Raspberry lemon jelly roll cake

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
A light, sweet, and slightly tart jelly roll cake perfect for summer.

A light, sweet, and slightly tart jelly roll cake perfect for summer.

Years ago one of us purchased a beautiful jelly roll pan that we found on sale. It’s a beauty of a pan. Sturdy, perfectly sized, and you can see it here in case you’re inspired to purchase the same one, or something similar like this one. The jelly roll pan came with dreams. We imagined homemade bûche de Noël at Christmas and fresh tasting delights like this raspberry lemon jelly roll cake.

Our imagination ran wild, for years. We used our jelly roll pan for all sorts of things; baking spanakopitakia, bougatsa and the pita bread we use for our Greek-style nachos. But a jelly roll cake, that didn’t happen until very recently; it seems we were a little intimidated by these cakes.

Fortunately, after a bit of trial and error, and a lot of baking research, we’ve got this recipe to offer you. A raspberry lemon jelly roll cake that tastes a little like raspberry lemonade – and it’s perfect! Light, delicious and easy to prepare, we think that this is a cake you will be excited to impress your friends and family with. We think that you’re even going to impress yourselves!

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Growing chives and making chive blossom vinegar

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An easy way to enjoy beautiful chive flowers

An easy way to enjoy beautiful chive flowers

We’re so excited to share this post on growing chives and making chive blossom vinegar. It is the first of a series of posts which will focus on growing herbs and then showing you interesting and easy ways to use them, where they are the star!

Growing up our parents always had a garden. When there was little outdoor space available, tomatoes and eggplant were grown in buckets on the balcony. As soon as they had access to a back yard, their garden exploded and they grew everything from asparagus to zucchini. They still keep a massive garden and we are all the benefactors of their harvest.

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Rainbow Jell-O mould dessert

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
A colourful dessert made with a variety of Jell-O flavours

A colourful dessert made with a variety of Jell-O flavours

This, dear friends, is a dessert you can be proud of, and we think that it is the perfect recipe to help kick off Pride Month. What better way to celebrate diversity in harmony than with this multi-coloured, multi-layered, multi-flavoured dessert? The fact that this rainbow Jell-O mould dessert is shiny and flashy is a bonus.

The first time that we made this dessert was for a Father’s Day family gathering years ago, and Pride was the furthest thing from our minds. Our main motivation for putting this together was because our dad is a huge Jell-O fan, and we wanted to Wow him. It was only later, when we revealed our Jell-O mould (or mold to our American friends) by placing it next to the baklava and bougatsa that the link was made. As it was June, the youngest grandchild, 10 or 11 at the time, beamed with pride believing that we purposefully chose to show support for the LGBTQ+ community while also celebrating Papou. She was quite impressed, but we had to come clean and admit that this was simply a coincidence. Every June since then however we laugh at that story, usually while making our rainbow Jell-O mould to mark Pride Month.

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Chicken souvlaki

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
Marinated chicken breasts which make an amazing chicken brochette.

Marinated chicken breasts which make an amazing chicken brochette.

Σουβλάκι κοτόπουλο. Years ago our parents, and each of our families, spent several weeks in Greece. It was a special trip because we were all together, for almost the entire summer. There were periods during which we went our separate ways, to visit places and people outside of our Kalamata home base, but otherwise we were together. It was also the year that our dear cousin got married, and the first time that our extended family met Billie’s daughters, the youngest being 3 years old at the time.

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Prime rib roast

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The best prime rib roast recipe for any special occasion.

The best prime rib roast recipe for any special occasion.

If you have a special occasion coming up, or if you just want to indulge in a fancy meal (you deserve it!) we have the perfect recipe for you. Our prime rib roast is a celebratory meal and we often serve it for family birthday dinners, Father’s Day, Christmas lunch, or any other event that we feel is worthy of it, like a weekend!

What is prime rib, actually?

This is the portion of beef which is cut from the primal rib between ribs 6 – 12. It is also called standing rib roast. This alternate name is used because prime rib is often roasted standing on the rib bones. Although a prime rib includes the section of beef between ribs 6 – 12, it doesn’t have to; it can be a smaller subsection of this.

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Dandelions

~ miakouppa ~ 6 Comments
Dandelions

Learn why you should love and appreciate dandelions.

Is your lawn like ours, a beautiful sea of yellow dandelions? Yes, beautiful! Although dandelions are often considered to be a vile weed that gung-ho gardeners attack with gusto, we’re here to tell you that you should leave dandelions alone, or mostly! Once you learn about the benefits of these lovely plants, you’ll realize that they are nature’s gift to you, to your soil, to spring wildlife, and to children everywhere who happily collect yellow bouquets and offer them with sweet enthusiasm, as signs of love.

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Quick pork ragu with zucchini and Parmesan cheese

~ miakouppa ~ 6 Comments
A delicious and super simple recipe from Chefs Plate

A delicious and super simple recipe from Chefs Plate

Quick and easy meals like this quick pork ragu with zucchini and Parmesan cheese that you don’t even have to shop for?! Are you wondering what sort of sorcery we are talking about? Not sorcery friends, just meal kit delivery services, like Chefs Plate, a division of HelloFresh in Canada. If you have never treated yourself to a meal kit delivery service like Chefs Plate, let us tell you all the reasons why you should.

The concept is simple. You go online, find recipes that you think you would enjoy making and eating, click a few buttons and then voila! Like magic a box full of all the ingredients you will need shows up at your door in perfectly measured amounts along with a detailed and clear recipe card. Chefs Plate takes the stress out of cooking!

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Lamb sandwich

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
A delicious Greek lamb sandwich full of Mediterranean flavours

A delicious Greek lamb sandwich full of Mediterranean flavours

Σάντουιτς με αρνί. Most years Pascha is a huge celebration in our family.  Immediate family, extended family, friends who are like family gather together to eat, drink, laugh and be merry.  Many people means much food and you can read all about our usual Easter celebrations over here.  This year, like last, our plans were usurped by the pandemic and each of us celebrated at our own homes, with our husbands and daughters.  Different, but still lovely.  As a result, our usual entire lamb on a souvla was replaced by a leg of lamb and a couple of shanks on the smoker at one of our homes, and grilled lamb chops at the others.

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Tsoureki Paximadia or Tsoureki Biscotti

~ miakouppa ~ 6 Comments
Greek biscotti, or paximadia, made with tsoureki bread and dipped in chocolate and sprinkles

Greek biscotti, or paximadia, made with tsoureki bread and dipped in chocolate and sprinkles

Παξιμάδια τσουρεκιού. The common adage “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade” (or avgolemono soup) is pretty good advice. The sentiment can be extended to so many things, including tsoureki. If you have read the post that accompanies our tsoureki recipe you’ll know that although our recipe is now fail-proof and delicious, it wasn’t always so. We have survived many disappointing tsourekia, with some being too dense, undercooked, or simply blah. Having been raised in a household where “waste nothing” was a very important mantra, we could never just dump our tsourekia in the trash (except for the one we called “The Tsourocki”….read more about that disaster in the tsoureki post).

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Vegan moussaka

~ miakouppa ~ 8 Comments
A recipe for a plant-based, soy-free version of the classic Greek moussaka.

A recipe for a plant-based, soy-free version of the classic Greek moussaka.

Νηστίσιμος Μουσακάς. Settle in guys, this is going to be a long one. No, not the post…don’t worry about that. If you’re here only for the recipes, you’ll be happy to know that this particular blog entry doesn’t come with any nostalgia, no family stories, and no personal anecdotes that some people seem to find annoying on food blogs. Also, some people love them and if you happen to be in that group of people, head on over to posts like Horta and How to dye really cool Easter eggs…and Thea Voula’s cheesecake. Heck, most of our posts come with a healthy dose of, well, US!.

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