Preparation time: 5 minutes

cooking time: 45 minutes

simple recipe

Preparation:

Bring water to boil in a pot. It should just be enough water to over the following ingredients well. Add the peeled carrot, the parsley, and the shrimps. Let it boil for 10 minutes. Drain the water but collect it when draining. Set the shrimps aside and let them cool down a bit.

Cut the carrots into cubes.

Fry the cubed onion in a pan with olive oil. Add the Chili, Salt and pepper as well as the minced garlic. Meanwhile peel the tomatoes and cube them. Add to the pan and fry. Now add the tomato paste and the carrot. Fill up with 2 ups of the boiling liquid. Let it simmer on small flame.

Fry 2 cups of rice with a bit of olive oil in  a small pot. Add salt and 4 cups of the boiling liquid. Cover, turn off the heat and let it sit on the stove. This only works on old fashion stoves. In case you are using a modern stove with a glass ceramic field just let it simmer on small heat for approx. 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat.

Peel the shrimps. Occasionally stir the tomato sauce and add some liquid if needed. Once the tomato sauce has thickened add the finely chopped garlic and the shrimps. Add shredded Cheese and mix. Let the dish sit for 5 minutes, then serve with the rice.

Baked beans and spinach is another fasting dish I want to present. This combination of beans and spinach surprised me with its taste and texture. The beans are melting, the spinache is jusicy. The onion and the garlic give a nice falvour to the vegetarian dish. In later posts I will also present some fish dishes that are part of the fasting tradition. Those dishes are rather the exeption, vegetarian food is the rule.

Preparation: 30 minutes & soaking the beans for a couple of hours

baking time: 30 minutes

very simple recipe

Preparation:

Soak the beans over night. You can also use canned ones. Peel the carrots, the onion and the celery. Cut the celery in stripes and put it with the carrots and the onion into a pot with water and bring to boil. Add the beans and boil them until soft. Drain the liquid but make sure you collect it when draining. Put the liquid aside. Take the carrots and cut them into small cubes. (in case you used canned beans, you do not need to boil them. Just boil the veggies for 15 – 20 minutes)

Take a large frying pan and add some olive oil. chop the onion and the garlic and fry both in the pan. Add the well washed spinach. Fry lightly while tossing it.

Spread the beans out in a casserols. Put a layer of spinach over it. Layer the boiled veggies over it (carrot and celery root). Then again a layer of beans, the a layer of spinach. The layering should end with a layer of spinach. Now season with salt and pepper. Finally poor some of the boiling water over the ingredients. Toss some flour over the dish and put the casserole into the oven. Bake at 200 degrees centigrade for 30 minuts. At the second half of the baking time I turn on the grill to give the dish some colour on top. Keep an eye on it though.

Before servinf sprinkle some good olive oil over the dish.

TIP: If you are not fasting you can add some Feta Cheese on top of the dish before putting it into the oven.

Beim Servieren mit gutem Olivenöl beträufeln.

Seven weeks befor Easter Lent beginns in Christianity. So with also here in Greece. For those who take fasting verz serious certain rules apply according to the day of the week and the week you are in. Some of the days vegan food is in demand, on other days the consumtion of oil, wine and molluscas are allowed. Other days again allow fish. I will get back with a more detailed explenation in a later post.

Quite a few people here in Greece follow the rules of Lent, event restaurants change their menu for those who want to fast.

I want to dedicate a few posts to the topic of fasting as I am fascinated by the fhought of cleansing your body and mind with sticking to certain foods.

I will start my series of fasting food with Melinzanokeftedes, a meatless burger made aout of eggplants.

The cheese on the photo would not be allowed if we were fasting already, but we sitll have some days to go before it all beginns.

Preparation time: 40 minutes

cooking time: 30 minutes

simple recipe

Preparation:

Bake the eggplants in the oven at 200 degrees centigrade. When they throw bubbles and you can poke them easily with a fork, they are done. Take them out of the oven and put them aside to cool off.

Soak the bread in some water. Squeeze it well and crumble it into a bowl. chop the ontions and fry them in a pan with some olive oil. Add the minced garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes, then add to the bowl.

Chop the mint and the parsley and add it to the bowl. Cut the eggplants in half and scoop out the meat. Cut the meat into cubes and add to the bowl.

Add a few spoons of flour and mix all ingredients well. Let the mixture rest for a couple of minutes.

Heat olive oil in a pan. take a table spoon and scoop some of the mixture into the pan. Spread the mixture in the pan until it has the size of a small burger. Repeat this step until you have a few burgers in the pan frying. Fry on medium heat, flip after a few minutes, when the bottom side has gotten crusty. Fry well on both sides.

I serve these vegetarian burgers with some Feta cheese.