I discovered this brownies recipe at the 101 cookbooks blog. The parents in law visiting us was a good opportunity to try out the recipe. Nothing better than a soft, warm browny with juicy cherries. Ideally you pair this dessert with vanilla ice cream.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 60 minutes

difficulty level: easy

Preparation:

In case you use dry cherries, put them into a bowl and soak them in the sherry over night.

If you use the syrup ones let the syrup drain well.

Lay out baking paper in the form that you use for baking. That makes it easier to remove the brownie later on.

Take a bowl and add the flour, the cocoa powder, a pinch of salt and the baking powder. Mix well, then put aside.

Put the 300 gram of broken chocolate into a small pot and heat it carefully on small heat. When it starts to melt ass the butter and the sugar. Once it is entirely melted remove ot form the heat and let it cool down a bit. Now use a mixer to blend the eggs one by one into the chocolate. Add the chocolate chips and the cherries, mix them carefully by hand and pour the dough into the prepared baking tray.

bake at 170 degrees Centigrade for 1 hour. Let it cool down and remove it form the tray.

This delicious pumpkin and apple strudel I have dicovered at my colleague Monambelles blog. I varied the ingredients slightly as I could not find dates that her recipe required. I used raisins instead, which worked just fine.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
baking time: 45 minutes
easy recipe

Preparation:

Peel and dice the pumpkin. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes.

Peel and dice the apples and put together with the raisins and the chopped walnuts into a bowl. Add some lemon zest and lemon juice. Add the sugar adn mix well.

Take the pumkin out of the oven and mix with the apples.

Spread out the filo dough on a floured surface. Put spread the filling like a little wall along the long side (form left to right) of the dough. Keep a bit of space at all sides. Fold over the sides to prevent the filling form falloing out. Now roll the dough, wrapping the filling. Bottom to top of the phyllo dough.

Close the dough at both ends. spread some butter ontop and bake for 40 minutes at 170 degrees.

Let it cool down to cut.

Childhood memories of my grandmother Elisabeth came up when I prepared this dish today. When ever I visited her there was rice pudding. It had a garnish of sugar and cinnamon on top and a tiny piece of butter was melting in the middle of the hot pudding on my plate. Also Greek childen have such memories. Here it is called Risogalo – Ρυζόγαλο. The Rice pudding is served in good tavernas as desert. Old and young love to eat it. it is served chilled though.

cooking time: 20 minutes

very simple recipe

Preparation:

Fry the rice lightly with some butter in a small pot. Add the sugar and the mild and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Keep the pot covered. Stir occasionally.

When the rice is done fill into bowls and serve with a piece of butter, some sugar and cinnamon on top.

You can also let the bowls with the pudding cool down and serve them chilled. In this case do not add the butter and sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over the dish before you serve it.

This bread spread was a great discovery. Once I had finished preparing the Tahini and honey spread I tried with a piece of rusk. Amazing taste i though, that something so simple can be so delicious…

I spent some time in a Greek Orthodox Monastery lately in order to learn some more about recipes used during lent. While we were cooking I asked the abbot what the monks are eating for breakfast as fasting prohibits all animal products. The monks, unlike most Greeks that only have a Nescafe for breakfast, the monks do eat in the morning.

What is eaten in for breakfast varies form monastery to monastery, but in this one it is a spread made from Tahini and Honey. Tahini is often used to replace oil or butter during lent and honey is the only animal product allowed during lent.

As there are several days of fasting per week throughout the year, this Tahini and honey spread is part of the regular diet in the Monastery.

Preparation time: 3 minutes

very simple recipe

Preparation:

Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix with a spoon until you have created a thick paste.
Add honey according to your individual taste. You can also add ground walnuts or almonds to the paste.
Can be stored in a jar for several days outside of the fridge.

I spend several hours a week surfing my colleagues website. I have a whole list of blogs I regularly read and of course I do find plenty of recipes I want to try out, which I often do not manage due to lack of time. Here at Ivy blog I found the “Lemon Meringue Pie” that I finally managed to bake.

Preparation: 20 minutes

Baking time: 50 minutes

Challenging recipe

Preparation of the tart shell:

Mix the flour and the salt in a bowl.

The soft butter needs to be blended with the sugar using a mixer. The mixture should get creamy after a few minutes of mixing. Now add the egg while you keep mixing.

Slowly add the flour from the bowl. Mix on slow speed, then knead with your hands until you have a firm dough. Fold the dough into a foil and fridge fro 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.

Roll out the dough in a circle so it fits well into the tart pan. Make sure that the edges of the dough are about a finger higher than the center. You will be filling the cream into the tart shell later on. Poke the tart shell with a fork several times, so it has tiny holes.

Bake the tart pan for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven, let it cool down.

Preparing the cream:

Mix the corn starch, the sugar and the lemon juice in a small pot. Add the egg yolk and mix well. Heat up th e pot on the stove and let it simmer for 5 minutes on low heat. Stir throughout.Take off the stove, add the butter and the lemon zest.

Spread the cream over the cooled down tart shell.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

Beat the egg white on high speed. Add a pinch of salt, then the sugar. beat until the egg white is stiff.

Spread the egg white over the cream and tart shell. This takes patience and caution. Make sure you create an even surface that closes with the tart shell at the edges.

Bake the tart for 20 minutes in the oven. I use a bit of a broil for that in order to give it some colour. Watch over it during the last 10 minutes of the baking process in order not to burn it.

Remove the tart and let it cool down. Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

Serve cold!

The nice thing about this salad is the dressing. The mix of sesame oil and W gives it an Asian touch. I marinate the beetroot for a couple of hours in the dressing. I like it a bit spicy, especially in winter. The combination of apple and beet root is classic,  though not often found here in Greece. After trying this version I decided to serve the apple and beetroot on a bed of salad, which gave it more colour and volume.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

simple recipe

Preparation:

Mix the Wasabi, vinegar, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the sesame oil and mix well.

Fry the sesame seeds until brown.

Peel and slice the apple and the beetroot.

Put the beetroot into the dressing and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

Place both on a plate, pour some of the dressing over it. add some sesame seeds and serve.

I was not so sure if the Tarte Tatin would be the right finish for the Secret Supper, so I tried something else. This Grapefruit Sorbet certainly was more unique, especially with a sweet Basil Pesto on top of it. The Basil Pesto takes the bitter edge off the Grapefruit which means that you need less sugar.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

cooking time: 5 minutes

very simple recipe

Preparation of the sorbet:

Press the grapefruits and put the juice into a small pot. Add the sugar and bring to boil. Taste and see how much sugar is needed for your personal taste. Keep in mind that when frozen the intensity may vary.
Take off the stove and let it cool down. Then put into the deep freezer. Stir after 30 minutes.

Blend the white of the eggs until stiff. Add to the almost completely frozen Grapefruit juice and mix well. You should result with a thick smooth cream. Put this back to the deep freezer for a couple of hours.

Preparation of the sweet basil pesto:

Roast the pine nuts until they are light brown. Then blend them with all the other ingredients to a pesto.

When I arrived in the house on the top of the hill, I was stunned by how full the lemon tree in the garden was. I had never seen so many ripe lemons on the tree and I observe it since many years. It almost was a pity to harvest all of them. I ended up having almost 20 kilos of lemons which I had to use. I quickly decided that jam would be the best thing to turn them into. Aunt Bina who was in Hydra as well, told me her simple and great recipe for lemon jam and lots of cutting began.

Preparation time for 1 kilo of lemons: 20 minutes

boiling time: 35 minutes

very simple

Preparation:

Put the lemons into a big pot with cold water and bring to boil. Simmer for 30 minutes, then drain them. Let the lemons cool down, then cut them into halves.

Spoon the pulp out of the fruit and put into a colander. Press the pulp with a wooden spoon through the colander and collect all liquids dripping down in a bowl.

Spoon the white out of the skin (if existing) and throw it away.

Slice the skin very finely, then put it into a pot. Add the liquid, the sugar and the gellant and bring to boil for 5 minutes. See the instructions on the pack of the gellant in case that they differ. Fill the jam into glasses and close tight.

As Christmas is approaching I am doing more sweet dishes and try to find tastes that fit the season. Although you can find Loukoumades all year around in Greece the combination of honey and cinnamon over hot puffs is really a wintery dish for me. Loukoumades are a perfect desert in the cold time of the year. The fragrents remind me on Christmas and the golden, shiny colour fits perfectly a fesive table.

Preparation : 40 minutes

+ 90 minutes of letting the dough sit

Frying time: 6-10 minutes
easy recipe

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Disolve the yeast in 400 ml of warm water. Stir a hand full of the flour into the water. Add sugar and salt. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes at a warm spot.

Meanwhile boil an puree the potatoes.

Stir the remaining flour and the puree into the water-yeast mix. Let it rest again for 90 minutes.

for the syrup, heat the honey in a pot and add the cinamon. If the sauce gets too thick add some water.

Heat the oil. Plunge the dough with a teaspoon into the oil, using a second teaspoon as a scoop.

Let the puffs fry at medium heat until they are golden. Make sure the oil is not too hot. They should be baked throughout.

Drain them on kitchen paper, then transfer onto the serving plate. Pour the honey sauce over them. Serve while still hot.

The German version of this recipe you can find here.

The guests that are coming to the little food event I am doing here in Athens are demanding food that they can not find on the menu of the average restaurant. So I try to get a few unusual dishes together. When I was sceeming through Skye Gyngell’s cookbook, I saw that she proposed a salted caramel sauce to be served with chocolate mousse. When I saw that I was sure that this was strange and interesting enough to be served at the Secret Supper.

The fluffy, not too sweet mousse of dark chocolate in combination with a distinct but just not burnt caramel that carries a hint of salt turned out to be a perfect combination.

Preparation time: 30 Minuten
Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours
Easy recipe

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Melt the chocolate on small flame. I do that in a non sticky frying pan, directly on the stove.

Meanwhile I mix the egg yolk well with 50 gram of the sugar.

THen take the melted chokolate off the stove and let it cool down a bit. Then, slowly pour it into the yolk-mixture. Put the mixture aside.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt. Once the beaten egg whites get stiff, add 50 gram of sugar while beating more.

Slowly mix the yolk-chocolate mixture with the beaten egg whites. BE carefull when doing so in order do result with a fluffy mousse.

Place the bowl in the fridge and let it chill for a couple of hours.

Forthe caramel sauce add 250 gram of sugar in a small pot and place on the stove. let it melt without stiring it. Once the sugar bubbles, observe it well and let it brown until it gets a mahagony coulour. Now add carefully 250 ml of hot water. Keep stiring when doing so in order to prvent little knowts form forming.

Add a good pinch of salt and stir well.

Pour sauce into a bowl and let it cool down.

For serving put some mousse on a plate and drip some of the caramel sauce over it.

the German version “Schokoladenmousse mit Salzkaramell” can be found here