Hot 'n' spicy (Πικάντικο)

Heat in Greek food is generally limited to the temperature at which it is served. Chili powders and hot sauces are not generally part of the local cuisine of Crete, although they are all now readily available in our supermarkets, but traditional Greek food as it is served in local restaurants is generally not spicy. Foreigners in Greece, more travelled locals and immigrants all bring more tastes into the country, and people are now more willing to try novel tastes.

I am always hesitant about adding too much heat in our food in the form of chili because I worry about how the children will react to it. They've tasted a wide range of cuisines through our trips abroad, but it's one thing to eat out in a foreign country and another thing to eat at home in your own country. My husband was hooked on Indian food the first time he tried it in New Zealand at a food court. Indian stews and vegetable curries reminded him of similar textures in Greek food but without the heat, which added an extra dimension to the flavour. My kids needed a bit more convincing, and I'm happy to say they have become more accepting of hot tastes, so I now can cook one spicy meal for the lot of us. But I still always ask the kids if they mind my making something spicy. "Not too hot!" they always say, which sometimes leads me to under-spicing my food, to my dismay.

I always wondered how children born in cultures whose cuisines are well known for being spicy get used to heat in their food. An Australian friend recently told me what her Indian friend - now a grandmother - did to get her children accustomed to eating hot'n'spicy food. She started her children on hot food when they were about 2 years old. The amount of chili added to their meal serving was the size of a pin-prick, as much as will cling onto a single tine of a fork. This is done daily for a few days, before a second tine of chili is added to their meal, and the process is repeated. Eventually, children become accustomed to heat in food, and they eat the same meals as their parents.

Stewed pork with some curry laksa paste, and boiled broccoli and cabbage with a hint of curry laksa flavour. The paste contained dried chili, prawn paste, turmeric, lemongrass, garlic, onion, galangal, oil, sugar and salt (and flavour enhancer E261). I felt sure that a taste/aroma was missing from the curry, something like coconut milk - thanks to facebook, I got some instant replies: yes, coconut milk is added to such a paste, and if you don't have that, you can add potatoes to the stew, so that when they cook through and break down, their starch thickens the sauce. Thanks to Alex for the paste and Kristen for the coconut powder.

I was recently given a sachet of ready-to-use curry laksa paste, a Singaporean/Malaysian specialty, which I was looking forward to trying now that the cold weather that has set in. Heat in food is often associated with cold weather for most Greeks, although I do understand that it is eaten all year round in places like India. I defrosted some pork, cut it up, browned it in olive oil with some chopped onions, and then I opened up the sachet to add to the meat. It looked like a lot of paste to me, and of course, it smelt different to what I usually use to spice my food, not to mention the hot smell that it gave off. I didn't add it all, out of fear that I may make the meal inedible for the family.

My curry laksa soup was not really soupy, or even as red as it should be, but it tasted great. 

If I didn't get the proportion of heat right for the family's tastes, I would end up with a meal that would not be eaten. This is also acceptable because even in spicy cuisines, the heat ingredient is often left on the table so that diners can add as much as they want. I spent most of my Sunday morning fretting about how much this meal would be enjoyed. I wanted to have the curry as a soup, which meant that I would add vegetables and noodles to it, but I couldn't imagine the family eating curry laksa soup, on which point I was right: they asked for plain boiled rice to go with the meat. We are all creatures of habit in some way; novelties need to be introduced to us at the right place at the right time.

Finally, the moment to serve the meal came, and I waited with bated breath to hear the verdict. Too hot or just right? And what do you think they said? "Mum, didn't you say this was supposed to be a spicy meal? There's hardly any chili in it!" Oh well, at least I have just enough paste left over for another curry laksa - next time, it will definitely be hotter!

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Ajvar - Eggplant and pepper sauce (Αϊβάρ)

Sorry, folk, I don't know where the photos went - I had borrowed them from the web, and they seem to have been taken down since I used them. For more ajvar photos, see this post. 

After reading my Peppers post, a reader told me about another dish I can make with peppers: ajvar (pronounced 'ay-var' or 'ay-ver') from Eastern European cuisine, which uses peppers and eggplant. It's not an unusual combination, as these two summer vegetables often grow together, and this is a great way to use up my remaining eggplant, which is not such a popular vegetable now, as other vegetables have taken its place during the summer-winter transition. The name of the dish comes from 'caviar'; ajvar is poor man's caviar. It is used as a dip, a spread and an addition to casseroles. I found a simple ajvar recipe and made just enough to last us as a side salad. It was a very tasty salad, unbelievably good for such a simple dish.



Ajvar looks simple on the surface, but it is not generally made in a small home kitchen like mine, nor is it made by one person. Ajvar has a very social role and is a village affair in parts of former communist states that were once part of Yugoslavia, like Serbia and Makedonija (often written as Macedonia in English). Take my friend Fidanka's recipe for ajvar, as she explains it to me:

"We use florina type peppers (long red sweet peppers), seeds removed, and eggplants: 50 kg peppers, and 50 big size eggplants [yo need more peppers than eggplants] The vegetables are roasted over fire, peeled, ground and placed in huge pan. We add 3-4 liters oil and we cook it over fire, outdoors for 4-5 hours, continuously stirring. This is my family's recipe, but it varies from family to family, in terms of the pepper/eggplant ratio, oil, addition of parsley or garlic, shili pepper, etc. It is usually flavoured with just salt. The hot ajvar is placed in hot jars and then the jars are placed in a big pot all together, wrapped in old blankets. The next day, the jars are cold and the sauce can last for several years like this without changing the flavour. But of course, it never stays longer on my shelves than April the following year..."

Fidanka's ajvar

I'm tempted to make ajvar again and bottle it in jars, to use in my stews and soups, and as a spread. Something so simple can create so much satisfaction, as well as the feeling of security that always comes when you see a pantry full of jars of food that you prepared yourself and you know will tide you throughout the winter months.

Making ajvar (left) and yufki (right) in the former Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia. 

The yufki photo is as recent as 2012.

Making ajvar is a once-a-year thing, and only when the vegetables are in season. This blog gives you some idea about the importance of making ajvar in its social context. Communally made storeable food, like making yufki (a kind of egg and milk based pasta that can be kept all year round and is used in a variety of dishes), is still popular in the former communist countries which border Greece - this is quite a world apart apart from their neighbours (ie us), who never really performed culinary tasks collectively: apart, perhaps, from keeping a pig, or making wine and raki, virtually everything else is prepared for an individual family to enjoy. The barriers of politics once ensured that not even neighbours could learn from each other.

The regular pepper variety used for ajvar is Kurtovska kapija, although other pepper varieties are now also used (eg Slonovo uvo, Palanecno cudo), but Kurtovska kapija is considered one of the best because it contains low water content and high dry matter. Fidanka should know about this: the pepper photo is from her PhD pepper experiment, although the PhD was not connected to ajvar-making (!) Her brother likes to joke that her ajvar must be the best in Macedonija because it's made by a PhD pepper expert!

Fidanka tells me that in her home town of Strumcia, which is known for growing vegetables in open fields, plastic tunnels and greenhouses, the municipality has for several years now been organising the AJVERIJADA, where housewives get together and make ajvar. A committee tastes the results and competitors are awarded.

Ajvar-making in Strumcia, October 2013

In recent years, ajvar (as well as yufki) has been commercialised, as all home-made food has been around the world, which has to do with the easy access to technology and more people working outside the home, lacking time to take part in traditional activities, but there is still the deep-rooted belief that 'my mother's ajvar is the best' (a bit like hearing a Cretan saying 'my mother's kalitsounia are the best') especially when there many variations to each dish depending on region, taste, etc.

My own version of ajvar preserves is made with onion and garlic. I prefer my sauces to be chunky rather than smooth, so I didn't grind the vegetables. I intend to use these sauces in winter stews. Ajvar is often eaten as a spread on bread, accompanied by things like feta cheese. 

Even though ajvar is widely available commercially, in Macedonija, there is still a great sense of pride in continuing the tradition of making it communally. The taste of commercially made ajvar - as with any food product - is nearly always distinguishable from the home-made one. It all has to do with the future of food, or the food of the future, and how we see our future being shaped by world food trends.

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Peppers (Πιπεριές)

Peppers are great in the freezer: you can freeze them whole (especially good if they are hot small peppers like chilis - they slice well too), or as shells (for filing in various ways, eg yemista in Greek cuisine), or in strips to add in stews (I like themin this form for my weekly soupy bean or lentil stews). We had a good run of peppers this past summer, and only recently cleared the garden of the last pepper plants. There are only so many peppers you can use and freeze, and I stil had plenty left over.

So I set about making a pepper sauce, from an idea that I got in a Greek blog: I let cook till soft some chopped peppers, onion, garlic, herbs and spices, with some sugar, vinegar and tomato paste (as we are now clean out of tomatoes which didn't do so well in our garden this year for some reason). This pepper sauce makes a great addition to stews and soups, adding a stronger flavour similar to the way stock gives an extra punch to them with a vegetarian twist.

But as you can see, there were still quite a few peppers remaining in my store, so I had to think up of another way to use them: what about a spicy muhammara?! Muhammara is a fantastic spicy party-winning dip, made primarily with red roasted peppers and ground nuts, that can be eaten with crispy snacks like toasted bread and carrot sticks. In some ways, it's very similar to the Greek eggplant dip (melitzanosalata). But it's also fantastic as an accompaniment to meat and fish; I made it to go with Saturday's meal of fried sole fillets which were on special at the supermarket, at €6.34/kg.

The muhammara recipe I used mentioned pomegranate molasses, which I didn't have (I used a little cider vinegar mixed with some home-made grape molasses, which we call 'petimezi' in Greece), but I topped it off with some pomegranate seeds which gave the muhammara a bit more texture.

I always find it a challenge to use up ingredients or preserve them in unusual ways. These two little projects kept me busy at the weekend.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Creamy leek, potato and red pepper soup (Σούπα με πράσα, πατάτα και κόκκινες πιπεριές)

Last night, as I was sifting through my fridge's darker corners, to see what was hiding, I found some leeks and red peppers that which did not look very worn out from having lain there for so long, but they really needed to get out of the fridge and into a cooking vessel. The result was a heavenly soup that I could never even have dreamed of if I didn't experiment. The recipe below is written in the same experimental way that I created this soup, based on my regular potato and leek soup.

You need:
500gr leeks (whole - I use both the white and green parts), washed well and chopped small
500gr potatoes, peeled and cubed (from a mountain dweller friend's bounty)
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3-5 red bell peppers (from our garden) chopped roughly
a few glugs of olive oil
a bouquet garni comprising of: celery stalk, thyme (or dill seeds) and 2 bay leaves (I also used bahari)
salt and pepper (I used peppercorns, but had to fish them out when I was ready to puree the soup)

Place all the ingredients in a large pot and let soften on the lowest heat setting for 30 minutes with no lid on the pot. Pour 4-5 glass of water into the pot (depending on how thick you want your soup) and let cook slowly for another 30 minutes. Switch off the element, allow the soup to cool slightly, remove whole herbs and spices and puree.

Wine from Peloponesos, sausages from Pilio, feta cheese from Plataies, local bakery bread and soup made from garden-grown produce: it can't get more Greek than this. 

It's not a Greek custom to add cream and dairy products to soups. It's better to serve some cheese on the side to go with the soup. And if you like your meals a little heftier, fry some sausages. In this way, you can cater for vegans, vegetarians and omnivores alike, all with the same meal. And don't forget the bread and  wine.

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Married fava (Φάβα παντρεμένη)

I know I'm bragging when I tell you that I'm up to date with every single one of my tax, utilities and other bills, because put together, these days, they make hefty amounts, and my guess is that most honest people are still wondering how to make all those unfair payments. It's still hot in Hania and it still hasn't really rained here save a few drops of drizzle, so I can be thankful that we don't have to turn on the wood fire heater yet, and many of my colleagues are praying for this weather to continue so that they can save on heating costs too.

One way I have managed to continue to be up to date with all those bills is to cook really cheap food jazzed up with very tasty garden vegetables. My cheap food always gets noshed up really quickly because it's very tasty, even though it may not look like a feast to begin with. But the smells emanating from my kitchen don't give any hint of cheapness or low quality - it makes my family even more impatient to eat.

Take last Sunday when I was cooking fava to have ready for Monday's main meal. The aroma in the peas' sweetness wanted through the house; instead of having the tsigariasto meat dish that I had prepared for the Sunday lunch, the family ended up eating half of Monday's lunch instead.

"But it's Sunday," I complained. "Sunday is meat day, you can't eat that fava!"

"We'll just have that meat tomorrow instead," they all insisted. So fava it was, even though bean dishes are usually Never Never on a Sunday for us. And since it didn't feel right to serve such a cheap and frugal humble dish on a Sunday, I jazzed it up with a sivrasi medley of onions, foraged capers and garden peppers, which turned my simple fava dish into fava pantremeni ('married' split yellow peas - φάβα παντρεμένη), a popular way to serve fava in the Cyclades. The married effect comes from combining capers and yellow split peas, which make a very compatible pair.

Apart from some crusty bread, you also need some extra virgin olive oil - as much as you like - which is usually used as a dressing over fava. Luckily, that remains cheap and Greek and frugal where I am.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Red pepper chickpea stew (Ρεβύθια με κόκκινη πιπεριά)

The summer garden is almost over, but the peppers are continuing to do very well. We've had all colours and sizes, except hot (chili) peppers, which is a shame, as they would have been fun preserving for the winter months ahead. Heat in food is not a desirable element in Greek cooking: individuals may add heat if desired, but not the cook. Even though our peppers are not hot, each different variety has its own special taste. The red and yellow ones came out sweet, the green ones piquant, and the little green banana peppers were spicy. The light green horn-shaped peppers had a lighter taste than the green ones, whle the red horn-shaped peppers were sweeter than the bell-shaped peppers.

During the summer, we ate very few bean dishes, as we had a garden full of fresh food. Now that the summer garden has nearly packed up for the season and the weather is (only slightly) cooler, it's back to bean stews. With the dearth of tomatoes and a plethora of peppers, I decided to make a peppery chickpea stew, using red peppers as the base. It was a hit with the family, who were surprised that the colour of the stew came solely form the peppers - although they thought it was tomato, there wasn't a single tomato in it!

This recipe is probably more suited to people who grow their own vegetables, because the quantity of peppers used in it is more up to the individual. I used as many as I thought were needed to make the stew look like a tomato-based one.

You need:
a 500g packet of chickpeas
1-2 large onions roughly chopped in large chunks
2-3 cloves of garlic finely minced
a good few glugs of olive oil (this dish tastes better oily; use at least half-to-one cup)
some red peppers - the more, the tastier - roughly chopped in large chunks (I used about 10 medium-sized horn-shaped)
a handful of rice
salt and pepper
a teaspoon of smoked paprika
some lemon juice

Soak the chickpeas overnight. The next day, drain the chickpeas and bring them to the boil in a large pot with fresh water. Boil the beans for 5 minutes, then drain the water, rinse the peas and place them in the pot again with fresh water. Cook till quite soft (this will take some time), then drain them and set them aside.

Clean the pot you used to boil the chickpeas. Pour in some olive oil and add the onion and garlic. Saute till transparent. Add the red peppers and coat them well in oil. Add the chickpeas, and coat them well in the oil, too. (That's why you need a good few glugs of oil to make this dish.) Mix everything well together and then add enough water to cover the pot up to 1cm above the beans. Let the pot cook covered for at least half an hour. Turn off the heat and allow the stew to cool down slightly. Then skim off the peppers and onions (they will be floating at the top of the stew) and puree them in a blender, together with some chickpeas. Add this puree together with the smoked paprika to the stew; stir well.

At this point, the stew can be left until it is time to serve it (I usually make it at night and serve it the next day). It can be served as is, or with some rice added to it. The rice can be cooked separately, and then added to the stew, or (as I prefer to do it) the stew can be heated and the raw rice added to it, so that it cooks in the stew. It will need about 15 minutes to cook - be sure to stir the pot so that the rice doesn't stick to the bottom.

Serve this dish with lemon juice sprinkled over it. It pairs well with cheese and bread.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Gardener's end-of-season delight ('Ολα του κήπου)

We're in the middle of renovating our house, so most of the time, I am surrounded by sights like this one:

According to my husband, due to the extremely heavy winter we faced last year, the problems in the construction of our 25-year-old house became apparent this year. It rained so much, that the iron-reinforced support beams cracked and the concrete and stucco work had to be redone, now in the summer when it's very dry, so that the rain won't seep intot he house this winter and make the walls mouldier than they already are. But the house won't be painted or redone indoors - until next summer, we will have to be content with a clean exterior while the interior mould stays on the walls, to give the bad weather a chance to for us to see if we actually did re-concrete the exterior adequately.

During times like these, one needs to be able to cook easily and thriftily - renovations are not cheap during this time, when we are being asked to pay a new and/or high tax every month till Christmas...
Like yesterday's meal, today's came straight out of the garden.

The bean stalks produced a ton of snake beans this season. Most of these I shelled, adding some coloured bell peppers, onion, garlic and potatoes, which were all cooked in my rich spicy tomato sauce. The stew took a couple of hours on low heat to cook.

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500: Orzo purslane salad (Σαλάτα με κριθαράκι και γλιστρίδα)

When I phoned them, I wasn't even sure that their telephone would still be working. They assured me they would be home; I assured them that they did not need to go to any trouble before my visit. Old people never take no for an answer. When I arrived, I found my aunts quite busy: Sofia was stooped over the stove top, while her twin sister Agapi was laying the table. The cutlery tinkled against the plates as her shaky hand laid down each piece. They had aged considerably since I had last seen them, almost a decade ago just before my mother died. At the time, they still seemed sprightly, but even then, it was obvious that they were slowing down. Although their minds did not admit to this fact, their bodies were showing signs of wear and tear. My mother's unmarried twin sisters were the oldest children in the family. The only ones that did not emigrate, they had managed to outlive every single one of their siblings. Now at eighty-eight, they were getting on.

"Martha mou!"
"How wonderful to see you again, after all these years!"
"The spitting image of our Elpitha!"
"Sit down, my child, you must be tired after that journey!"

I set down my present of a box of chocolates from the zaharoplasteio on the corner of the heavy wooden table with the curved legs. It was still laid with the same crochet tablecloth that I remembered on all my visits. My mother had bought it for them on my first visit to Greece with her when I was only a child. A great to-do was made about how to keep it clean. A transparent plastic tablecloth was bought from a shop in the town for that purpose, and laid over the crochet to allow it to show. Ever since then, when they had guests, my aunts would cover the plastic with another embroidered white tablecloth where we would eat from. It looked crisply cleaned and ironed, despite some stubborn oil stains.

The table was set for three, with a plate and fork at each setting. I recall that they never used knives. One would always be found in the middle of the table, but there were never enough to go round to all the diners. In the middle of the table was a small bowl of sliced tomatoes swimming in olive oil, sitting next to a plate of feta cheese.

"I don't know if you'll like our food today," Sofia apologised.

"We're fasting and we forgot you were coming, to buy some meat" Agapi explained.

I feel luck is on my side today. It's pointless reminding them that I'm a vegetarian. Sofia was now bringing a large bowl to the table filled with bright colours. The room took on an aroma of freshly pressed garlic.

 Orzo purslane salad - a favorite recipe passed on to me by a friend: 

Saute some garlic (and onion) in a little olive oil, then add chopped coloured peppers. Pour in a cup (or two) of orzo rice pasta, add water and salt, and cook till the pasta is done. Before serving, add the leaves of the purslane weed. 

"Smells so good, Thia Sofia!" I said truthfully.

"Mmm, but it's not ready yet!" Thia Agapi said. "We always forget to do at least one thing, don;t we, Sofia?" Sofia frowned, trying to remember what it was that Agapi remembered but she did not.

"I'll just go out and get the missing ingredient!" Agapi said as she made her way to the back door.

"Oh!" cried Sofia. "The purslane!"

"Yes!" Agapi laughed, with Sofia joining her just before she went out into the garden. "The orzo purslane salad isn't ready until we add some purslane to it!"

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Pasta tricolore (Μακαρόνια τρίχρωμα)

Stand up and be counted; don't be afraid of the big bad wolf. 

I am spending a lot of time these days cooking family meals, rather than dishes that I personally would like to try. These two things don't always coincide - not everyone in my house eats new greens on the market, nor does everyone want to be the guinea pig and be the first to try something totally different, but we all have to eat something, so I have to continue cooking. But every now and then, in order not to bore myself silly with the regularised Greek family meals that I am always cooking (that's usually when I start to cook badly), I like to try something new, at the risk of hearing all manner of whining and winging at the lunch table.

I was recently tempted to buy these colourful bell peppers, which are nearly always imported to Greece. The imported ones are usually produced in Israel (a strange place to grow water-needy crops, since Israel has a serious water shortage) or Holland (another strange place to grow anything, since Holland has a shortage of land; most of their exported crops - and they do export a lot - are grown hydroponically). Both these countries have a high level of technology, which is how they can grow their fresh produce - and a more powerful network of trading partners, so that they can sell their produce profitably.

Israeli produce imported to Greece consists mainly of familiar food items that are being grown or distributed out of season (Israeli pomegranates and loquats are commonly found on the shelves of Cretan supermarkets), so it's highly unlikely that I would need to buy such produce, since I would have had my fill of these in their season. When the time comes for endives to be cultivated in Greece, I'll probably stop buying Dutch products too. There's a growing awareness of food origins in today's society, and since we generally like to know where our food comes from, it pays to know that many products labelled as Israeli may actually be grown in Palestine (both by Palestinians and Israelis occupying the West Bank). Food labels also make political points, as the following contributor to a BBC Have Your Say discussion states:

"I'd rather know where everything came from, be it food, clothes, electrical goods etc. At the end of the day if I'm opposed to Israeli settlements then I should know if someone is trying to sell me food from them."

In the same vein, one of Europe's greatest citrus importers is, surprisingly, Holland - but she grows none herself. Holland picks up the produce from other countries and then re-distributes them, making her look like an exporter. People generally like to make informed choices for their purchases. Food labelling by country of origin doesn't just reduce sales; by labelling the origin of food correctly, it could also increase sales.

Getting back to those colourful bell peppers, they are most often sold at the supermarket pre-packaged, each packet containing one pepper of each colour: red, orange and yellow. Why they hardly ever include the green bell pepper in that packet is another of life's marketing mysteries: Is it that it adds to the price that the consumer is willing to pay for this kind of thing? Isn't the number four a classic food marketing number?

So when I found these bell peppers all being sold singly, AND bearing the label 'ΚΡΗΤΗΣ' (and not israel or Holland), I exhaled a sigh of relief - now I feel justified to buy and use these peppers.

Having said this, slice those peppers in half and take a closer look at them. The green pepper (commonly produced all over the island) has a thinner flesh than the red-orange-yellow varieties - that's partly a sign of the method used to produced the coloured varieties. They probably get more chemical fertilisers, they are probably more sensitive plants and they are more likely to be grown in greenhouse conditions. They are also more expensive than the green ones. They tasted sweeter than the green pepper, but the latter smacked of pepper flavour, whereas the other ones had a sugary water taste to them. And worst of all, they were more vulnerable than the green ones - they began to soften too quickly, before I could use them all up. Their high water content made them go mushy in some parts very quickly - this kind of mould spreads very quickly on vegetables.

You can't really win when you buy new varieties of crops, even if they are local. Eventually these varieties will adapt to Greek soil, but it will all take time. Till then, you'll just have to enjoy what's on the market. I used my peppers in a simple pasta sauce made with olive oil, onions and garlic, and a seasoning of salt and pepper. There were too many to go into the pasta dish, so the remaining were used as an addition to a cabbage salad, and spaghetti bolognaise.

Whatever the politics that went into these dishes, the outcome was very appealing.

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Spetsofai (Σπετζοφάι)

Here's a well-known Greek sausage hotpot, from the region of Pelion. We had a nice version of this dish during our short stay in the region. This dish uses up soft tomatoes and scraggly peppers which are coming in at the tail end of the summer garden season; very soon, none of these plants will be producing any more crops.

You need:
a few tablespoons (at your will) of olive oil
a few bell peppers, preferably in all colours (I used about 18 distorted peppers from our garden; the number of peppers is not important - the more you add, the more this dish stretches)
3-4 soft ripe tomatoes
6 medium sausages (spicy ones are the best for this dish)
1-2 large onions (I particularly like onions, which is why I use a lot - you can also add leeks)
1 small teaspoon of tomato paste (I used Thai red curry paste, for a spunkier taste)
salt and pepper (if the sausages you use aren't very spicy, you can add spices like cumin, oregano, fresh garlic, chili)

Heat the oil and brown the sausages in it. Remove the sausages when done. Now add the thickly sliced onions and roughly chopped peppers. Saute till wilted, stirring constantly so that they don't fry or burn. Add the grated tomatoes, tomato paste and seasonings. While this mixture is blending in the pot on low heat, the sausages will have cooled down; chop them into medium sized slices and add them to the stew. The hotpot is ready when the sauce has thickened to a desired consistency.

Serve on a bed of rice (I made a delicious pilafi) or mashed potatos, with a green salad and some bread to mop up the sauce. And bring on the cold beer!

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Devilishly Delicious BBQ Chicken Marinade (Μαρινάδα με μουστάρδα)

BBQ is pretty much standard Sunday fare during the warm season in most Greek households (It would be standard fare all year round in my house if we had a decent BBQ): pork steaks, lamb chops, sausages, chicken meat, all cooked on hot charcoal, leaving behind no mess in or smells in the kitchen.

The standard Greek marinade consists of salt, pepper and oregano sprinkled on the meat, which is usually left to rest in lemon juice. During cooking time, more seasonings are sprinkled on after the meat is brushed with oil to stop it from drying out too quickly while it is cooking. After it's cooked, lemon juice is once again squeezed over the meat.



Today, I tried a chicken marinade using mustard and Worcestershire sauce, found on a website whose host claims to be a BBQ expert. It's quite unlike any marinade I've ever tried before in the sense that the sauce was quite thick and stayed pretty much glued onto the chicken. What's done is done, I thought, as I applied it on both sides of some flattened chicken pieces. For this reason, I didn't brush all the chicken with the mixture, which is a shame, because the marinated chicken turned out moist and delicious, making the Greek version of chicken BBQ taste drier and blander.



The chicken was accompanied by a large garden-fresh Greek salad, and some grilled bread, all washed down with cold beer. We enjoyed it so much that it has inspired us to invest in a better BBQ so that the cook doesn't moan so much. There wasn't any room left for the lovely pepper tart I prepared according to Laurie's recipe, using up all our garden peppers; it will make a perfect evening meal to be enjoyed in the cool night-time breeze on the balcony.

Roasted peppers (Ψητές πιπεριές)

Just when I thought I had emptied the fridge of fresh produce - some got cooked and eaten, others were canned or frozen, and a few others were given away to a good home - another vegetable glut comes in:

• 43 tomatoes
• 27 aubergine
• 4 green bell peppers
• 7 long red peppers
• 22 banana green peppers (not the hot variety),
• 5 cucumbers
• 13 zucchini

Not to mention a bag full of plums from a neighbour and a bunch of amaranth that I had already started preparing for the midday meal. This does not include the purslane-rocket pesto and puttanesca sauces I made for the evening meal when the children come home after their swimming lessons.



I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to deal with it; I've heard many of my friends complain to me that they can't eat vegetables every day. Thankfully we can, and so today, I had a vegetable preparation marathon. The fridge is now looking like a tapas bar. Lunch is going to include a whole lot of meze meals: aubergine dip, tzatziki, cucumber strips, kalitsounia with vlita, zucchini patties, and finally, the pride of place going to roasted peppers.

We grow three varieties of pepper in our garden:

• green bell peppers for Greek salad, yemista, and anywhere that capsicum is used
  
• small long green peppers that look like hot chili peppers (but they aren't hot at all) which we use mainly in salads
• long red peppers (known in Greece as Florinis, due to the place which became famous for growing them) which are delicious in salads, used with aubergine in imam baldi or roasted in the oven

Red Florinis peppers (I have also used green bell peppers for added colour) are roasted till their skin is charred (the brown vegetables are aubergines - I roasted them at the same time to make melitzanosalata), after which it is peeled off. It's best to do this when they are hot from the oven, otherwise the skin does not peel off easily. I find that the best way is to peel it off while holding them under a tap of cold running water. The peppers are then de-seeded (both the skins and seeds are unpalatable), and arranged on a plate. Minced garlic, vinegar and olive oil are poured over them - they are not salted. I like to mince the garlic with the vinegar in a mouli; the vinegar takes on the aroma of the garlic, and the oil makes the peppers glisten. They store well in the fridge in a covered container; they do not need to be eaten all at once.

Roasted peppers can be added to salads, simple pasta dishes, pesto sauces, a few among many other meals that these peppers are used in. They are a fantastic side dish for any grilled meat or fish, as well as all soupy bean dishes. But on their own, they cannot be beaten: try them with some good cheese and a slice of bread. Bring out a hearty Greek salad and a glass of chilled white wine: ambrosia!



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