Tag: Olives

Baked feta with orange and olives

~ miakouppa ~ 4 Comments

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Easy Greek appetizer of baked feta with orange and olives to serve with bread or crackers.

Easy Greek appetizer of baked feta with orange and olives to serve with bread or crackers

Appetizers, or as meze as we call them in Greek, that come together quickly and get devoured even more quickly are a success in our books. Our recipe for baked feta with orange and olives is that kind of recipe. Made with only a few kitchen staples (yes, feta and olives should be a staple in your home, as should oranges) this is a winner of a recipe.

Something pretty magical happens to feta when it gets warmed up. It doesn’t melt necessarily, but it does get sensuously soft and perfectly spreadable. The creamy creation can then be spread over crostini, it can be scooped up with pita bread, and it can even be eaten with a spoon – no apologies, no excuses!

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Kalamata olive tapenade

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments

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A Kalamata olive tapenade is the perfect quick and easy meze!

A Kalamata olive tapenade is the perfect quick and easy meze

We literally feel as though we have won the tapenade jackpot! Making an olive tapenade is pretty straightforward, but it can be a bit time consuming when you have to pit the olives yourself. Sure, you can use the canned black olives that taste like plastic if you like; those are usually pitted. But we’re fans of flavour, and great flavour at that so we prefer to make our tapenade with Kalamata olives; the pitting is worth it.

But what if we told you that you could make our amazing tapenade and not have to pit a thing! Wouldn’t that be amazing? It would be! And it is! The MEZE brand of pitted Kalamata sliced olives makes tapenade making a breeze. Simply add all ingredients to a food processor, give it a whiz, and you are good to go. Kalamata olive tapenade makes the easiest and most delicious appetizer!

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Easy Greek olive and oregano bread

~ miakouppa ~ 6 Comments
Easy Greek olive and oregano bread

Easy Greek olive and oregano bread is quick and simple to make and is loaded with Kalamata olives and oregano

If you’ve ever been to Greece, or visited a Greek home (or been raised in one!), you know that there are times when meals are very simple affairs. Especially in Greece, where there is the afternoon siesta, lunch is often the largest meal of the day with dinner being much lighter. It is not unusual to sit at a dining table in the evening and be offered bread, olives, tomato wedges, feta and maybe some nuts and be told that supper is served.

This easy Greek olive and oregano bread would be welcome at that Greek dinner table. In fact, it would be welcome anywhere. Loaded with Kalamata olives and flavoured with amazing Greek oregano, this is a bread that you’ll find yourself making again and again.

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Focaccia with tomatoes, olives and feta

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
Focaccia with tomatoes, olives and feta

A focaccia full of Greek flavours

Want to taste a slice of Greece? This focaccia, topped with tomatoes, herb-infused olive oil, Kalamata olives and feta will help you get there! Not bad for an Italian flatbread!!

Focaccia is quickly becoming one of our favourite things to prepare and eat. Once you find the perfect dough recipe (and this one might be it), you have a blank canvas to work with! Top the focaccia dough with anything your heart and palate desires, and you can create a personalized focaccia to suit any taste.

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Potato Salad (Πατατοσαλάτα)

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments

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Potato Salad

A light and delicious potato salad full of wonderful textures and flavours

We went to a lot of picnics when we were kids. In late spring, summer and early fall, when the weather was inviting, our family would spend Saturdays on the mountain. If you’re from Montreal, you know that the mountain refers to Mount Royal. Declared a heritage site by municipal authorities and the Government of Quebec, the mountain covers 10 square kilometers, right in the heart of Montreal.

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Cretan dakos (Κρητικός ντάκος)

~ miakouppa ~ 8 Comments

Cretan dakos

A traditional Cretan salad of tomatoes, feta and herbs on top of a barley rusk

Cretan dakos

 

Oh Crete, how we love you!  We’ve both had the great pleasure of visiting this largest and southernmost island of Greece,  spending weeks exploring the cities, beaches, gorges and of course, the tavernas and restaurants.  Cretan cuisine, like all Greek cooking, is based on fresh, local ingredients and the regional specialties often showcase food items you can only find there.  Fortunately however, much of what is loved and devoured in Crete can be replicated off the island, and this dakos salad is a perfect example of that.

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Greek nachos

~ miakouppa ~ 6 Comments

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Greek nachos

All your favourite nacho elements, with a kick of Greek

Greek nachos

A vice that we both share is our love for chips.  Potato chips, corn chips, nacho chips, we devour them all.  When we were young one of our favourite junk food snacks was taking a bowl of regular potato chips (Humpty Dumpty brand was preferred) and dousing them with white vinegar.  Home made salt and vinegar chips! We were clearly meant for recipe developing.  As our taste buds matured and we became more refined, we moved on to other things…like nacho chips, bottled salsa and creamy, is-it-really-cheese?, jarred nacho cheese sauce.  Glorious!

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Marinated olives

~ miakouppa ~ 7 Comments

Marinated olives

Olives warmed up with herbs and spices!

We have a difficult time understanding people who don’t care for olives; a challenge because one of us is married to one of those people.  It’s hard to wrap our head around why anyone would turn their nose on fruit (yes, olives are fruit!) that comes in so many wonderful varieties, colours and flavours.  We’ve come to accept that perhaps the tartness, bitterness and occasional spiciness of olives is an acquired taste, and growing up in a Greek household, it was a taste that we acquired quite young.

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Maniatiki Salad (Potato salad with oranges and fennel) (Μανιάτικη σαλάτα)

~ miakouppa ~ 2 Comments
Perhaps your new favourite potato salad! Loaded with oranges, and lots of great flavours.

Perhaps your new favourite potato salad!

Our parents are from the Peloponnese region of Messinia, the western-most peninsula of the part of Greece that looks a little like a hand which is missing a finger. Messinia is where our heart lies in Greece, and where many of the recipes which we share originate.  However, the Peloponnese is rich with variety and this potato and orange salad is named for the middle finger of the Peloponnese, the Mani peninsula.

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Chickpea salad (Σαλάτα με ρεβίθια)

~ miakouppa ~ 15 Comments

Chickpea salad (Σαλάτα με ρεβίθια)An easy, vegan chickpea salad flavoured with lots of fresh herbs

If you have been following Mia Kouppa for a while, or even for a little bit of time (Welcome!), you may have realized a few things.  Feta should always be Greek (as should olive oil), fresh bread usually goes beautifully with just about any meal, and if you have a well stocked Greek pantry, you can make thousands of recipes (this is only a slight exaggeration) .  You may have also noticed that we are firm believers that beans should never come from a can.  But never is a really big word.

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