Eating Dinner With My Family

I made this for the annual Halloween party, but I am posting it tonight as the family and I are on our way to Orlando for a mini vacation and the hubby and I are getting to go to the Party for the Senses!! (Whee and giggle!)  This was well received by all and, as the name promised, easy to throw together.  The original recipe didn't have cucumber.  I think it is better this way.  (even my husband who doesn't like raw tomato liked this one:)  It was light and fresh and going to be a regular item for our cul de sac parties. Easy Feta Dip 1/3 cup olive oil 3 Roma tomatoes seeded and diced 4 green onions sliced thinly 8 ounces feta cheese crumbled (crumbled yourself preferred) 3 teaspoons Cavender's Greek seasoning (I started with 2 and adjusted.  I suggest you do too) 1/2 a large Cucumber peeled, seeded and diced fresh baguette sliced thinly 1.On a large platter drizzle olive oil until you have a thin layer on the entire platter. You may u...

Well for no other reason, this dish is awesome because it is quick, easy and inexpensive. I chose it because feta was BOGO so I had an extra one. Even not counting feta as a free ingredient, it was totally economical. Now it isn't a wow or an omg, but still pretty tasty and a different twist on your typical spaghetti. The boys were hovering around a 3.5 , but I thought solid 4 and its my blog so 4 it is! ;)  I forgot to save the pasta water, but I don't think it needed it and I used all the parsley in the morning's juice so I didn't have that, but it was still a good dish.  The only thing I would recommend is to season well with salt.  I went light because I know how salty feta is, but upon tasting it, I think it needed a good bit more.  Start with a light salting of course and taste, but just keep in in mind.  If I made this again, I think I would like to roast my own peppers:).  Oh and btw, we are having a meatless Sunday, since tomorrow we are cooki...

My son got to choose dinner tonight and he picked another recipe from the lovely and talented Nillawan.com .  It was another awesome dish, and surprisingly easy to make considering just how much flavor it delivered.  I think I cooked the tomatoes a bit longer than she did, but my husband has issues with chunks of tomato.  I didn't think this would be his kind of dish as feta and tomatoes aren't his favorites, but he wasn't going to be home for dinner. He got home and tried it reheated and declared it delicious!  (despite the fact of his less than favorite ingredients and it being reheated!!!)  As with all the recipes I try from my fellow bloggers, I give you a link to their site. Salmon Feta Pasta Roma tomatoes garlic basil Smoked salmon pine nuts feta Recipe and instructions here

This recipe was full of snafus.  Lets start with the fact my husband thought it sounded awful and kept suggesting we go out to eat on the evenings I planned to make it.  I of course took him up on those offers;).  Well he is working tonight and I have the stuff to make it, so here it is.  I had some problems when cooking this.  Lets start with the fact that the leftover feta I was planning on using up in this recipe was off.  It smelled pretty bad, so in to the garbage with it.  Now this is me: Me: "its late, and I'm not going out just for feta." ME: "it won't be right" Me: "surely one of the many cheeses in the fridge will work!" ME:  "Probably only the goat cheese you have for another recipe" Me: "I can get more tomorrow" ME: "go to the store, if it's not right (read good) you can't tell your husband I told you so!" Me: (thinking) That's a good point! (out loud) "let's have a glass of  win...

I decided to make this one tonight because I had leftover feta from the gyros.  My family weren't the happiest since I am the only one who like artichokes and olives, but they managed.  On the plus side, the chicken was really juicy.  On the down side, the sauce was odd.  I would have liked the sauce to be less chunky.  It was like eating a artichoke salad on your chicken. I would also have liked more olives. The flavors were nice, but I think a finer texture would be better. I'm not sure how a puree would work, but minced should.  It makes for a lot more work, but I wouldn't make this again unless I did some "fixing," so I put it in the fixable file.  The whole dinner cost about $12.  Not too bad. Chicken Breasts With Artichoke-Olive Sauce 1/4 c  plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 3 T  fresh lemon juice 2 t  finely grated lemon zest 3    garlic cloves,minced 1 T  choppe...

Everyone made their own with the toppings they liked Well I knew this gyro would never come close to my beloved gyro at Santorini in Deland, but happily it was still pretty good.  I didn't think that the recipe could be easily halved because I was cooking it like meatloaf (maybe it would be ok on the rotisserie?), so I invited friends to be Guinea pigs along with my family to try out my first stab at a gyro.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their food.  It was a lovely night and we ate outside which was fun too:).  I only made one deviation from the recipe and that was in the Tzatziki sauce.  The yogurt I bought was plain Greek yogurt at 10% milkfat and almost as thick as peanut butter so I didn't think it needed to drain like regular ole plain would need to in order to thicken up. (Which was a nice time saver too) The meat was perfect.  It looked like the gyro meat you get from a restaurant.  (Its an Alton Brown recipe so no surprise there) I bet f...

My issues with chicken keeps me from raving about the dish, but despite its 'fowl' nature, I did like it. (groan;)  I loved the melty feta and the liberal dose of oregano.  The boys loved it; they are unabashed carnivores that happily gnawed on bones while I asked for some to be cut off for me. It is going into the repertoire.  It was pretty easy.  The hardest part, the cutting up of the chicken, is never done by me and therefore I did very little to get this dish done. I always find that the chicken takes a bit longer than the recipe states; I cooked it for about 10 minutes longer. We had it with buttered orzo and a tomato, cucumber and watercress salad. Chicken With Lemon, Oregano, And Feta Cheese 1    chicken (3 to 3 1/2 pounds) quartered 1 T  olive oil 1 1/2 t  dried oregano 1 T  lemon juice 1/4 t  salt 1/8 t  fresh-ground black pepper 1 T  butter,cut into 4 pieces 1 1/2    ounces feta cheese,...

Having an abundance of masa harina and having loved our last attempt at arepas, we figured tonight we would try another recipe for them, and return to the city of my childhood at the same time.  Small problem.  The first arepa recipe used the instant corn flour, and I assumed that arepa flour was that instant flour.  It couldn't have been.  We needed to add much more to get a workable dough; it was so wet it couldn't be cut or hold shape.  I also had forgotten how sweet they were; that is something I am generally not a fan of. Our "operator errors" aside, it wasn't too bad.  I did make a slaw like the last arepa recipe and sprinkled some crumbled feta cheese over the top.  It was great.  In retrospect, the original arepa recipe was Mexican and this arepa recipe is a Cuban one. They aren't the same.  We kind of took a Cuban arepa and dressed it in a serape. It was good but I think in order to make this properly we would need to use different c...

Well tonight's dinner, while tasty, was a bit of a misstep in two ways.  First of all, the tomatoes are raw, (didn't notice that) and my husband doesn't like to eat tomatoes raw.  Secondly, it is really a summer dish and tonight was one of the coldest of the year. It wasn't a cold dish, but not really hot one either.  Still, it was thoroughly enjoyed by all but my husband, who ate leftover chicken and dumplings and was a very happy camper.  I will make this again, but I will, next time, throw in a pinch of red pepper flakes in with the oil and garlic.  No salt was needed, I left it out along with the pepper.  Oops, but  I think I would like the red pepper better:)  I also wanted to use up the Stilton from the other night, and viola, a quick search of the web and we have bread sticks with our pasta. Spaghetti With Tomatoes, Black Olives, Garlic, And Feta Cheese 4 Servings 1 1/2 lb tomatoes (about 3),seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces 1/2 c...

Well I had some feta left from the grilled Greek chicken salad, and I remembered this recipe that my MIL had made for us years ago, so I figured I would try to replicate it. I remember it well even though it was at least 11 years ago.  This was before I was interested in cooking and was pretty limited in what I was willing to eat.  I didn't like shrimp or feta. (or so I thought) and was thinking how am I going to handle this meal with good grace.  Then she says, its a pasta sauce but I'm serving it over rice.  (not a fan of rice either but I loved pasta.  oh no!)  Turned out that I loved it.  However I had never made it.   I'm pretty sure she got it out of this cool little book of pasta sauces she got for us called Sauces for Pasta.  I haven't found a bad one in there yet.  So I looked through it and found what I believe was it. I did put it over rice again, and I used canned chopped tomatoes instead of fres...