Category: Pasta

Herb baked cod with pasta and marinated artichokes

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Fresh herb baked cod with pasta and marinated artichokes is an easy and elegant meal.

Fresh herb baked cod with pasta and marinated artichokes is an easy and elegant meal.

Our dining room buffets hold all sorts of lovely dishes, teacups and platters that we have amassed over the years. Whether they were wedding gifts, the result of antique shopping, or things we inherited from our parents who are constantly trying to rid themselves of stuff, we love them all! It has taken us a while, but we finally realize that enjoying these fine things in life means actually using them.

Although we have been known to break out the fine china to serve everything from a simple chamomile tea to fried chicken, sometimes it’s fun to use elegant dinnerware to serve equally elegant meals. With the holidays approaching, we figure that everyone can use an excuse to dust off their best dishes and use them to serve a meal that is impressive in flavour, appearance, and ease! Our herb baked cod with pasta and marinated artichokes is about as simple as a meal can get, making it perfect for fancy dinner parties and also for Monday night family suppers.

We are so happy to have partnered with Montreal based Messara Foods and to have used some of their imported products to create this meal. We think it will become one of your favourites!

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Eggplant tomato sauce with pasta

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Eggplant tomato sauce with pasta is an easy and nutritious vegan meal!

Eggplant tomato sauce with pasta is an easy and nutritious vegan meal!

One of us married a man who hates eggplant. It’s true. He has other wonderful qualities, and he proudly grows beautiful eggplants in the garden, but he will rarely eat them. He’s the guy who picks the eggplant slices out of moussaka (which we happily transfer to our plate). He’s the one who will sort through the pile of fried zucchini and fried eggplant chips to select only the zucchini. He’s the dad who makes a point of not eating any of our vegan stuffed eggplants because he “is saving them” for the girls, who love them. But this eggplant tomato sauce with pasta? Guys…this he ate! And (drum roll please) he loved liked it!

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Baked ziti casserole

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Easy baked ziti casserole with a Greek twist, full of cheese and a hearty meat sauce!

Easy baked ziti casserole with a Greek twist, full of cheese and a hearty meat sauce!

We’ve been obsessed with baked ziti casseroles ever since The Sopranos. This award-winning crime drama centered around the Soprano mafia family had it all – intrigue, adventure, glamour and food! When mob-wife Carmela Soprano fed her family it was hard to focus on anything else. And one of her signature dishes was baked ziti – we were obsessed.

Although our parents make a great lasagna (we’ve got to share that recipe with you one day!), usually when they serve a baked pasta dish it is pastitsio. Believe us, we never complain! Pastitsio is a classic Greek meal for a reason. Bechamel, meat sauce, pasta…you can hardly go wrong! And yet, Carmela had us convinced that we needed baked ziti in our life, and you should never argue with the mob.

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Pasta with tomato and red pepper sauce

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An easy pasta recipe with a smooth and spicy tomato and red pepper sauce

An easy pasta recipe with a smooth and spicy tomato and red pepper sauce

This recipe was developed by chance, and over the course of a few months. The intention was never to post it onto the website; this was just a recipe we tweaked and played with so that we made it just right for a vegan that we love. Since most members of our family are not vegan (unless we are fasting for lent), on nights when dinner is something delicious like Greek-style spaghetti with meat sauce or moussaka, we need to made something separate for anyone not eating meat. Something separate… and hopefully quick, easy, nutritious and delicious. This pasta with tomato and red pepper sauce is all of that, and more!

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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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Octopus and pasta

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Greek recipe for octopus in a tomato sauce and small shaped pasta, baked in the oven.

Greek recipe for octopus in a tomato sauce and small shaped pasta, baked in the oven.

Χταπόδι με κοφτό μακαρονάκι.. There are certain scenes which are immediately recognizable as being part of the landscape and story of Greece. The white washed walls and bright blue roofs of homes in Santorini is one. The expansive aqua-blue sea and pink sand of Elafonisi is another. Donkeys carrying satchels of whatever the mountainous village has to offer. The Acropolis at night. The sunset in Meteora . The dozens of octopus hanging and drying in the sun as if they were freshly laundered button-downs, while the fishermen look on and nearby psarotaverna (fish tavern) patrons rest assured that the menu is certainly fresh.

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Baked Greek feta and mushroom pasta

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
Baked Greek feta and mushroom pasta

A rich and creamy pasta dish with a delicious feta and roasted mushroom sauce

Who doesn’t love a good trend? We sure do! Whether it was the stirrup pants that were hot items in our teenage wardrobe, or the crimped hair and teased bangs that drew attention to (or away from) our blue shadowed eyes, we appreciate a good thing when we see it! But trends come and go, and sometimes that’s a good thing! Fashions evolve, and even food trends change with the times. You would be hard pressed to find a gelatin salad on a modern dinner table, but there was a time that these colourful, molded atrocities delights were the centerpieces of any successful party.

There are some trends however that we think will stick around for a very long time, maybe forever! You may have seen the viral baked feta and pasta recipe that was shared on Tik Tok; this recipe posted by Jenni Hayrinen, a Finish food blogger. The recipe became so popular that Finland experienced a country-wide shortage of feta as everyone scrambled to make this easy, and delicious dish. Since then this recipe, in its many variations, has been tried by perhaps every single person who has access to feta in the world, including us.

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Spanakopita mac and cheese

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Spanakopita mac and cheese

Greek-style macaroni and cheese inspired by the flavours of spanakopita

It’s hard to know what constitutes comfort food for some people. Often comfort comes from memories that are associated with a particular food, even more so than what it actually tastes like. Ultimately, we believe that comfort food tastes like home, safety, happiness and love. It’s not unusual for comfort food to be hearty and humble. They are often stews or soups, meals with rich sauces, and very frequently, they are full of cheese.

Mac and cheese is a popular comfort food, and it rates high in our families as well. For one of our husbands, a rough day at work or a need for indulgence means boxed mac and cheese (you know, the kind with the powdered orange cheese in the package) with fried ground beef mixed in. Topped with ketchup and freshly cracked black pepper, and you have a very satisfied man.

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Rice with fide (Ρύζι με φιδέ)

~ miakouppa ~ 4 Comments
Rice with fide

A classic and traditional Greek side dish of rice cooked with fide

Frugality. Simplicity. Versatility. These are definitely values that homemakers of years gone by looked for in recipes that they would prepare for their families. You can be sure that women in villages all over Greece, and our mom when she came to Canada, would often make this side dish of rice with fide to serve their families. More economical and easier than this is hard to come by!

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Gluten-free pasta with vegetables

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Gluten-free pasta with vegetables

Vegan meal of quinoa and rice pasta tossed with vegetables and a bit of chili heat.

There are so many special diets out there these days. Aside from all the ways that people are trying to either lose weight, or get fit, there are also medical reasons and lifestyle choices that can sometimes make cooking for guests a little challenging. But we love a challenge, and we love coming up with recipes that will probably satisfy every food restriction you may host.

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