Category: Lent / Fasting

The Simplest Spicy Shrimp

  SERVING TIP: You can serve these shrimp as is, or over brown rice or quinoa.

Baked Lemon Clams

  What to Serve with Baked Stuffed ClamsFrom New York to New England to Louisiana, stuffed clams have captured our imagination and become something of regional specialties. This is a fairly dense dish, packing a lot of flavor into tiny bites. Serve a nice green salad, Greek yogurt coleslaw, or corn on the cob as […]

Mache Salad With Salmon And Oranges

  What is Mache Mache, or Varelianella locusta, is a tender salad green with soft, velverty rounded leaves. It’s got a mild flavor and pairs well with a whole variety of other ingredients. It’s also a good source of Vitamins A, C and B6 as well as Manganese. Any tender green or Bibb lettuce may […]

Lagana (Flat, Wide Lenten Bread)

  Lagana is a special Greek bread, flat and wide and eaten but one day a year, on Clean Monday at the start of Lent. Traditionally, lagana was unleavened, but now commercial bakers use yeast in its preparation. I learned to make this from a local baker in my neighborhood in Athens. Lagana claims another […]

In season: Apple Crisp with Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Many traditional Greek sweets, especially during periods of fasting, such as Lent, call for olive oil instead of butter. An apple crisp isn’t exactly traditional Greek food. I’ve “hellenized” a classic American dessert by adding two distinct greek flavors, that of olive oil and the scented geranium, arbaroriza in Greek, which Greek cooks often use […]

Easy Mussels Cooked in Greek Saffron-Pepper-Tomato Sauce

  Mussels are a classic Greek meze, super easy to cook, and a very popular seafood component of the Mediterranean diet. Did you know that mussels have been farmed in Greece since ancient times? There are a few varieties of Greek mussels, mostly cultivated off the coasts of Northern Greece, and typically a little slimmer […]

Cauliflower Steaks With Crispy Capers and Spicy Tahini Sauce

  Cauliflower is one of my absolute favourite vegetables, but Greek recipes for this often misunderstood food tend toward the boiled, lemon-olive oil approach. Roasting it brings out so much incredible flavour. Dressing it up with tahini and capers, as this recipe does, catapults cauliflower from banality into stardom!

Char-Broiled Broccoli With Avocado-Tahini Sauce

  Greeks traditionally use tahini during periods of fasting as a replacement for olive oil and as a great source of calcium. Combining it with avocado in a creamy sauce is new Greek recipe, culled from tradition, of curse, but with a modern twist.

Piperonata

I tried out this recipe for the first time at a friend’s house many years ago. She had served it as part of a Lenten table. It’s not a traditional fasting dish, but it certainly fits the bill. It’s delicious over great bread and can easily be dressed up with a sprinkling of crumbled feta.

Cod Croquettes

  Salt cod, or bakaliaros pastos, is sometimes referred to as the fish of the mountains. Cod is not native to the Mediterranean, but to the North Sea and Atlantic. Itinerant merchants would travel inland to sell preserved (salted or air-dried) cod and the tradition of cooking it has remained constant to this day. It […]