I love Greek food. Your shrimp look great.

Ann

Mine haven't arrived yet but I can't wait to watch them!

Foodonastump, the shrimp do indeed look wonderful That is is one of my favorite recipes. It tastes good and looks pretty impressive too. I think the sauce would work with fish and even with chicken. I am glad you & your wife enjoyed it.

Sue

I made Sue's Gyros and Tzatziki sauce last week after finding the recipe on the web site. The flavors were spot on and watching the video helped me to get the meat patties very thin.

So many of these Greek recipes are really not difficult and most use common ingredients that are readily available. Sue's explanation of the Greek traditional seasonings really help you to understand the cuisine.

I plan to try something this weekend, maybe the Greek Toast cookies. I'll report back to this thread with whatever I end up making.

Teresa

Looks fantastic FOAS! And I can certainly understand why your wife was swooning over it. And Teresa I need to check out the Gyros too, I really like them and can send the leftovers for school lunches.

I have Pastitsio on the menu for this weekend.... I love it and can't wait to make Sue's recipe.

Thanks again Sue!

Alexa

that looks so yummy! I have not cooked from the dvd yet, maybe this weekend, that dish has inspired me. Am taking food to food bank on Friday and volunteering that day! Thanks again Sue!!

That's some great looking food FOAS! I haven't made anything yet, but am planning to get more acquainted with the Mediterranean market in my area. Having new recipes to try is a good excuse, don't you think? Gyros sound good to me, and I like the fact that Teresa gave us a review as she's already tried them.

Thanks again, Sue!

That really looks good, FOAS. I've gone as far as buying some fillo dough, although the package spells it with a "ph" instead of an "f". I've bought the little 10 oz packages of frozen spinach, too, and some cottage cheese. I didn't have a list with me, so I forgot the other things that go with the spinokopita. But that's what I want to try first. I'm going to make that and the other one in the same lesson, since my DIL doesn't like spinach, but loves cheese.

I'm looking forward to viewing the other lessons, too.

Sally

Great food, great presentatiion, great photography, FOAS!

I see a Greek cooking spree developing here. I will be joining it ASAP.

Jim

(went out to dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Yasou last night...Greek restaurant, LOL, looking forward to making some of the selections we had, especially taramasalata!)

Your shrimp looks delicious FOAS.

I have chicken on my grocery list to make the roast chicken and potatoes with lemon, a dish I've had at restaurants but never cooked at home. There are many more recipes I want to try. I love Greek lamb dishes and I'll be checking out those recipes on the DVDs soon too. A Greek virtual dinner would be lots of fun.

Jessica, I'm jealous of your dinner out. I remember the fun we had with Oly at your house and still have and make some of the recipes she shared with us.

Lee

Not "yet" but "still and improved". Shambo's recipes are so nutritious, earthy, easy, and delicious that my DH is groaning from the wealth of new dishes I've been serving him since receiving her DVD's, and, they all taste like they are fresh from the Mediterranean itself. We eat Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Thai, and German cuisine a lot from my kitchen, but Greek seems to be one that is more "simple and tasty" as he puts it. What a gift she has given us! I love her idea of paying-it-forward to contribute to our local food bank to thank us in a different way. In the meantime, try the carrot dessert like baklava. Heavenly.

Nancy the nancedar

I can't wait to watch the DVD's and start cooking. I'm with Linda C and FOAS about paying it forward. I'm going to make a donation to Our Neighbors' Table in shambos name.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Neighbors' Table

I took2 big grocery bags to the food pantry last night..upon several recommendations I included canned tuna, Campbells soups, spam (!!!) canned carrots, corn and greenbeans, fruits with an emphasis on peaches and topped it off with a boxed pound cake that seemed to have a long shelf life.
Thinking I would love to have some spanikopita in the freezer for the Christmas.....
Looking forward to an evening to settling in to watch.
Thank you again Shambo!

Received the DVD's yesterday. I haven't had time to watch or make anything yet. This weekend is my plan to watch and be inspired.

I live in a small town that started a food pantry last year. I will make my donation to them as their are many people in this area out of work, down and out on their luck. Pay it forward is a great idea.

Thank you so much Sue!

You are all too kind. I am thrilled that some of you have already tried some of the recipes. I want to asure you that you should feel free to use your best judgment when cooking them. For example, if it seems to call for too much liquid, use less. I tried my best to quantify the ingredients, but I'm sure there is a lot of room for imrpovement.

The recipes really are family recipes. This is the stuff my mom cooked every night for dinner. So they're typical Greek peasant food. As many of you have observed, they've got really simple ingredients -- not complex at all.

Also, to give credit where credit is due, Linda C is the wonderful person who came up with the idea of sharing with food closets. It's a great idea.

Happy cooking!

Sue

Another success - Avgolemeno Stew. Sue mentioned celery as one of the vegetable choices and that seemed a whole lot easier than preparing artichokes so I went with it. DW wasn't crazy about that aspect, but otherwise was very happy with dinner. The organic vegetable stock I bought was some scary stuff, and I was very disappointed to use beef instead of lamb (the only lamb stew meat they was $20/lb so I had to pass) but it still came together very nicely.

{{!gwi}}

I got my DVDs last night!! I only had time to watch the first five minutes but I hope to be able to watch a lot more this weekend. Yippeee!!! Thanks Sue!

I can't wait to get started watching the DVD's and cooking some of the great sounding Greek food. Unfortunately, for various reasons I can't start until after Christmas. If you all have a Greek cookalong before Christmas I hope you will have another afterward so I can join in. That reminds me - are any of the recipes on the DVD's food you have every year at Christmas? I am at a total loss as to what to have for Christmas this year because I will have one picky daughter, her very picky DH, and even pickier two kids. All any of them want any time except Thanksgiving is pizza, lasagna, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot wings, Velveeta and Rotel Dip, fast food and chicken fingers. I'm so ready to throw up my hands and go out and eat since our Christmas will be lunch on Christmas Eve. Either that or make something none of them know what it is and tell them to take it or leave it. That's where some of these Greek foods just may enter the picture.

FOAS , it would be great to have a Greek cook a long in honour of Shambo!

I didn't request the DVD's because shipping to Canada can be way to expensive and I couldn't ask Sue to do that. Anyone who wants to join a cook a long and doesn't have the DVD's, can find many of the recipes at Sue's WEB site...which is now a bookmarked favourite of mine!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sue's Recipe Web SIte

Foodonastump, your celery avgolemeno looks really inviting. My dad used to love that stew as did his best friend. It's an unusual dish because most often celery is relegated to salads or just bits and chunks in soups or stews. It rarely, if ever, is the star. I'm glad you tried it.

Sue

I just got back from having lunch with my daughter. I had written out my earlier post before I left & when I returned I just submitted it without reading any of the newer posts.

Beverly, regarding special Greek foods at Christmas, the only special dishes my family ever made at that time were sweets: baklava (severals huge pans), melomacarona (honey dipped cookies), and kourabiedes (butter cookies covered in powdered sugar).

For New Year's, my grandmother would make vasilopita. Her recipe produced a very dense cake with a taste similar to pound cake. It was decorated on top with whole blanched almonds. The exciting thing for me & my cousins was that a coin was hidden in the dough. The person who got the piece with the coin was supposed to have good luck throughout the new year. My grandmother was clever. She'd make smaller cakes for each of her grandchildren and hide several coins in each cake. So we'd usually end up with a dollar's worth of coins in our individual cakes. Now that really was a special treat!

Chase, thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate them.

Sue

Sue, thank you for telling us your Christmas traditions. The coins sound like fun!

Beverly

WARNING - Make sure that everyone knows that the coin is inside the cake.

Sooner, that is a good point. It wasn't really a problem for us even as kids. My grandmother would wash the coins and then enclose them in aluminum foil packets, so their size was fairly large. Also the description "cake" could be a bit misleading. It is very dense & rich. So only thin slices were cut and you'd eat it out of hand, nibbling. The coins were always easily located. And, of course, everyone was on the lookout.

Wonderful cooking FOAS. Thanks for starting this thread.

Would some one please also recommend some nice Greek wine to go along with the dishes?

Greece is one of the oldest wine maker.

dcarch

I have some days off, I don't have to leave home until Monday, and I brought the DVDs home. I even have feta and phyllo. Can't wait.

"Greece is one of the oldest wine maker."

Indeed! The ancients stored wine in earthenware amphorae. Since earthenware is porous, they waterproofed the amphorae with a coating of pitch, which gave the wine a flavor and aroma of fir trees (appropriate to the season, eh?). That ancient wine style is available today in the form of Retsina. This is not a recommendation, mind you; just information. Not everyone would regard Retsina as a nice wine. But it is "interesting".

Jim

I made Sue's Kota Lemonato (Greek roasted lemon chicken)last night and we loved it. I was worried that it would be too lemony, too garlicky, and have too much oregano. But I took the leap of faith thinking that Sue and her family have made this traditional dish FOREVER and used all the ingredients she recommended in the largest amounts. We loved it! All the flavors mellowed out and nothing was too pronounced. I did have to bake it longer, even though I used a slightly larger pan than she did in the video and I thought less potato, I think my chicken pieces were larger. But it came out a lovely brown on the chicken skin and browned places on the potato. I don't think it could have been any better and it will probably be on our table at least once a month. We had fresh green beans, steamed, and sliced tomatoes on the side. The plates were pretty and colorful - I need to get back into the habit of taking pictures.

Thank you Sue.

Lee

Oh I am so headed for Sue's website... I love greek food.. and had actually contemplated making Pastitsio for Christmas dinner...
I used to go to Tarpon Springs to a little side street deli to have lunch with an old old greek gentleman years and years ago...oh and he was such an awesome cook... Y'all are sure bringing back a load of great memories...

Carolyn

Carolyn, I made Sue's Pastitsio a couple of days ago and it is great! Highly recommended......

Oh wow, I could almost smell the deliciousness of that Pastitsio... yummmm I may not wait until Christmas..lol I may just make it tomorrow.. yummm..

Carolyn

Oh I hope mine come soon!!!

Tonight I made a batch of the Greek Toast cookies or Paximadia. They turned out very well and I like the short - as in lots of butter! - consistency. I made lemon with both extract and peel, although I wanted to make the orange version but found I didn't have any orange extract.

Sue, what about using orange juice concentrate instead of extract?

I think I would prefer these to be just slightly thinner than one-inch thick - maybe 3/4-inch. These are not the "careful...don't break a tooth" type of biscotti. They are very tender and bite off easily.

Here is the dough after the first baking, on the baking sheet, scored and ready to go back in the oven:

{{!gwi}}

And here are the baked Paximadia cooling on the rack:

{{!gwi}}

Teresa

Well, I'll be making Fasolakia tomorrow and I've been eating Greek Bean soup all week. Greek and other Mediterannean influenced foods are my favorites so I cook Greek a lot. Plus my best friend is married to a Greek girl and I eat Greek a lot at their house too!
Shambo I love your site!!

Teresa, that looks awesome !! I must try those.. mmm

I just could not wait until Christmas to make my Pastitsio... LOL So, I made it today, and it was wonderful !! Had a side salad with Calamata Olives, Feta Cheese, tomatos, with Farmer Boy Greek Dressing.. and some home made Garlic bread... oh yeah.. good stuff...

{{!gwi}}

I am so full now that I think I will just kick back and relax...

Carolyn

Wow! You are all so ambitious! Everything you've made looks so good. And I'm truly impressed!

Lee, I'm glad the lemon chicken was OK for you. I guess my mom used to heavily season her food, especially with garlic. As I said before, trust your instincts. You know what tastes good to you. Adjust as you go along. These recipes are defintely NOT set in stone.

Caorlyn & Alexa, I'm glad you enjoyed the pastichio. It's a favorite of mine and is great for entertaining. You can cut up perfect squares or rectangles to serve and there's nothing oozing out. And I don't think it suffers even if it's not served piping hot.

Teresa, I certainly understand about wanting to cut the paximadia thinner. I guess my family just loves to eat big thick pieces (That's because we all have such big mouths!). I'm a dunker, so I usually toast the slices more than normal. Again, trust your own judgment. You know better than I do what you will like.

And yes, orange juice concentrate would work. I like orange flavor in lots of baked good, so I have dried orange peel, orange extract, & orange oil, along with a permanent can of frozen orange juice concentrate in my freezer dedicated to baking.

Sue

LOL Sue, I did trust my instincts, they were that you were right. I just gave it a moments thought and then went with your quantities. It was perfect.

Lee

Update: the Greek Toasts really have more lemon flavor this morning after "curing" overnight. The next time I make any kind of biscotti, I'm going to try the technique of scoring the dough logs before baking. It really made the cutting after the first bake neater and more precise with less crumbling of the cookies. I like the consistency and texture of this recipe and I might consider adding toasted nuts in the future. (Just disregard that statement, Shambo if it offends you! LOL)

Teresa

Teresa, nothing offends me. I'm sure there are variations of paximadia out there that include chopped nuts. I know that many Greeks use chopped almonds in their kourabiedes even though my grandmother did not. How could you get less Greek when using nuts? They're in just about all the traditional desserts.

After making baklava & melomacarona this week, I'm pretty much all honeyed - nutted - and cinnamoned out. This always happens to me at Chrstmas time. I get tired of that particular flavor combination quickly. I think it comes from years & years of my mom & grandmother making numerous pans of baklava.

Baklava is my absolute all-time favorite sweet! I love the mix of flavors and textures. I'll take that over chocolate cake any day.

Shambo, what a generous thing to share your wealth of recipes with the forum, and what a great idea to pay it forward.

I'm going to check out the website as soon as my exams are over (I'm here procrastinating, shhh...) and make some baklava to celebrate the end of a semester.

AM

Any extra baklava you have can be shipped to me, Shambo! You have my address......

This afternoon I made the Pastitsio recipe and it turned out great. I made a pan slightly smaller than 9x13 and 1 small round casserole for my dinner tonight. The eight squares from the larger pan are already in the freezer. Might share them with my sons for Christmas. I almost ate up the meat sauce and the white sauce separately - they were that good.

Teresa

In addition to the fasolakia, I also ended up making the lemon chicken and potatoes for my dinner party. It was a HUGE hit, everyone wanted the recipe and raved.

Jim, as for wine with Greek food, syrah is an old, old wine style that came back in fashion. It's easy to come by. I love it but unfortunately I can't drink red wine for health reasons. I just get an occasional sip.

I was just browsing around, minding my own business, when I got sucked into this thread by the 'garithes me feta' dish. Unfortunately the link to Sue's site no longer works, so I'm resurrecting this thread. Does anyone have a recipe for this dish?

Thanks,

--Rick

Can you believe it? I have the recipe(s). Yes, the website is now defunct , but the recipes are still out there in cyberspace. Here are two links: the first one is to the YouTube videos; the other is to PDF versions of the recipes. Hope this helps.

Simply Delicious - Greek Cooking with Sue Tweeton (YouTube)

Simply Delicious Greek Cooking Recipes (PDF)

I still make the shrimp from my OP several times a year! Come to think of it, I think I'm about due...

OP?

Sue, you don't happen to live in CT, do you?

Thanks for the help! I'm going to check the youtube/pdf right now.

--Rick

Rick, I'm a California native, born and raised in Los Angeles and living in the greater Sacramento area now.

I asked bc I know someone whose user name (elsewhere) resembles yours.

Thanks again,

--Rick