cheese | 3greenOnions

spinach feta tortilla lasagne

06-05-2012

casseroles, cheese, main dish, meat/poultry, pasta, savory, vegetable

Spinach Feta Tortilla Lasagne

If I told you that I have somewhere around 20 lasagna (or lasagne? which one?) recipes bookmarked, would you believe me? If there’s one thing all of them have in common, it’s some unusual twist; an ingredient you don’t typically find in such a dish (like hazelnuts or pumpkin for example). Here’s the thing: I’ve never made proper, Garfield-style lasagne. I know it’s not exactly rocket science but I’m always put off by worries about what type of lasagna sheets to use and my dislike for tomato based sauces and for handling minced meat (just when you thought I couldn’t get much weirder, right?)

One evening last month, our next door neighbors (a bustling full-of-life family with 3 kids of varying ages, managed by 2 successful entrepreneur parents) knocked on our door with a huge pan of half-baked lasagne. Due to some clerical error their electricity was cut off in the middle of baking and they asked if they can finish baking in our oven (it is moments like this when I think ‘gosh, I really should clean the oven more often!‘). As their youngest daughter entertained Ognen and we grownups had a cup of coffee, the aroma of the lasagne bubbling in our (not so clean) oven was intoxicating, even to me. When it was finally baked and before they headed back to their place to eat a family dinner by candlelight (I guess you have to take romance where you can get it when you have a house full of kids), they left two sizable slices for us to try. As we sat in silence and gobbled them up, I guess what was going through Ivica’s mind was something along the lines of “who the hell did I marry? couscous, sweet potato burritos and salads with pears? there’s families eating lasagne out there…”

chilli, smoked cheese and roast pepper muffins

By: Elena

30-04-2012

baking, breakfast/brunch, cheese, muffin, roasting, savory, snack, vegetable, vegetarian

chilli, smoked cheese and roast pepper muffins

We spent this Sunday at our friends’ house on the outskirts of the city. Under the scorching sun and amidst the heaps of barbequed meats, the reggae music in the background, the flowing beer and rakija, and the laughter and conversation of some 20 adults and 3 toddlers (and 1 dog), I couldn’t help but somewhat envy the childless ones among us. Free to hold a beer in one hand and a fork in the other, to sit down undisturbed for longer than 3 minutes, not squinting to see if there’s some dangerous object located right in your child’s trajectory, no worries if he has slept, eaten, bumped his head, turned the sprinklers on himself and is now wailing for you to change him… I had time to think about this while I was desperately trying to put Ognen to sleep as his crankiness level hit the dangerous zone, while the others were eating, drinking and laughing.

And then…as he was finally giving in and started closing his little eyes, I thought back to the morning in our kitchen. My little sous chef, perched on his high chair, inspecting the muffin liners, munching on the grated cheese, timidly touching the wrinkles on the roasted peppers, playing with olives…and, a little bit later, peeking through the oven glass to look at these muffins as they grew, almost the way kids grow when you’re not paying attention.

feta cheesecake

By: Elena

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.

maple butter and cream cheese waffle croque monsieur

By: Elena

21-04-2012

breakfast/brunch, cheese, grilling, meat/poultry, sandwich/wrap, snack, sweet+savory

Maple Butter Cream Cheese Croque Monsieur Waffle

Look, I’ve been sitting here for the good part of the last hour formulating my strategy on how to title this post. Until I just gave up and said “to hell with it, I’ll just put all those delicious words out there and be done with it.” You see, I have been haunted by visions of unusual croque monsieur sandwiches for a while now (apple and sage? Morney sauce croissant croques? a black one with mozzarella?). The simplicity of the basic grilled ham and cheese is like the perfect canvas for adding personal quirky touches.

Parallel to the croque obsession in the back of my mind, I have been the victim of another food related torment. Ever since I got the foodie package from Aimee and created a mini shrine to the jar of maple butter she sent me, I had been thinking of ways to work it into a dish. My first (and obvious) thought was some kind of dessert, but after tasting it secretly one evening (maple BUTTER, where have you been all my life???), I seriously had to force myself to not finish the whole jar with a spoon right then and there behind the closed kitchen door, but rather use it in something where it truly shines; and also something one sits down to eat at least semi gracefully. Oh how I failed at that.

bleuchâtel, pear and pecan salad

By: Elena

14-04-2012

cheese, fruit, salad, sweet+savory, vegetarian

Bleuchatel, Pear, Pecan Salad

One of the hardest things I have had to go through in recent years was my inability to try all of the (mostly unpasteurized) cheeses I had access to during our babymoon trip to France & Switzerland last year. It was one of the few moments during my pregnancy when I truly felt like raising my hands up in the air and just screaming out “not faaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiir! why meeeee!!!??? and who is this Listeria lady???” But instead, there I was, sitting on the edge of my chair, hands tucked firmly under my thighs to prevent any ‘accidental’ reaching towards the overflowing ginormous cheese plate that our hosts in the gorgeous Alsatian Colmar had set on the table. And beyond the embarrassing drooling that the Munster and Camembert were causing me, all I could do was gasp in horror as I watched Ivica’s hand hover over the Bleu d’Auvergne, the Roquefort and the Bleuchâtel, as it went for the more uniformly colored Comte and Emmental.

[Disclaimer: I cannot properly pronounce half of the cheeses I just mentioned. I'm so much better at eating them.]

sweet potato and black bean burrito

By: Elena

08-03-2012

bean/legume, cheese, main dish, quesadilla/burrito, snack, sweet+savory, vegetable, vegetarian

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos

Without wanting to make our little man a food snob, he’s had the good luck to try (and regularly enjoy) some pretty uncommon (at least regionally) foods. Beyond the exotic grains like quinoa and amaranth, his menu often features things like avocado and mango. I guess that’s one of the perks that come with having a parent that prepares almost all his meals and insists on him trying various fresh fruits and veggies. In all fairness though, I’ve recently fed him a couple of store bought baby food jars and (again, not wanting to sound like a militant ‘homemade-babyfood-only’ monster mom) continue to be amazed at both the ingredient lists on them and the resulting way, say, bananas stay yellow when jarred and kept on the shelf for well upwards of 12 months. Let me get off my high horse now.

One of the veggies that has captured Ognen’s little heart (and belly) is the sweet potato. Sweet potatoes only started showing up in local markets about a year ago, finally locally grown for the first time. They’re not exactly a cheap ingredient, but as far as baby food is considered, a little goes a long way. Us grownups though, we’re in different opinion camps when it comes to the sweet potato.

cheesy biscuits

By: Elena

03-03-2012

baking, biscuit/cracker, cheese, savory, snack, vegetarian

Cheesy Biscuits

One of the (many) things I had absolutely no tolerance for in my pre-baby life was the concept of make-ahead dinners. In my mind, the idea of a meal you make well in advance of eating is/was just so boring and unimaginative and so lacking in excitement. I mean, you wake up in the morning and you know exactly what you are going to eat tonight because you already have dinner ready in the fridge (or freezer, wherever). There is no element of surprise; no opportunity to screw up some challenging 100 ingredient recipe you just decided to experiment with for today’s dinner. Plus, I always associated the notion of preparing tomorrow’s dinner today with the tired, demotivated 50something working Balkan woman/live-in slave who has totally given up on the idea of making family meals exciting and for whom dinner has become yet another item on her long list of chores. Oh how the tables turn in life…

After a couple of months of complete disorganization in the kitchen, junk food dinners and accumulating thigh and belly flab, one fine day last month I finally realized that the only way Ivica and I were ever going to have any dinner that a) is served before midnight and b) does not come out a container, I’d have to do some make-ahead prep. And when I say make-ahead prep I mean the full blown ‘cook tonight, eat tomorrow’ approach. The horror.

crusty onion and cheese muffins

By: Elena

09-01-2012

baking, breakfast/brunch, cheese, muffin, savory, snack, vegetarian

Crusty Onion and Cheese Muffins

The date of my last post is almost a month and a half in the past AND it’s in a calendar year that we’ve left behind. Happy 2012 folks! I don’t usually make a big deal about New Years but 2011 has been big for us. Let’s just say 10 kilos big. Ognen big. Parenthood big.

For those of you wondering where the heck I’ve been hiding, let me set the record straight and tell you that no, we didn’t go on some exotic trip to a nice warm place with palm trees and a constant stream of cocktails. Ha! Instead, I’ve faced the reality of being a full time working mom which basically feels like having 2 full time jobs. And the fact that Ognen still routinely wakes up at odd hours at night and ~~needs~~ demands my attention adds a third shift to these 2 jobs. Yes, yours truly does feel as if she’s working around the clock. Remember this? And before you go off thinking that I am (once again) complaining, let me just tell you: I’m not.

spinach and leek pie quesadillas

By: Elena

23-10-2011

breakfast/brunch, cheese, egg, frying, main dish, quesadilla/burrito, savory, snack, vegetable, vegetarian

I spent a great deal of my childhood afternoons eating pies. They were always homemade, with a rich filling and perfect pastry. It required a good amount of jaw-stretching to be able to take a good bite with everything in it; be it eggs and leeks or spinach and cheese, there was always so much of it that it often made you want to just bury your face in it.

My late grandmother lived across from my elementary school and was a pie wizard. Let me rephrase that – she was a kitchen wizard with a specialization in pie magic. The only thing she did wrong (pie-wise) was to make a really critical pie-lover out of many people (myself included). I have by now abandoned all hope that I’ll ever truly fall in love with someone else’s leek pie, ever again. And, you know, I’ve had a LOT of pies in my life.

lentil, spinach and halloumi salad

By: Elena

08-10-2011

bean/legume, cheese, food combining, frying, grilling, main dish, salad, savory, side dish, vegetable, vegetarian

I used to be a really difficult kid when it came to food. I think it was easier for my parents to list the things that I DID eat because the list of foods I hated was so long. I remember hating most of the food they were serving in our kindergarten (especially braised cabbage, ugh, I so hated that!) and then later at elementary. At home, I was always the one playing with the fork, chewing each bite for what seemed like ages, my mom and dad making me sit at the table until I finished whatever it was we were having, tears rolling down my cheek. I was a small kid but a big drama queen. (I think Ognen got some of that gene, of course not in relation to food, not yet at least).

Then I went through the biggest part of my teenage years eating crap. I gobbled up any kind of snack (sweet or savory) in sight. My favorite thing in the world was bread thickly smeared with cream cheese and slices of salami piled up high on top (shudder). At some point around 14, I probably weighed a little bit more than I do now.