kaye16's Reviews
26 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 26Sort by: Title | Date | Rating
The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking
By Susanna Hoffman
Workman Publishing Company - 2004
Beet Tzatziki : page 467
Great stuff.
My one big beet with about half the yogurt would have served three, but two of us finished it off without complaint. Dried dill tonight.
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Big Beans : page 208
Yes, very good beans.
I happened to have some gigantes on hand. DH loves them, every since we first had them in Spain. Made up a half recipe of this to go with a pork stew. Easy and very good. Will definitely make this again.
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I found this an odd combination, shredded carrots with sliced fennel, dried figs, and preserved lemons, simply dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. I really liked the odd combination; DH was lukewarm about it.
- I made about a half recipe, which will serve four. The whole recipe should serve 6.
- I used store-bought preserved lemons since I had them to use up. I cut my slices into quarters (and took out the seeds) and laid them around the edge for serving.
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Chicken Neo-Avgolemono : page 409
This was so-so. I made a halfish recicpe with four large thighs. Even though they were well-browned, it took much longer than 20 minutes to cook them through. Would definitely removed the skin, which added too much fat to the sauce, to do this again.
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Clay Pot Chicken : page 417
No clay pot, but a cast iron Dutch oven worked pretty well. I made a halfish recipe with four thighs. My eggplant was smallish and largely disappeared. Very tasty and definitely worth another try.
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Eggplant and Yogurt Spread : page 35
Had a surplus of eggplants in the fridge, so tried this recipe to use up one of them. Mine was small, but only about 2/3 the size asked, so I cut back the recipe accordingly. Used substantially less yogurt than asked, though. I think the key is to add enough to get the mush to a spreadable state.
I liked this a lot; DH not so much.
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Eggplant Salad Country-Style : page 33
This was a hit at our Greek-themed dinner. The 2 cups served 5, leaving several people wanting a bit more.
I made the salad the day before, using only 3tbl olive oil (rather than 4tbl) since it seemed like too much sauce for the amount of veggie material.
Easy and delicious.
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Fried Eggplant with Feta and Basil : page 276
Very nice and easy. A good addition to one's eggplant/aubergine repertoire. Slices of fried eggplant topped with a basil leaf, some feta, a tomato slice, and an olive. I went wild and used a half olive rather than a quarter on each stack. I finished them off under the broiler rather than in the frying pan.
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Fried Garlic Topping : page 481
Excellent on the Greens Salad with Hard-Cooked Eggs and Fried Garlic. You do need to be a bit careful not to let the garlic burn, but otherwise, easy to make.
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Yummy stuff, simple to make, with a nice presentation. Handy because it can be made and plattered ahead of time.
I used spinach, since I had that to be used, a 100g sack plus about half of another 100g sack.
The greens (whatever you use) are cooked, cooled, put on a platter, then topped with lemon juice, olive oil, and Fried Garlic Topping.
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Leek, Potato, and Olive Pie (Prassopita) : page 97
Having both leeks and potatoes needing to be used up, I made a half recipe of this.
- I was a bit worried that the instructions called for the assembled tart should be cooked 1-1/2 hours at 375F, until the top and edges are golden and crisp. This seemed way too long to me. I found this recipe many places on the web, with several reviews, but no one mentioned a time problem. I checked mine after 30 minutes, and the top was already golden. I laid a piece of aluminum foil over the top to slow further browning. I took the tart out of the oven after an hour total and it was fine.
- For my half recipe, I used two sheets of filo, folded in half, for the top and for the bottom. In the middle, I put a single sheet folded in half, although I suppose I should have put two there also. On the other hand, I don't think having a layer of filo in the middle of the filling adds anything to the dish, and wouldn't do this again. Four layers of filo, top and bottom, were sufficient, nice and crispy and holding the tart together well.
- The filling was quite good. I used kalamatas, but I think I might try some good green olives (as suggested) next time. The color contrast offered by the black olives wasn't all that exciting. I suspect the astringency of the green would be a nice addition.
Altogether we liked this dish. I cut my half tart into four parts, but I'm sure six would have done fine as an appetizer or as finger food.
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Joining the crowd, we really liked these. I used grenailles, sort of oblong new potatoes, cut in half long ways, about half what was required. Made in a flat baking dish, since my rimmed sheet wouldn't hold that much liquid. Dried oregano. They were done in about 45 minutes.
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This was tasty, and fairly easy to prepare. I'm still uncomfortable doing skate/ray, though, and might try again with another fish.
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Pears in Chamomile Syrup : page 553
A hit.
Nice for company since it can be done the day before.
Four of us ate 1-1/2 pears each, which might be considered a bit much.
Served with store-bought cream&mascarpone, which could be considered gilding the lily, but was nice anyhow.
Saving the extra chamomile syrup to use on pancakes soon.
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Pickled Red Onions : page 75
Quick and easy to make, and a very nice addition to many dishes.
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Pickled Red Onions : page 75
If you like pickled onions, this is a good recipe. I used only 1tbl sugar, since we tend not to like these things too sweet.
Having used almost all the onions, I'll slice up some more onions tomorrow to add to the pickling juice.
Surprisingly good on Radish Salad with Pickled Onions and Feta Cheese.
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Yup, we liked this.
I made a half recipe, which should have 6; was a bit short on meat. It served two, but not very generously. We were thinking it would be better to double the recipe, and freeze up on one or two more meals.
Very tasty. You do not taste anchovies as anchovies; it's just a depth of flavor added to the sauce.
Lots of cooking time involved, but not that much active time. After the meat cubes are browned, the stew cooks for almost two hours with occasionally intervention.
Served with Big Beans as suggested.
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I was intrigued for this combination of ingredients. I turned out be a a very tasty salad, and very pretty spread out on a platter.
Sliced radishes with some radish leaves are topped with crumbled feta and Pickled Red Onions, then sprinkled with vinegar and oil.
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Easy and very tasty.
Last year I bought a forequarter and hindquarter of goat last year on sale. Unfortunately I got the wrong one out of the freezer (but marked the right one off the freezer list as if that helps). Nevertheless this turned out really well.
I've never eaten goat except in a curry type of thing where the other flavors dominate. This is a subtler concoction which really highlights the meat.
I was out of the room when the timer went off so the meat cooked over an hour. No problem, and it might actually like that extra time. Shredded easily.
My bit was slightly small, but would serve only four I think. Servings for six would be tiny.
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Roasted Sweet Pepper Salad : page 39
This was quite good. It would be good as part of an assortment of salads.
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Sesame-Crusted Roast Chicken : page 416
I used a Römertopf clay cooker for the chicken, following the timings provided. A beautiful and delicious chicken was the result. We spread the sauce over the sliced chicken. Really tasty.
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Easy to make and very yummy. The fennel and green olives made a surprisingly good (to us) combination.
I used AH fish stock from the freezer, topped up with white wine in a 2:1 proportion as asked.
Simple and quick to assemble.
It's a bit unclear to me how to serve this. There's a good bit of tasty juice when the dish is done. It's not something you can just plop on the plate. I served with bucatelli, but a shorter pasta or rice might have been better.
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4.5 Good. Nice stuffing and sauce. Easy enough to make, but lots of clock time, much unattended.
I made a half recipe with three scallops, two of which were smaller than asked. I wonder if French butchers cut their scallops thinner than American ones do. Mine didn't make 7-8" diameter; they were more or less rectangular with that as the longer dimension.
I smelled the anchovies as the sauce was cooking, but they were not apparent in the finished dish.
Think I'd just leave the bay leaves whole and remove them when serving.
I used all 12 kalamata olives for my half recipe.
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Wilted Parsley or Cilantro Topping : page 481
I made this with cilantro. No wilding evident. And barely any vinegar flavor. I added another slog, so all leaves would be coated, maybe 1tsp in all. Ok, but nothing special.
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Yellow Split Pea Soup with myriad toppings : page 159
In themselves, yellow split peas are only marginally more interesting than green split peas. I'm not sure why I thought adding some olive oil, an onion, and some chopped garlic was going to do something special. No, just some (quite well-cooked) yellow split peas.
The toppings make the difference. The Pickled Red Onions were quite good. The Wilted Parsley or Cilantro Topping was okay. (I was too lazy to do the tapenade or even to get a jar out of the pantry.)
The best topping was liberal slugs of Chipotle Tabasco.
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Yogurt Cake with Ouzo-Lemon Syrup : page 520
Probably the cake is excellent on its own. With the syrup added, it was toothachingly sweet, even though I reduced the sugar in the syrup. Nice taste, but ...
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