Your Ad Displayed Free For 1 Month On Authentic Greek Recipes

It's my birthday in March and in Greece it is the custom to treat people on your birthday. So I've decided to give 4 lucky people a free ad spot on this blog for the whole of the month of March. If you are happy with it at the end of the month, you can then have first option on becoming a paying sponsor.

This is not really a contest - as you can see from the questions on the form below, I'm giving people the chance to 'sell' themselves. Why do you want to be displayed on this site and why should I choose you! It's not limited to food-related sites - as long as you aren't spammy, illegal or offensive, you'll be considered.

The 4 sites will be chosen at the end of February and I'll ask the 4 winners to send me a 125 x 125 image at that time. I will also write a post about them.

For your information, Authentic Greek Recipes has a Google Page Rank of 4 and over 15.000 visitors a month, of whom approximately 70% come from search engines.

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Greek Potato Pie (Patatopita)

This is a relatively easy to make pie that seems to be a favourite of a lot of people, especially kids! Extremely filling and delicious!

Ingredients

For the pastry

400g all-purpose flour

1 egg

50 ml olive oil

½ level teaspoon salt

For the filling

1 kg potatoes grated

1 onion grated

200g rice for soup

400g evaporated milk

150 ml olive oil

1 tablespoon flour

1/3 level teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon dried mint

Salt & pepper to taste

250 ml water

Preparation

Pastry
Put the pastry ingredients into a mixing bowl and add enough water to make a pliable dough.

Knead well into a dough.

Cover with cling film and set aside to rest while you’re preparing the filling.

Filling

Boil the rice in the water for 5 minutes.

Transfer the boiled rice to a mixing bowl with the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Grease a round 25cm oven dish.

Spread the pastry in the oven dish (not too thinly) allowing it to go over the edge.

Place the filling on top of the pastry in the oven dish.

Fold in the pastry that has gone over the edge over the filling (see photo).

Brush some of the juice from the filling over the folded-in pastry, making sure none of it goes down the edge to the pie below.

Bake in a pre heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 1 hour.

Eat and Enjoy!

Greek Traditional Lagana Bread For Clean Monday

Today is Clean Monday in Greece and we previously posted some traditional dishes. In addition to the dishes, it is traditional to eat a special type of bread called Lagana, which is flat and hasn't risen as much as normal bread. Usually people buy it from the bakers on Clean Monday, but you can also prepare it yourself. The photos show the Lagana we made this morning, fresh out of the oven!

Ingredients

1 kg all-purpose flour

300g hard flour

50g fresh yeast

8 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon salt

1 level tablespoon sugar

1 litre water (approx)

Preparation

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 200 ml tepid water.

Sift the all-purpose and hard flour together into a mixing bowl so that they are mixed together.

Sprinkle the salt over the flour.

Create a dip in the centre of the flour gradually add the solution with yeast and sugar.

Use a wooden spoon to lightly cover the solution in the centre with flour.

Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for 15 minutes, to let the yeast solution rise.

After this time you should see some bubbles in the centre, indicating that the yeast has been activated.

Add the remaining 800 ml water – enough to make a pliable dough, not too sticky, similar to that for normal bread.

Transfer the dough to a working surface and knead very well for about 15 minutes.

Put back in the mixing bowl and let it rest for no more than 15 minutes in a warm place, because we don’t want the dough to rise as bread does.

Place greaseproof paper in 2 shallow oven dishes, approx. 40cm x 30cm.

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds in each of the dishes.

Divide the dough into 2 and place in the 2 dishes, shaping it and pressing it flat on top of the sesame seeds.

Sprinkle 2 more tablespoons of sesame seeds on top of each one and press into the dough.

Set aside the 2 dishes in a warm place for 20 minutes, to rise.

Lightly press your fingers into the dough to leave small imprints all over the top (see photo).

Bake in a pre heated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes or until golden colour.

Eat and Enjoy!

Jamie Oliver - 2010 TED Prize Winner

Well-known chef Jamie Oliver won this year's TED Prize. His wish - “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

Jamie Oliver has been using his fame to try to transform the way we feed our children, and ourselves. With the obesity epidemic growing globally, he has also been bringing attention to the changes people need to make in their lifestyles and diet. He has initiated several campaigns to try and create change on both the individual and governmental level.

Jamie Oliver is one of my own personal favourites and I'm so glad that he's been given this recognition, which is also publicity for the work he's doing. Follow the TED talk he gave, below.

6 Traditional Greek Dishes For Clean Monday

This coming Monday - February 15 - is Clean Monday in Greece. This is the start of the Lent period before Easter and there are several traditional dishes that are eaten on this day. Below, you'll find some of them. Just click on the links to go to the recipes.

Taramosalata

This is also well-known worldwide. It is made from taramas, which is the fish roe from cod (mosy common) or carp. You may know Taramosalata as being bright pink in colour, but this is usually due to food colouring being added. It should be a colour varying from beige to light pink, depending on the fish roe.

Traditional Greek Pickles (Toursi)

These are delicious with Gigantes (see below) which is also traditionally eaten on Clean Monday. They can be prepared in a day, so there is time to get them ready.

Butterbeans Plaki (Gigantes)

Stuffed Squid (Kalamarakia Gemista)

Cuttlefish with Spinach (Soupyes me Spanaki)

Octopus with Pasta

There are several ways of cooking and serving octupus. This is a simple recipe with small pasta - the type used for minestrone - and is delicious served with grated cheese.

Macedonian Halva


This halva is traditionally associated with Clean Monday. The recipe is a well-kept secret, so it can only be purchased.

Eat and Enjoy!

10 Food Networks

Whether you are a food blogger or just interested in finding great recipes and interacting with other foodies online, food networks are a great resource. I have listed 10 networks (in alphabetical order) that you might like to check out and decide to join.

BakeSpace

Food Bloggers

Foodblogs

Foodbuzz

Foodista

FoodTubeNet

Group Recipes

Half Hour Meals

The Leftover Queen Forum

Tastebuddelights