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 !

Truffade auvergnate (sort of :)

Sometime ago, I was honored to accompany my son's class to a field trip in Auvergne (a french region), more precisely in Cantal a department in south-central France, with its capital at Aurillac.
We spent a dreaming week in a farm surrounded by animals, warm-hearted people and a beautiful, green scenery thanks to the volcanoes that the region is known for.
One of the last dinners, we had the chance to try one of their typical dishes, the delicious "Truffade Auvergnate" which is a sort of a thick pancake made with sliced potatoes, garlic and cheese (more precisely the variety called "fresh tomme" or Cantal jeune). For more information, search the web, for example wikipedia. After some scooping on the web, I've found that there exists also a similar recipe, "The Aligot", but I have never tried it yet. Maybe the next time that I will visit the region :)
Cheese is one of the typical products there, with Cantal cheese (one of the oldest in France, from the time of Gauls) but also Saint- Nectaire and Salers.
Cantal cheese is a firm (semi-hard) cheese, made from raw or pasteurized cow's milk from the Salers breed. According to the time of aging, it can be found in three varieties:

• Cantal jeune (1-2 months aged)
• Cantal entre deux (2-6 months)
• Cantal vieux ( more than 6 months)

In the recipe that I will provide you today (easy but so tasty!), I have used Cantal entre deux, that was the only one that I could find easily (sorry Celian for not being too concentrated the day that you proposed me to buy some when we were there, but I can now admit that I have some intolerance and that kind of cheese it always scares me :) 
Here it goes ....

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.

Hummus

Ok, I won't pretend that I managed to have a nice hummus on my first attempt neither on my second, I do not know why actually, as it is one of the easiest dip recipes to make.
I want to thank Katia (my ex zumba teacher that makes the most delicious hummus :) for her recipe and Aneta for being the intermediate (and for iniating me to zumba btw :)
So, what is hummus ? It's a Lebanese food dip made of chickpeas that I just loooove and that it takes a few minutes to make at home (much better than store-bought).

Hearts all over :)

Last week, passed with me making hearts all over my cooking for my dear ones :)
I am not fan of St. Valentine's day but I have a very dear friend Valentine that I profit to send her a virtual hug !
I can share some of my crazy ideas but chuuut, do not tell anyone, ok?
Recipes that were used are my Homeburgers and the mosaic cake covered with white chocolate.
A big kiss to my daughter that helped me with the cake and taught me new techniques in pastry!!!

 

King cake (Galette des rois in french)

Galette des rois is a traditional french cake that is made for Epiphany (6 of January). It celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem to visit baby Jesus. 
It is composed of a puff pastry cake, and a small charm in china, the fève, is hidden inside. The person who finds it becomes the king or the queen of the day. It is usually filled with frangipane, a cream made from sweet almonds, butter, eggs and sugar but there are several other derivatives as well at modern times.
I would like to thank Vanille, a girl of my son's class that put a recipe in their class blog and I could not resist and did it! It is so easy to make actually, check it for yourselves...

Gravity cake

Happy birthday! 

My son just turned 10 and here's the best birthday cake that I decided to make that makes the buzz on the web and makes heads turn on it's sight... The GRAVITY cake!!!
My kids loved it, hubby thinks I'm a genius, friends were amazed and there were even people that took photos of it :))))
Special thanks to both of my children that helped me doing it, and my apologies to my daughter that I underestimated her capabilities as she has proved that often she is much better than me ! Kiss to hubby for the support, as always, to my crazy ideas.
So, let's get back to the cake. Procedure goes like this...

Homemade all-purpose cleaner

What best to start the year than a recipe for a natural cleaner that apart from being natural thus environment-friendly, is fast, simple and cheap ?
Not to mention that might work better than store brands.
Your kids can make it easily too and use it, how about that???
Here it goes...

Happy New Year 2017 !

May this year is less violent than the previous one and people will smile more!

Let's all try to be more open-minded and try to find this little kid inside us...

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy St Nicholas day!

My dear son, all the best !

This blog exists thanks to you and the interesting discussions with you and your sister :)

Now, there is no problem on how you can share my small bloc-notes with recipes, when life will drive you away from me ... as I keep telling you, cooking is quality in life.

Enjoy the recipe that you asked as a cake for today
semolina pudding (halvas) and 
your favorite dish as a surprise chicken curry.
(Lots of spices that represent the warmth and generosity of your heart)

Made with lots, lots of love
    *kiss* Mum

French pear tart (Tarte bourdaloue ou tarte aux poires et frangipane)

My husband's favorite dessert is a french tart with pears and almond paste that in french is called "tarte aux poires et frangipane" or "tarte bourdaloue" or "tarte aux poires normande" as it's origon is Normandy in north of France.
I just made a great version of it and all family got excited ! As always, I will note it down in my blog to never miss it again :) As one thing is sure: I am going to make it again soon !
Here it goes...

Halloween shortbread biscuits ("sablés" in french :)

 Halloween is approaching and I just found some really spooky biscuit stamps that I knew that would drive crazy my kids, especially my son, who is fond of Frankestein :)

I found it as a good excuse to test a recipe on shortbread biscuits that in french they call them "sablés". 

I cannot describe enough the excitement at home when they discovered the stamps! 

I can only tell you that we ended baking late at night, on top of a really busy day.... 
I was not in my best of mood, knowing that they will be tired for school the next day, but my... they had so much fun that eventually I thought, what the hell! I could make an exception :)))) 
Here it goes... and hope that you will have as fun as we had making them!