Yiouverlakia avgolemono and tomato (Γιουβαρλάκια αυγολέμονο με ντομάτα)

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Yiouverlakia avgolemono and tomato (Γιουβαρλάκια αυγολέμονο με ντομάτα)

Yiouverlakia avgolemono and tomato (Γιουβαρλάκια αυγολέμονο με ντομάτα)

 

We don’t know about you, but we’re supposed to be having spring like weather here in Canada.  It seems that someone didn’t get the message.  In the span of a few hours this afternoon we experienced a tiny bit of sun, snow, hail and rain.  What ever happened to April showers bringing May flowers?  Hail is not showers!

Since we can’t control the weather (we have tried, promise!), we can at least control how we live with it.  Our winter coats are still accessible, as are our boots and hats.  We’ve kept the salt out for de-icing the driveway and our beds are still incredible cozy with our woollen blankets and duvets.  And in the kitchen, we’ve been leaning towards winter weather food, comforting for body and soul…like this deliciously soothing yiouverlakia soup flavoured with avgolemono and tomato.  Bring it on April…we can take you! Actually, we’re just kidding…we can hardly take this anymore!  We are dreaming of spring, and salads!

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Roast chicken and Greek-style potatoes (Κοτόπουλο λεμονάτο με πατάτες)

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Roast chicken and Greek-style potatoes (Κοτόπουλο λεμονάτο με πατάτες)

Roast chicken and Greek-style potatoes (Κοτόπουλο λεμονάτο με πατάτες)

 

This may look familiar!  Given that it is one of our most viewed and downloaded recipes, we’ve decided to show some extra love to this post by incorporating new, and we think improved, photos.  Hope you enjoy them!

Pssst…want to know a secret?  We were really apprehensive about tackling this meal. You see, our parents’ chicken and potatoes are epic. They get requests from all over the world lots of people for their recipe and they are really happy to tell anyone who asks, including us,  how it’s done. They say something along the lines of ‘take a chicken, add some potatoes to the roasting pan, pour in some lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and bake it all for a few hours’. Easy, right?  So, we try, and it tastes good…but not phenomenal. Not mind-blowing delicious, like theirs is. Not let-me-tell-anyone-who-will-listen scrumptious, like theirs is. Not taste-bud-shockingly fabulous, like theirs is.  “Why?”, we wondered. We did what they told us to, so how to explain the difference between their phenomenal chicken and potatoes, and our pretty good chicken and potatoes? For a while we actually started to wonder if perhaps our parents were magic. Magic would explain everything! But then we watched them in action, took detailed notes, measured and counted, studied their every step and finally we were able to reproduce their roasted chicken and Greek potatoes ourselves, in our very own kitchens! Hourray!  We were once again amazed that such simple ingredients could produce something so marvellous…and so we thought, maybe magic is hereditary!?

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Eggs with loukaniko and potato (Ομελέτα με λουκάνικα και πατάτες)

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Eggs with loukaniko and potato (Ομελέτα με λουκάνικα και πατάτες)

Eggs with loukaniko and potato (Ομελέτα με λουκάνικα και πατάτες)

 

Our parents always say that so long as you have eggs, you have something for dinner.  As usual, they are right.  Whether you simply dress up some hard boiled eggs, fry up a few, or make a Mediterranean style omelette, eggs are an easy and inexpensive source of protein and nutrients.  They taste pretty delicious too!  Growing up we may not have had the most fashionable clothes, the coolest toys or the most expensive bikes, but we always had plenty of delicious food to eat.  This was possible because our parents understood that you could always build delicious meals using a few staples.  Using some everyday ingredients they were experts at creating original, filling and healthy meals for their family.  Our kitchen was always stocked with what we’ve learned are the essential Greek pantry items.

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Tsoureki and feta grilled cheese

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Tsoureki and feta grilled cheese

Tsoureki and feta grilled cheese

 

For years, when we thought about grilled cheese we thought only about two pieces of white toast slathered with butter, with a slice of processed cheese in between them.  This would get fried in a non-stick pan and served, usually with a cold glass of milk.  A thin, crispy, but at the same time kind of soggy, sandwich…and we loved it.  It was one of the first things we learned to make ourselves when we were young, and we felt that we were teaching our parents a thing or two…grilled cheese was not something they grew up on. Now that we are older, and more culinary (we have a blog after all!), we still occasionally enjoy this classic…but we’ve also learned that there is more than one way to grill a cheese sandwich.

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Tsoureki bread pudding

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Tsoureki bread pudding

Tsoureki bread pudding

 

Greek Pascha is the holiday which keeps on giving…leftovers.  One of the things that our Easter season seems to leave us with plenty of is tsoureki, and we’re thrilled.  It seems that most Greek homes bake a huge number of these sweet loaves during this holiday season, many of which are then are gifted to family and friends.  If you are Greek however, you usually end up receiving as many tsourekia as you give away; you end up breaking even!  Good problems to have!

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Greek-style hard boiled eggs

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Greek style hard boiled eggs

There are a few things we can always count on for Easter Monday, the day after Orthodox Pascha.  The first is the realization that another year has gone by, and we are overcome with gratitude to have been able to celebrate our important holiday with our family and friends.  The second is being reminded that an extensive fast and abstinence from meat, dairy and eggs, which ends with a day spent eating pretty much only meat, dairy and eggs, is rough.  Delicious, but rough.  And finally, we’ll note that regardless of how much we ate, there are leftovers for days!

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Lemon Bars

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Lemon Bars

Lemon Bars

 

Our first Xenes Kouppes! We wouldn’t dream about starting this segment of our blog featuring anyone but dear Isabel.  Isabel, who sadly passed away in 2016, was Helen’s mother-in-law; in fact, she may not have realized it, but I considered Isabel to be somewhat of a mother-in-law too.  Isabel was so kind, so much fun, so full of life that everyone who met her wanted to claim her as their own, in some way.

Of English and Scottish descent, Isabel was a great lady who along with her husband Frank, raised 4 children.  Family was everything, and some of her greatest moments were spent surrounded by her sons, daughter and their families.  Blessed with 10 grandchildren, and the ultimate joy of her life, her great-grandson Lincoln, Isabel was the epitome of love.

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Xenes Kouppes

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So, this is exciting.  Really, really exciting…for us…and we think it will be for you too.  If you have been following our Mia Kouppa journey, you will know that this website began as a labour of love, to preserve and honour our parents traditional Greek recipes.  This will always be our primary focus, but as things evolve, our focus too has broadened.  We started by acknowledging that there were countless other Greek home cooks, with their own wonderful recipes and rich stories to share; we wanted to showcase some of them.  And so, More Kouppes was born.  Then, while cooking and baking our own recipes, we found ourselves wishing that we could share some of these on our blog too.  Well, we realized that when you’re boss…you can do whatever you want 🙂 and that was the beginning of Our Kouppes.

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Pear-shaped cookies (Αχλαδάκια)

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Pear-shaped cookies (Αχλαδάκια)

Pear-shaped cookies (Αχλαδάκια)

This is a post about love.  True love, pure love, everlasting love, and sweet, sweet love. We are so humbled to be able to give you a glimpse into the beautiful story of Κυρία Βασιλεία (Kyria Vasilia) and the love of her life, while at the same time sharing her recipe for what may be the loveliest cookies you’ll ever have.

Several months ago, we were at our Thea Voula’s house (THE Thea Voula of cheesecake fame) for a party.  As is typical for any large family gathering, there was a lot of food, and a lot of dessert.  Good thing we were there for hours; enough time to eat, digest, and eat again.  When it was finally time for coffee and cake, we of course expected her cheesecake, maybe some baklava and likely a galaktoboureko or two.  What we didn’t expect was a platter piled high with syrup soaked, pear-shaped cookies called Ahladakia. These were cookies we recalled eating and loving in a past so distant we couldn’t even remember the last time we had enjoyed them.  We quickly turned to our aunt and asked her where they came from and she responded “Stella brought them”.

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Chocolate halva (Χαλβάς με σοκολάτα)

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Chocolate halva (Χαλβάς με σοκολάτα)

Chocolate halva (Χαλβάς με σοκολάτα)

 

Have you ever heard of halva?  If you’re Greek, you probably have, as this is a staple dessert during periods of lent when many abstain from eggs and dairy.  This delightfully vegan dessert is a breeze to put together and when it is done in chocolate as it is here, you’ll find yourself desperate to come up with an excuses to make it over and over again.  We think that I just want to…is reason enough.

Not only is halva delicious, it is also so versatile.  We have previously posted a halva recipe which was flavoured with orange and raisins.  Super delicious! The lovely thing about halva is that once you get the basic recipe down, you will find it pretty easy to experiment with other flavours and combinations of ingredients.  So here, we did just that. We decided to mix in some cocoa powder, dairy free chocolate pieces and finely chopped walnuts to create a chocolate lovers halva.

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