Menu #4 (Greek with a twist)

 Menu of 11/02/2025 (Click to find all my Menu ideas so far. )

A Taste of Greece: A Comforting Menu with a Twist

This menu is a tribute to traditional Greek dishes, with a little twist to keep things exciting. If you love homemade, rustic flavors, this feast is for you!

🥗 The Starter: Spanakotyropita with Homemade Fyllo

Flaky, golden, and packed with spinach, feta, and fresh herbs, this homemade-fyllo pie is pure comfort. Crisp on the outside, creamy inside—it’s the perfect start to a Greek meal.

🥘 The Main Dish: Veal Youvetsi with a Twist

Slow-cooked veal in a rich tomato sauce, but instead of orzo, chickpeas add heartiness while eggs bring a creamy surprise. A creative take on a Greek favorite that’s deeply flavorful and satisfying.

🍫 The Sweet Finale: Mosaiko

A childhood favorite for many, this no-bake chocolate biscuit delight, rich yet light, chilled to perfection. A nostalgic Greek treat that melts in your mouth with every bite!

This menu is all about honoring tradition while adding a personal touch. Whether you’ve made these dishes before or are trying them for the first time, they bring the essence of Greek home cooking to your table.

✨ Which dish would you try first? Let me know in the comments! ✨

Kali orexi! 🍽️

BBQ side dish

Summer is the perfect season for a bbq, finding a side dish is not always easy though.

Here's my latest ideas: a couscous salad with 

• fried cubes of vegetables (eggplants and zucchini) and 
• fresh cherry tomatoes
• some good olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme 

or a pasta salad with

• fresh pasta trofie (soft thin twisted pasta from northern Italy)
• tuna in olive oil
• fresh cherry tomatoes
• mozzarela buffalo cheese
• freshly cut and chopped chives (ciboulette in french)
• some good olive oil, salt and white pepper 

will lift it. If you add a greek tzatziki to add some moisture to the whole menu, then you have the perfect combination! No, I forgot the most important ingredient: good company to share all this :) 

Alternatives for the Greek spanakotyropita!

Lazy for the full version of the greek spanakotyropita (spinach-feta pie) but still craving for it? I have some alternatives for you. Make the same filling as the original recipe and 

• either make snails using fyllo pastry that you fold in half, oil a bit, add some filling and roll and twist like a snail (see photos)
• or use 2 rectangular sheets of puff pastry that you insert the filling in between and cut in pieces 

Bake as usual until golden colored.

Enjoy!

Mpougatsa, the greek custard pie!

Went to Greece for vacations and got addicted to mpougatsa for breakfast? Here's how to make it back home and extend your vacations a bit through food :)

Made with crusty fyllo and filled in with a custard cream made out of semolina is served dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. It makes the perfect breakfast or anytime snack and why not as a dessert.

My 2023 Christmas recipes

 Merry Xmas with my recipes! To be shared with your dearest!

Melomakarona, Kourambiedes, Stuffed Turkey, Xmas Swiss roll, Ekmek kadaif, 

Stuffed mushrooms, Mini pasticcios, Pavlova and Xmas pudding. 

Cookies with white Wine

Have some left over white wine and do not know what to do with? I have you the recipe for!

I have indexed it here as Greek Easter cookies but you can improvise and do what ever you want with it.

Yesterday we went crazy and did a mix of various shapes like Christmas, Halloween and striped ones. We had lots of fun doing them with family, not to mention eating them :) 

PS: Better be a dry white wine though.

Greek Easter recipes

If you are interested in traditional recipes done during the Greek Easter period, check my

Greek Easter recipes

Happy Easter!

Milopitakia, greek mini apple pies or cookies

October, the month of apples!

That's why I decided to present you today a recipe that was missing from my blog and that I like a lot: milopitakia!

Milopitakia, in greek, means mini apple pies but they are actually more kind of apple-filled cookies to be more precise.

Whatever you call them, I am sure that you will like them once you taste them, so here it goes in order to have them for real at your place :)

They look gorgeous too, no?

Tyropita, the greek feta cheese pie!

Family was asking for tyropita, the Greek feta cheese pie, last week and searching to find the recipe in my blog I realized that it was missing! I had only the spanakotyropita recipe that is even better but more complicated. So, you can imagine the rest... had to take photos on top of cooking :)
I was extremely busy & tired and so was my daughter that I asked to take fast some photos, which explains the low quality of the result. But it's better than nothing,  no?
So, if you like feta cheese, try this recipe and you won't regret it :)
My only regret is that I had to leave immediately after so I tasted it much later at night when I came back... at least family was nice and had left me a few pieces !

Happy Easter 2017

Dear family, friends, acquaintances and just passengers from this blog,

I wish you all Happy Easter whatever that means for each one of you, if it means something.
Actually, I am so busy this period that I have realized just 2 days ago that Easter is this weekend :)
This blog proposes several traditional Greek recipes to prepare these days that each one reminds me of the Easter time that I have spent in Greece with my family at good and bad times.
I continue to prepare most of them for my subsequent family and I will be glad if my effort will help others to bring up memories from their youth in the same way or even better :) Cheers!
Recipes:

• Easter eggs
• Roast lamb leg (traditionally we roast the whole lamp in a huge barbecue, though)
• Easter cookies
• Vivian's pudding
• Ribbon cake as Easter cake
• Tsourekia (recipe missing but you can see the next one)
• French brioche bread or Tsourekia

Feta cheese balls

Remember the recipe of feta cheese pies (tyropitakia)?
It's one of our favorite salty starters and if you have never tried it before this is the moment to do it!

I am giving you an alternative that is pretty simple, much simpler than the original recipe.

Ribbon cake as Easter cake!

Happy greek Easter even with a delay!
All the best to you and your families...

Heres my inspiration for a cake that I came up with, as this year for several issues I did not want to make a more fancy cake, as this Easter coincided with a bad anniversary...
You want to know more about it?
Let's call it the Ribbon cake!

Zucchini muffins

Remember the delicious zucchini balls that I have presented a long time ago?
Discover today my personal touch to turn them to muffin-like starters in a xmas dinner that I have organized recently. They looked gorgeous and they tasted even better! Just try them...
Procedure

• Use the same recipe for the filling and simply pastry dough (cut in disks) and assemble them in a muffins tray. 
• Sprinkle on top with some yellow cheese. 
• Bake for about 30min at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan.

Summer time cooking!

Do you have a crave for a bbq?

Summer is the perfect time to indulge yourself with meat cooked over charcoal and everything that accompanies such a treat.

Approaching 15 of August that is a holiday in several places, I suggest the typical greek combination of souvlakia and tzatziki, and why not a greek salad that is an old-time classic.

Add some grilled vegetables like zucchini and eggplants that will not pass unnoticed for sure.

Kali oreksi! (aka enjoy your meal in greek :)

Recipe reminder (Gemista)

Time to remember a nice vegetarian Greek recipe "Stuffed tomatoes, the greek way" or "Gemista" as we call it in Greek.
It deserves all your attention... Light, healthy, tasty, good-looking, what more to ask from a recipe?
Simply, enjoy!

Recipe reminder (Tyropitakia)

I would like to remind you a salty greek recipe that I just cannot resist :
"Tyropitakia", the feta cheese pies!
If you haven't tried it yet, just do... if you have, just give me some feedback of what do you think of it or tell me your own recipe, if you like sharing :)
You can even offer them in a nice gift box to someone, to give you some ideas. I always do that, when I want to thank someone ...
Specifically made today as a surprise for one of my kids that I missed soooo much ;) Enjoy!

Happy Greek Easter!

Too many things going on this period, so I missed lots of events linked to Greek Easter that was yesterday, but I have cooked quite a lot of stuff that are linked to it as you can see in my posts.
So, with a day of delay, all my best wishes for a world with lots of love and much much less of wars and violence in general...

Happy Greek Easter! 

especially to my family and friends... that I think of you, even though we see each other once per year maybe.
 Flower syntheses, offered to me from my precious daughter that has really a talent and borrowed from our beautiful garden.

"Tsoureki", the greek easter sweet bread!

[Updated 22/04/2019]
I have now a marvelous recipe here :

French brioche bread

No recipe today (too tired :), just photos to show you my "tsourekia", traditional greek easter sweet breads that are formed of braided strands of dough.
Just google the name and you will find lots of recipes out there and next year I will give you mine ...
For the time being, I am just telling you that they taste great and we have almost consumed all of them in half a day, imagine :))))
Just click on "More..." to enjoy more photos !

Recipe reminder (spetzofai)

What have I cooked for yesterday? Spetzofai...
I had almost forgotten the impact that this dish has to my non-Greek friends, they become addicted! Reminder then for this heart-warm dish and special tribute today that is a pretty cold one and there is still snow around.
Find all the details here: http://vivianiscooking.blogspot.fr/2014/03/spetzofai-weird-name-greeek-taste.html

Vivian's king's cake or "Vassilopita" in greek

In Greece, the 1st of January we make our favorite cake or a special recipe from our region and we hide inside a coin (covered with aluminum foil, of course :) and we call it "Vassilopita". It's the equivalent of the "king's cake" or the "Galette de roi" that we find in other christian countries for the Epiphany.
We gather in family and share the cake and the one that will get the hidden coin will be the king of the year, aka the lucky of the year...
I will share with you the recipe that I adopted since the birth of my daughter, that is a very fluffy cake scented with orange zest and rich in ground almonds. You can make it all year through but it has some luxury touch that makes it a good candidate for a special occasion :) Here it goes...