Like lemon flavoured pasta! Will give this a try for sure.
BTW, love also many of your plates, I bet they are handmade?
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Yes, the plates are handmade, but not by me. I collect plates and other kitchenware from local potters. Of course, that means if you come to dinner, everyone will have different plates, because most of these are one-offs and there isn’t a set.
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That’s lovely! I love homemade pieces, but a bit put off by the idea that they need to be hand washed. Can yours go into the machine?
Glad to see this report. I have this planned for tomorrow night and your comments confirm my suspiction–that it would be good but not great. I think I will also do the garnishes pictured. Sometimes she goes too strong on the lemon, I think. I found that to be the case with the sardine pasta.
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Yes, they are all dishwasher safe.
Agree!
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BRIAM (GREEK-STYLE ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH GRATED TOMATO AND OLIVE OIL) - p. 165.
This recipe is written to serve a crowd. It makes two 9X13-inch baking dishes worth of food. We are not a crowd - there are just two of us at Casa de Mel (well, not including the cats), so I halved the recipe. All the veg (squash [I used yellow], onion, eggplant, bell pepper, potatoes, garlic, cherry tomatoes) are cut up and put in a large bowl. They are tossed with grated tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and black pepper. The recipe specifies “a lot of salt,” and I think that’s a good instruction, as a lot of cooks would tend to undersalt this. The baking pan (or pans, if you are making a full recipe) are covered with foil and baked for 40 minutes at 350F. Tip: anytime you bake anything with acid in it, such as tomato or lemon, covered with foil, it’s a good idea to rub the side of the foil that will be facing the food with oil. Otherwise, when you remove the dish from the oven, you might find holes in your foil and bits of aluminum dotting your food. So, yeah, I oil my foil. After the covered bake, the heat goes up to 400 and the dish is baked uncovered for another 30-40 minutes. I forgot to set the timer immediately after uncovering and turning up the heat, so when I realized that I guesstimated the time and set the timer for 30 minutes, figuring it had already been 10.
The veg come out perfectly soft, flavors melded, and just lovely, assuming you’ve seasoned them well. Eggplant is always a veg where I love it if it is cooked a certain way, and I hate it if it is cottony. No issues here. I feel like the covered, then uncovered instruction in this recipe is exactly what was missing from the biftekia recipe that I reported on above.
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SHAVED FENNEL WITH BLISTERED GOLDEN RAISINS AND PISTACHIO DRESSING - p. 52
I love fennel, so this recipe was calling my name. @Valadelphia has already described the process. I did use a mandoline to cut the fennel. Used golden raisins. Unlike the almond pesto for that pasta dish I reported, this pistachio dressing did get thick and mayo-like. So this worked as kind of an alternative slaw, as promised in the headnote. I have to admit I didn’t have any raw pistachios, so I used roasted and salted ones, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. We were very happy with this salad!
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KALE SALAD WITH FETA, DILL, AND TOASTED SEEDS (p. 48)
Another remarkable simple but tasty salad, making me wonder why I don’t eat more kale salads.
The title is pretty much the recipe–massage some kale with olive oil and lemon (she does seem to go heavy on lemon, which I like, but be wary), add chopped dill, feta, and pumpkin and sesame seeds.
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GIGANTES PLAKI (P. 120)
I cook beans, a lot, but I have never been able to get gigantes right. They always either turn to mush or end up under-cooked. I can’t say this was a total success, but I now know what to do–bake them! Soaked beans (definitely overnight–they go from wrinkly to smooth) are mixed with onion (called for red, I had yellow), garlic, olive oil, and canned tomato (puree or not is okay), then covered with water a couple inches in a shallow dutch onion. I halved the recipe so should have started checking them before three hours. I still find those bean skins unappealing–I wonder if gigantes are related to favas–and this was too much tomato for me, but I feel confident I can cook gigantes right the next time, at last.
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I don’t own this book so I’ll be mining everyone’s posts for ideas, but in the meantime I thought I would call your attention to one of HO’s themed threads, Cuisine of the Quarter. We focused on Greek last year - here’s a link to the thread if anyone is interested in taking a look for further inspiration. I’ll add a link to this cookbook to the COTQ thread as well. GREEK - Summer 2021 (Jul-Sept) Cuisine of the Quarter
In the meantime, keep up the great cooking, HOs!
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Thank you. For some reason I was getting hung up on the idea of the blistered raisins needed to be pickled and ended up confusing myself.
Hi Mel,
Thanks for getting this started.
Just something to consider…
COTM may get more traffic if it is all on one thread.
I know for finding a recipe that one wants to post under (because they also made that dish) that may be a nightmare.
However, I’m not sure how many users actually click on all the individual links vs the most popular one?
Olunia
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GREEK FRAPPE, p. 220
These are easy enough for 4-year-olds to make, but as you can see, Batman went a little heavy on the milk in Dad’s frappe. The recipe makes 1 serving: in a jar with a lid (or blender) mix 1 tsp instant coffee and 2 tsps sugar. Add a splash of water to dissolve. Then add 3/4 cup water, put on the lid and shake the jar. You will get a foam on the top. Pour that over ice and add milk to taste. Delicious!
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Olunia, it is currently all one thread, right here. But if someone has already reported on a dish you’re reporting on, posting as a reply really does help everyone. We get to see all the reports on one recipe in one place.
It looks different here on HO, but I think we will get used to it.
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Happy to see this report. I wasn’t really excited by the idea of dill and kale together, but I will give it a try.
This looks incredibly delicious. I plan to make it this coming week. The roasted pistachios seem like a very minor modification to me, but I love the tone of your confession. 
APPLES, HONEY, AND CINNAMON, p. 215
As you can see, I made this as a child’s snack and I did not measure anything. Just some sliced apples, drizzled with Greek honey, dusted with cinnamon, and topped with some fleur de sel. Tasted nice but I wouldn’t make it again.
Can I just say how pleasant it is to post these reports on this interface? It’s so smooth, the pictures look better, and it’s easy to do from my phone, which was not the case with CH.
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PASTA WITH TOASTED ALMOND AND LEMON PESTO , p.148
Mel has already described the process. I would say that my pesto was somewhere between watery and milky, but it all worked out when mixed with the spaghetti. I too was frustrated by the Batali problem and decided to add the garnishes in the photo. I would say the best bites were the ones that had some chunks of toasted almond.
Regarding the lemon: for me, 1/3 cup of lemon juice came from 1.5 lemons, not three. Along with the zest of 2 lemons, this was already very lemony, so I think 3 lemons would be over the top.
This is supposed to be a vegan dish but I felt some parmesan was needed to round out the lemon and it helped a lot.
I thought this was okay, but I’ve realized that I don’t like “al limone” pasta. I should have served this with a salad, but I didn’t, and it was all fine.
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