appetizer | 3greenOnions

feta cheesecake

29-04-2012

appetizer, breakfast/brunch, cheese, party, savory, savory pie/tart, snack, vegetarian

feta cheesecake

The year was 2004, almost 2005. On that mild winter’s night of December 30th, my two best friends and I were hunched over books in the living room of my apartment in Thessaloniki. The girls had traveled from Skopje to visit me; we were in our early twenties, some of the city’s best bars were within walking distance of my home, New Year Eve parties were being planned all over the place and yet there we were, turning book pages and scribbling notes. We were having a blast. No, really, we were.

One of my two friends – Meri – had a hint of worry in her eye. It was probably because she had a feeling that Vesna (my other friend) and I would wake her up early the next morning and drag her to the farmers market and to innumerable stores scratching items off our mile-long ingredient shopping list. Yes, the books we were hunched over on the night in question were an assortment of cookbooks and the notes were were making were the most disjointed effort of creating a meal plan in the history of meal planning.

green onion pancakes

By: Elena

16-03-2012

appetizer, breakfast/brunch, food combining, frying, pastry, savory, snack, vegan, vegetable, vegetarian

Green Onion Pancakes

You know, I really do a little happy dance at the sight of any recipe that has green onions in its name. I say ‘in its name’ because while there’s tons of recipes out there that list the modest green onion as an ingredient, there really aren’t that many kitchen concoctions where this tasty little thing takes the lead. And I’ve been sitting on this recipe for what feels like ages and feeling it pointing a long dainty green finger at me from my long list of bookmarked recipes to try, mocking me with ‘You call your blog 3greenonions and yet you haven’t made ME yet? Are you for real?‘ Wait, what? Recipes don’t talk to you?

And because the attitude of my bookmarked recipes rubs on me easily, I have a challenge for you: give me ANY salad recipe – grain, bean, green, heck, even fruit salad – and I’ll argue you till the end of time and back that the addition of just 3 green onions to it would make it at least 3 times better. Any takers?

frijolemole

By: Elena

29-10-2011

appetizer, bean/legume, food combining, party, savory, snack, vegetable, vegetarian

If you’ve ever visited our neck of the woods then you are probably familiar with the locals’ obsession with fresh green hot chilli peppers. It may be possible to sit down to a Macedonian feast that features no meat (although a practice which is often frowned upon) but god forbid that any respectable traditional meal is left without at least a few of these mean green tear provokers, either fresh or roasted. They sometimes taste like suicide, and yet, I can’t count the times I’ve seen people bite into them as if they’re biting into apples.

On the other end of the spectrum are those weird folks that must be missing some crucial local gene as they run away from everything and anything hot and spicy. I even know people who don’t eat both garlic AND onion and frankly I often wonder if they were maybe abducted by aliens when they were kids. I (like the majority of people, I believe) fall somewhere in the wide range between these two extremes. Alright, I guess I am slightly leaning more towards the first kind, as I can probably tolerate heat better than a rather hefty percentage of the people I know. I think.

spinach and raisin triangles

By: Elena

14-10-2011

appetizer, baking, breakfast/brunch, food combining, party, pastry, snack, sweet+savory, vegetable, vegetarian

As much as I love cheese, it is pastries that are definitely my nemesis. Be it savory or sweet, I have the hardest time resisting pastry of any kind. For breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. It is often a good thing I suck at pastry making, because we’d probably resort to eating some daily. It’s also a good thing we don’t live in Greece anymore because I might have had to make my middle name Spanakopita. Occasionally (ok, more than just occasionally), store-bought puff pastry comes to assist me in imposing things like this one to Ivica. For dinner.

And spinach…well, I don’t know about you, but show me a golden puffed up pastry with dark green stuff sticking out from its insides… and I’m sold. Add raisins to it and my hands are itching.

curried pinwheels

By: Elena

01-10-2011

appetizer, fruit, party, sandwich/wrap, snack, sweet+savory, vegetarian

Curried Pinwheels

Last week, during our 10 day visit to Greece, Ivica and I redefined the meaning of the word “vacation” in our universe. A year ago, a vacation in Greece for us would mean long days at the beach, beers in hand from well before noon (yeah, we’re that kind of people, at least I am…wait…was), backgammon (I consistently lose), lazy dinners by the sea with leisurely bites of seafood morsels between sips of ouzo or retsina (different strokes) and very late nights with friends (mostly ex colleagues – people that grew on us over our years spent in Thessaloniki).

Not any more. Vacation as we knew it has jumped out of the window. It is now replaced by a car loaded with tons of baby stuff (stroller, car seat, tub, toys, diapers and related items, loads of clothes and them some more), the never-ending game of “pass the baby to keep him from fussing”, quick 5 minute coffees (we are considering just doing the coffee IV to save us the trouble) and a permanently tired mom and dad eating in shifts. Bye bye 10 swims a day, hello quick dips. So long naps under the sun, hi there “pushing the stroller till baby goes down for a nap”. Vacation? What vacation? At times our tiny little family is like a walking contraceptive device for people wondering if they should have kids. We are a scare to expecting parents and an unpleasant flashback to “been there, done that” veterans.

easy cheese and tomato tart

By: Elena

09-09-2011

appetizer, breakfast/brunch, cheese, main dish, party, savory, savory pie/tart, side dish, snack, vegetable, vegetarian

Easy Cheese and Tomato Tart

One of my culinary goals has got to be to learn how to make (edible) puff pastry from scratch. Seriously, I love the stuff; I don’t think I’ve ever tried anything made with puff pastry that I haven’t liked. It’s infinitely versatile and very tasty (I blame it on all the butter) and also quite pretty most of the time. I have been eying a number of recipes + guides on how to make puff pastry from scratch but I’m always put off by the number of hours it takes to make it and of course when I see the amount of butter that goes in it…I sort of give up.

And the truth is that I am actually quite happy with a particular brand of frozen store-bought puff pastry. Even though their packages are riddled with English translation mistakes which crack me up every time (I mean, come on, “layers of leafy pie”??? does it get more literal that that?). I forgive them once the pastry puffs up.

Tarte Flambée / Flammkuchen

By: admin

17-08-2011

appetizer, cheese, pizza/flatbread

Tarte flambée Flammkuchen

[Vegetarians beware: bacon ahead...and yes, I will handle it with my bare hands.]

Last October, halfway through my pregnancy and all, Ivica and I travelled to France, Germany and Switzerland as a sort of a babymoon adventure before the arrival of Mr. Ognen. We couchsurfed the entire trip and stayed with some amazing people who opened their homes and hearts to us. Our first stop was the surreally beautiful town of Colmar in Alsace, of which I had seen a photo somewhere in a magazine years ago and decided that I must visit it one day.

Much can be said about the Alsace region, but a lot can be eaten there too. Before travelling, I went into my typical pre-holiday OCD researching/planning mode and obviously made a list of local dishes I wanted to try (what, doesn’t everyone do this?). Top of the list? A local delicacy known as Tarte Flambée or Flammkuchen (Alsace is a multilingual region). I knew it had bacon, but I was drawn to it simply by reading about it. I mean, it’s a crispy pizza-like thing (gulp), served hot (double gulp), with a lot of cream on top (triple gulp) and onions…mmm…ok, and some bacon too.