a variety of strawberry with an appearance opposite to the regular strawberry: white skin and red seeds. Their name comes form their flavours rese...