Mushroom Moussaka

This drug called 'Limnos' . . . it's good stuff! It puts you in a trance of heavenly bliss, keeping you hopelessly relaxed and carefree for the entire time you are exposed to this beautiful Greek island.

Tony and I are both addicted. That's why we come here every year. And we don't care if we do nothing but eat, sleep and watch the Limnian world go by. Perhaps a little more 'eat' than we should but this is what the lure of Limnos does to us!

A few nights ago we ate at a wonderful little port-side restaurant, Glaros Taverna, and I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted, for the second time on a Greek island menu, Vegetarian Moussaka! It was surprising enough to find one of these on the menu at Argo Restaurant in Santorini last year, but to find Vegetarian Moussaka in Limnos was nothing short of a miracle.

Needless to say, the vegetarian moussaka at Glaros was delicious! Tony and I plan to visit again for lunch in the next few days when I will write a proper review of the taverna and the food. And I have a few Limnian taverna reviews up my sleeve already which I will be posting very soon.

It may have been well over a year ago, but I haven't forgotten a promise I made to share with you a recipe for vegetarian moussaka using mushrooms. Over the last week of family lunches we have enjoyed this dish twice here in Limnos – one was Koula's recipe, the other mine – so what better time than now, while it's fresh in my food-obsessed mind, to finally write the post for mushroom moussaka.

Today I am combining elements of both recipes to share with you the ultimate vegetarian moussaka made with fresh mushrooms, eggplant, potato and zucchini.

Mushroom Moussaka

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 4 large tomatoes, blanched, peeled and chopped
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 potatoes, sliced lengthways, 1 cm thick
• 2 large eggplants, sliced lengthways, 1 cm thick
• 3 zucchinis, sliced lengthways, 1 cm thick
• 500g button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra for brushing vegetables

Bechamel Sauce

• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 30g butter
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup grated tasty cheese
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• Freshly ground nutmeg to taste
• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Brush bottom of a 30cm x 30cm (approx) deep baking dish with olive oil and arrange potato slices in one layer over the oil. Brush top of potatoes with more oil and place dish on lower rack in oven.
3. Lay eggplants over an oiled baking tray, brushing slices liberally with olive oil, and place tray on upper rack in oven.
4. Place 1/4 cup of olive oil and onions in a medium-sized saucepan and fry over medium to high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.
5. Add mushrooms to saucepan and fry, stirring, until liquid is released from mushrooms. Keep frying until all liquid except the oil has evaporated.
6. Add red wine and stir for 2 minutes, still over medium to high heat.
7. Add spices, oregano and bay leaves and cook for another minute or so.
8. Add chopped tomatoes and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer for one hour, or until sauce has thickened and reduced by around half.
9. When eggplant is lightly golden (around 30 minutes), remove from oven and allow to cool enough to remove eggplant from tray and set aside.
10. Re-oil the baking tray and lay zucchini slices on tray. Brush with oil and place back in oven.
11. Remove dish with potatoes from oven once potatoes are lightly golden (around 40 minutes).
12. Spread a small amount of mushroom/tomato sauce over potatoes and arrange eggplants over the sauce.
13. Pour the remaining mushroom/tomato sauce over eggplants and spread evenly.
14. Meanwhile make the béchamel sauce (see below).
15. Once zucchini are lightly golden (around 20 minutes), remove from oven and when cool enough to touch, add to dish, laying over mushroom/tomato sauce. 
16. Pour béchamel sauce over the top of the zucchinis and bake in oven for 45 minutes, until the top is golden.

Bechamel Sauce

1. Melt butter over medium heat in a medium-sized saucepan. 
2. Add flour and stir vigorously to make a soft paste. Cook, stirring, over medium heat for one minute. 
3. Remove from heat and add a small amount of milk and using a whisk, stir quickly to combine. The butter will cool and harden as the milk is added so you need to work quickly, adding more and more milk, a little at a time, whisking all the time to keep the consistency of the sauce smooth. 
4. Once all milk is incorporated, return saucepan to medium heat and stir constantly until sauce thickens – around 10 minutes. 
5. Remove from heat and add grated cheese, nutmeg, salt and egg and whisk until smooth. Cover béchamel sauce and set aside until needed.

Limnos then and now – Part I

My first visit to Limnos was as a young teenager back in 1983. I was travelling with my Dad and younger sister on a month-long adventure driving across Greece, covering much of the country from the gorgeous Ionian Sea island of Corfu to the picturesque mainland region of Ioannina, over the mountains of Metsovo and Meteora, then winding up the final week of our trip in Limnos.

The old family house was only a shell of what it is today, and the island itself was more than a little rough around the edges, having never been preened for tourism and bearing the brunt of various earthquakes over the years. Limnos was (and to those who don't have a family-roots bias, still is) a far cry from the idyllic white-washed image people have of the Greek islands, but as a first-time traveller I was eager to explore the island where my grandmother was born and where other relatives were still living.

Armed with an instamatic camera, I used an entire roll of film in Limnos (a massive 24 photos), 14 of which were of decent enough quality to put into a photo album. (Take note young things: an Instamatic was a Kodak point-and-shoot camera, popular in the 70s and 80s, the name of which, and quality of images that it produced, arguably providing the main inspiration for Instagram.)

Before we left to come to Limnos this year, I digitised these 14 photos from 1983 (using the high-tech method of taking photos of the photos!) in preparation for a project that I'm currently working on: to find the exact locations depicted in the original images, and photograph them as they are today.

As you might have noticed, I've been very bad at keeping the momentum going with this blog, even while here in Limnos with all the inspiration a Greek island has to offer, but with only 16 days left here in Limnos I am determined to at least complete the 'Limnos then and now' project before we leave. It's a bit self-indulgent, I know, but I hope it might also be of interest to others, especially those that know Limnos, to see how things have (or haven't) changed here. And don't worry, I have also been busily documenting some of Koula's cooking sessions in the kitchen here at the house and will be posting those recipes soon.

So back to the project: so far I've located and photographed 8 of the 14 shots. Some have been easy, others are proving to be a lot harder to locate! But the most challenging photo that I am yet to take will be a shot of my dad in the back terrace of the house sitting at a table with his uncle and another old friend. As the uncle and friend have unfortunately since passed, Tony and my dad's brother George will step in to complete the trio, however, the challenging part of this shot will be recreating the scene itself.

I believe the furniture and other props in the shot still exist somewhere here in this large rambling house of ours, so over the next few days Julia and I will be on a mission to find and gather the necessary elements to reconstruct the scene, 31 years after the fact :).

In the meantime, here are two of the 'then and now' pairs of photographs that I've taken so far. They were both taken in the main town of Myrina, during siesta time when all is quiet down the main street.

The first pair of shots begins with an old building suffering a severe lean, seemingly destined for a life in ruin, but now has thankfully been 'pushed back' and patched up to live on its days in the new millennium.

And in the following pics, the kiosk has long been gone but 31 years later the plane tree still grows, its trunk perhaps twice the thickness of its former self. Perhaps more importantly though are the fine examples of 80s fashion depicted in the first pic, most notably the shorts on the guy with the pram.

Part II of the 'Limnos then and now' series can be found here.

Tomorrow Tony and I will be preparing the family lunch and plan to include vegetarian moussaka on the menu so I'll be sure to write that one up for the blog in the next few days. Koula will also be helping with preparations and has promised to make a batch of her sticky sweet baklava rolls that I have featured previously on the blog here. Until then, keep an eye on Facebook for random photos from Limnos and I'll do my best to drag myself away from the glorious sunshine here to write again soon.

A Greek Summer Holiday and a Recipe for Kolokithokeftethes (Zucchini and Feta Fritters)

I think I may upset a few people if I tell you exactly where I am right now, but I really don't think I can keep this to myself. I kid you not when I say I am sitting outside at a taverna on a Greek island, right on the beach, and I mean literally on the sand. The sun has just gone down over the flat sea horizon, the clear sky tinted pink and mauve as the waxing crescent moon makes an appearance. The air is warm, the cicadas are in full song, people are chatting in Greek about the good times they had today, and in the background a young musician is gently playing classical guitar while I sit here using free wifi on my little laptop.

We are at Manos Beach Bar on the island of Limnos. This is the island where my father's mother was born, the place where generations of my family have spent their summer holidays for over one hundred years. Our family house still stands tall on a cobble-stoned road five minutes from the beach, a house that my Dad and his wife Julia have been painstakingly renovating over the last ten years to ensure the preservation of the family holiday home.

My partner Tony and I have been coming here every year for the last four years to take a break from our busy lives and escape the bitter cold of Melbourne's winter, and while we treasure the days we have here each time we make the lengthy journey to Greece from Australia, this year our four weeks of bliss are being put to particularly good use after working ourselves to the bone for the last 11 months.

We've been here almost a week and are just now settling into our Limnian routine of waking early to roosters' crows, enjoying a morning coffee on our balcony then strolling down to the beach for a bit of sun and a swim.

Around midday we might walk into the town centre where the locals shop and families and friends meet for frappes and cakes, or we might take the motor scooter for a ride along the scenic coast.

By 2pm we've made our way back to the house for lunch out on the terrace with the family, sitting under the shade of the vine-laden pergola overlooking the Mediterranean garden.

Afterwards we retreat to our rooms for siesta, some of us sleeping, others reading or going out into the quiet streets to take photos of cats, and later as the island wakes up again we might take another walk down to the port to wind up the day with dinner at a seaside taverna or drinks at one of the many beach bars.

It's an idyllic lifestyle that my Dad and Julia enjoy for around 8 months every year. Over that time many of their friends and relatives visit the island and stay at the house. At the moment my Dad's brother George and his wife Koula are here and next week their son (my cousin) Nicholas will join us.

Of course one of the things we enjoy while we're here is cooking. The incentive to cook is always greater when there's more than just yourself to cook for, and with a family of six that's happy to enjoy Greek vegetarian cooking two days a week, it's an opportunity for me to let loose in the kitchen.

Today's lunch was a simple spread made up of a huge Greek salad and a batch of highly addictive Kolokithokeftethes (zucchini and feta fritters) served with a side dish of tzatziki for dipping.

Koula helped me with the fritters, adapting the recipe from a local Limnian cookbook, and guess what? I got to use authentic white zucchinis! (You can read about my childish obsession with white zucchinis here.)

So here we are in Limnos again, feeling totally zonked after the busy year we've had. We have another three and a half weeks here then a couple of days in Athens, and in that time I will try my best to muster up the energy to post a few recipes, taverna reviews, stories of our adventures and photos from this beautiful island. It won't be easy though, tearing myself away from the lure of the gorgeous beaches, the cold beers, and the lazy days on the terrace eating baklava and sipping on frappes!

Kolokithokeftethes (Zucchini and Feta Fritters)

Makes around 20 small fritters

Ingredients

• 6 small to medium zucchinis, grated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 400g feta cheese, grated
• Small handful of fresh mint, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup additional flour for dusting
• 1 litre of vegetable oil for deep frying

Instructions

1. Place grated zucchini and salt in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Squish and knead the zucchini for a few minutes to release all the juices.
3. Transfer zucchini to a large colander or strainer and squeeze in handfuls to remove the liquid, placing dry zucchini back in the bowl.
4. Add feta, mint, flour and egg and mix thoroughly with your hands.
5. Heat oil over high heat in a deep pan.
6. Prepare a plate with evenly-spread flour for dusting and drop dessert-spoon blobs of the zucchini-feta mixture onto the flour. Roll with your hands to form small patties or slightly flattened balls and place on a separate flour-dusted plate until ready to deep fry.
7. Carefully drop the patties in the hot oil and fry until golden.
8. Remove with a slotted spoon and place onto paper towels to drain.
9. Serve with fresh tzatziki.

Slow Roasted Fennel, Zucchini and Garlic Soup, oh and, hello again :)

It’s late. Really late. I think it might even be 1.30am or something. Living in Australia means living on the other side of the world to everyone else. And living on the other side of the world means live telecasts from the UK or US can only be seen here at ungodly hours of night.

I’m up waiting for Nick Kyrgios’ tennis match against Milos Raonic in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon 2014 (hurry up Djokovic – finish your match!). After a stunning win against Nadal last night, Nick Kyrgios has won the hearts of every Greek-Australian this week. And what timing! Just the thing we needed to soothe our sorry Greek souls after losing to Costa Rica in the World Cup on Sunday night!

You’d think I was some sort of sports fanatic, but I can assure you I only jump on that band wagon when someone Greek or Australian is involved, and with Nick being both Greek and Australian, I’m now doing crazy things like staying up all night to watch him play.

But I’m no stranger to staying up until ridiculous hours of the night to watch something on TV. I obsess over British home renovation shows like Homes Under the Hammer and Escape to the Country, no matter what time of the night they get screened here, and just when I think the ABC’s iconic music video show “Rage” has played the last good song of the night, yet another set of brilliant clips from the archives that I’ve never seen before assures my red-eye television viewing (and/or crazy dancing in my lounge room) continues until well beyond the wee hours of the morning.

So while I sit here waiting as the Djokovic/Cilic match lingers in the third set, I really have no excuse not to write another post for this sadly neglected blog.

Since Melbourne has been hit with some hideously cold weather of late, I’ve been partial to a bit of soup making. I’ve got the recipes, I’ve taken the photos, now all I have to do is upload it all and hope that no-one notices I haven’t been around for a while... So let’s just skip that bit and launch straight into a gorgeous recipe for a beautiful winter soup that also makes for a relaxing Saturday of pottering around in the kitchen.

Two of my favourite vegetables, fennel and zucchini, are slow roasted for 3 hours then blended down to a deeply flavoured soup that is packed with antioxidants and loaded with vitamin C.

Known as the big heroes in Greek cooking, fennel and zucchini caramelise and sweeten beautifully in the oven, developing so much flavour there’s no need to add stock to this soup. Just water!

Slow Roasted Fennel, Zucchini and Garlic Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large fennel bulb, cut into 8 wedges
• 2 large zucchinis, sliced to 1cm rounds
• 6 cloves of garlic, whole in skin
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground fennel seeds
• 2–3 cups of water
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Small handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 140 degrees celsius.
2. Place oil, chopped fennel and zucchini in a baking dish.
3. Toss vegetables in oil until well coated, place in oven and walk away.
4. After one hour, take dish out and turn the very lightly golden vegetables over.
5. Add whole garlic cloves to the dish, still in their skin. I made the mistake of adding the garlic at the beginning of roasting time and they ended up shrivelling to almost nothing after three hours. Two hours should be enough.
6. Place dish back in the oven and bake for another hour at 140 degrees celsius.
7. The vegetables should now be a medium golden colour.
8. Turn the vegetables one more time and place back in the oven for one more hour.
9. The vegetables should now be a rich golden colour.
10. Squeeze the flesh out of the garlic shells, add to vegetables and discard shells.
11. Empty the vegetables into a medium saucepan, add 2 cups of water and 1/4 teaspoon ground fennel seeds and simmer over medium heat for five minutes until liquid turns golden brown.
12. Transfer to a food processor and blend until smooth, adding up to one extra cup of water until the soup reaches the desired consistency. I used a stick blender to blend the vegetables but this wasn't strong enough to pulverise the fennel so I was left with some stringy bits. I don't mind a bit of fibrous chew in my soup but if you prefer yours smooth, a high-powered blender or food processor should do the trick.
13. Add salt and pepper to taste.
14. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley and a swirl of fresh cream. A small sprinkling of sunflower seeds also adds to the visual appeal!

Well that was weird. Writing a post for a blog that I declared I was no longer in love with. It's like sleeping with an ex. Not that I've ever done that. Eww, I could never do that. But this is different. There's still a glimmer of hope here, I can feel it. Even if the followers of this blog are now whittled down to just a few close friends and family (if that!), I will always have days (or late-night opportunities!) when I want to post a recipe or some holiday photos, stories of the old country or just say hi. And if someone wants to say hi back, I'd be thrilled. I do have a few more soup recipes that I'd like to share in the coming weeks, and Tony and I are heading off to Greece again at the end of this month so with less work and more time to play, I hope to inject a little much-needed love back into the Greek Vegetarian blog.

I've fallen out of love with my blog, but can we still be friends?

Dear readers. I wonder how many of you still exist.

I am so sorry for my extended absence. I honestly feel quite supremely terrible for abandoning this blog without any explanation. Even knowing that my blog is just one of millions that fade away every day, I still feel I owe an apology to the empty space out there for dropping off the grid.

I can't believe it's only been a year since I started this blog – it feels like a hundred years (and at least ten years since my last post). It may seem like eons ago, but I still remember how insanely ecstatic I was about creating a new space to share my exploration of Greek vegetarian cooking. The blog gave me a real purpose and enormous enjoyment cooking, photographing and writing about every recipe. It was also really nice to tell you some of the stories about my Greek background, and my connection and love for the island of Limnos.

I’ve truly been amazed by the support both the blog and Facebook page have received – it’s wonderful to know so many people around the world love not only Greek food, but Greek Vegetarian food.

But in recent months, for a variety of reasons, my desire to blog has waned. To be quite honest, I’m actually not very good at blogging. I like to cook but I’m definitely no chef, so it takes me half the day to prepare a dish. I’m an okay photographer but I’m very slow at that too – it takes me another half day to style the shot, photograph and edit the images.

However the one thing I really struggle with, is writing. I love to write, but it can take me FOR EVER to write and edit a post for the blog. And my posts are by no means perfect. I am such a slow writer you could read War and Peace in the time it takes me to write my opening paragraph.

Needless to say, putting a post together for this blog is always an epic task for me.

But I didn’t mind at first. I had all the time in the world when I first started this blog – I’d just lost my full-time job and was itching for something to do to fill my days while I looked for work. My time was completely consumed with blogging and reading other people’s blogs. Every minute of every day I was obsessed with the world of blogging.

Being a vegetarian and living with a guy who’s not is hard enough, but when Tony made the radical but necessary decision (for health reasons) to go on a life-long low-carb diet a year ago, it didn’t give us much choice but to fend for ourselves when it came to meal times.

Our eating choices are so polarised you’d think we were from different planets. As you can imagine, motivation levels to cook and eat together are pretty low, which is a real shame as cooking together was something we both really enjoyed in the past.

So with no one to cook for but myself and the blog, I didn't really have any compelling reasons to get experimental in the kitchen. Spending half a day cooking something that I wouldn't normally cook for myself wasn't doing it for me anymore. And to be honest, the meals I do usually cook for myself really aren’t all that blog-worthy.

And then work got out of control.

When word got around that I was looking for freelance work I started getting a few jobs here and there, but before too long, a few jobs exploded into full-time work again. Even while we were on holiday in Greece last year I had work coming out of my ears which was great, but left me without much leisure time and eventually no time at all to spend on a blog that I was already falling out of love with.

But this is not good bye.

The passion for my blog may have subsided but there’ll always be a flame in my heart for cooking, photography and everything Greek. I know that at some stage my work will lessen and there will be days when I’ll be wanting to come back to the blog with my tail between my legs. I'm sure that flame will reignite from time to time and I’ll be burning to write another post for the blog. Even if there’s no one left to read my posts, it’s nice to know the blog will always be here waiting for me to come back to it one day.

So the Greek Vegetarian blog isn't going anywhere, it’s just that I won’t be updating it all that often. The recipes will always be here, as will the photos and stories of Limnos. And I truly hope that there is enough content here that will still be of interest to anyone that might come across these pages.

I don't know when I'll be back. I might try for a Greek Easter post since I completely neglected to cover that monumental event last year. Or perhaps I'll rope Tony into doing Meat Free Week again and write about that. But until then, I just want to thank you all for reading my posts and especially for all your wonderful comments.

This is not good bye – it is only "Ta leme argotera".

In the meantime, I hope we can still be friends :)

Lisa xxx

Easy Greek feast ideas for your vegetarian friends and a recipe for Stewed Apricots with Honeyed Greek Yoghurt and Pistachios

I was half way through procrastinating about my next post for the blog when I received an email from a reader in the UK seeking some advice and recipe ideas for a Greek dinner party he’s planning for some of his vegetarian friends this week.

That I receive any blog-related emails at all these days is nothing short of miraculous given my new-found tendency to neglect the blog for weeks on end, but to have someone on the other side of the world turn to me for advice to help them put together a three-course meal for 8 people is, to put it mildly, simply monumental.

For that reason, I’ve decided to write an entire post inspired by that email from Matthew in Manchester.

Preparing a Greek vegetarian feast for a group of friends need not be a daunting task. It should be fun to cook for our favourite people, not stressful. All it takes is a bit of planning and preparation.

Most of the dishes mentioned below can be made ahead of time allowing you to enjoy the meal with your mates without spending too much time in the kitchen on the night.

It also helps to write up a schedule of everything that needs to be done on the day. I usually draw up a simple columned list with time prompters on the left and tasks on the right. For example:

3:00pm ... Grocery shopping. Home by 4:00pm.
4:30pm ... Prepare undressed salad, cover and place in fridge.
5:00pm ... Make Spanakopita and keep on bench ready to place in oven.
6:00pm ... Prepare honeyed yoghurt and chopped pistachios.
6:15pm ... Make tzatziki and salad dressing.
6:45pm ... Set table and place tzatziki, bread, dukkah and olive oil on table.
7:00pm ... Guests arrive.
7:20pm ... Preheat oven.
7:30pm ... Put Spanakopita in oven. Set timer for 45 minutes.
8:15pm ... Take salad out of fridge and dress, and serve Spanakopita.
9:00pm ... Take stewed apricots out of fridge and place over low heat on stove. Set timer for 5 minutes.
9:15pm ... Assemble stewed apricot dishes and serve.

There are lots of Greek starters and sweets that can be bought ready-made from good quality Greek delis and cake shops. It's not really cheating if you at least arrange the items artistically on platters and garnish appropriately (I do this a lot!) – a sprinkling of fresh parsley or dusting of icing sugar goes a long way.

Anything from dips and pickled vegetables, to baklava and Turkish delight can be store bought, but keep in mind some starters and sweets are so easy to make yourself it might even be quicker than taking a trip down to the shops!

As for main dishes, they are much better home-made. While you may be able to buy frozen spanakopita from the supermarket, it won't taste anywhere near as good (or look as impressive) as a spinach and cheese pie you made yourself.

Below are some suggestions for easy, stress-free vegetarian Greek feast ideas with recipe links in blue, and at the end I’ve included a new recipe for Stewed Apricots with Honeyed Greek Yoghurt and Pistachios.

For starters, impress your guests with home-made tzatziki and dukkah served with gorgeous crusty bread and a bowl of extra virgin olive oil for dipping. Dukkah can be made up to one month in advance (stored in the fridge in an air-tight container) and tzatziki one day ahead. Just give it a stir if liquid has formed on top overnight.

You could prepare a platter of dips with two or three heaped tablespoons each of hummus, roasted eggplant and walnut dip and Kalamata olive dip, or any of your favourite store-bought Greek dips. Decorate the platter with cubes of marinated feta, olives and semi-sundried tomatoes. Make the dips yourself or buy everything from a good Greek deli or even the supermarket.

A more simple starter dish can be made using canned dolmathes (rice-stuffed vine leaves imported from Greece) served warm with tomato sauce. Carefully empty the contents of the can into a saucepan along with around half a cup of home-made (or jarred) tomato passata and heat slowly with the lid on until warmed through. These are brilliant served with crumbled feta and freshly chopped parsley sprinkled over the top.

The entire meal can even be made up of a selection of starters all on separate plates that everyone can pick and nibble at throughout the night. You could include everything mentioned above, as well as a green bean, tomato and feta salad, some crispy roast pumpkin and feta filo triangles, tasty lentil keftethes or succulent tomato fritters.

If you want to prepare a traditional main dish, Spanakopita (spinach and cheese pie) is an old favourite. Alternatively, a baked vegetable dish like Briam is perfect to just throw into the oven and forget about until cooked. But if you have a little more time, Vegetarian Moussaka or Pastitsio with Broccoli are wonderful show stoppers.

Sticky Greek sweets like Baklava (honey and walnut pastries), Galaktoboureko (semolina custard pie) or Melomacarona (honeyed cookies) are delectable morsels to finish off a Greek feast. These can be difficult to make but very easy to buy at Greek cake shops. Just make sure you buy them on the day of your dinner party.

If you’d like to try your hand at some simple Greek pastry desserts, try Bougatsa (custard-filled pastry) or Lemon and Ricotta pastries. Bougatsa can be made up to three days in advance, kept in an air-tight container in the fridge and reheated on a baking tray at 180 degrees celsius for 5 minutes before serving.

For a really easy and much lighter little Greek dessert to conclude the evening’s feasting, you might want to make these delicious Stewed Apricots with Honeyed Greek Yoghurt and Pistachios.

Stewed Apricots with Honeyed Greek Yoghurt and Pistachios

Serves 8

Note: The apricots can be stewed a day ahead and reheated just before serving. Store in the fridge in the saucepan they were cooked in, with the lid on. Reheat over low heat with lid on, until just simmering.

Ingredients

• 1 cup castor sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 800g can of apricot halves in natural juice (no added sugar), strained
• 800g thick Greek yoghurt
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 120g pistachio nuts in their shells

Instructions

1. Place water, sugar and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and heat, stirring, until sugar has dissolved.
2. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes without stirring, before adding the apricots.
3. Add strained apricots to syrup, stir to incorporate then simmer for another 5 minutes without stirring. The apricots will become quite mushy after cooking – if you'd like to keep a few still-formed apricot halves for garnishing, set them aside without cooking and only add them to the stew in the last 30 seconds to warm them through.
4. Meanwhile, shell the pistachio nuts and chop finely. Set aside until needed.
5. Combine yoghurt with honey and vanilla essence in a medium bowl and mix well. Set aside until needed.
6. Remove apricots from heat and allow to cool a little. Remove and discard cinnamon stick.
7. Just before serving, spoon the yoghurt into serving bowls, then carefully place warm apricots with some of the syrup over the yoghurt, and sprinkle with chopped pistachio.

Bougatsa me Krema (Greek custard-filled pastry) and the liveliest street in Limnos

Yeah, I know. Almost three weeks since my last post. But you must forgive me! Why? Because I have bougatsa!! Trust me, bougatsa fixes everything. These little soul-soothing capsules of sweet Greekness filled with custard love and wrapped in paper-thin buttery crisp fillo pastry will make you forget that even a day has gone by since my last post. (Is it working yet?)

And thanks to a simple custard-making technique that my friend George Calombaris shares with us in his book Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart, bougatsa is one of the easiest Greek sweets to make. Thanks George :)

Growing up in a relatively non-Greek household meant that there were many Greek dishes and sweets that I didn’t become familiar with until I was an adult and started developing an interest in my Greek heritage.

On a mission with my dad back in 2004, we took a trip to the island of Limnos to assess the condition of an old family house that was in desperate need of some TLC, and it was on this trip that I discovered bougatsa and its "amazing healing powers".

More than 30 family members had shares in the house but none was prepared to contribute to the repair and maintenance of the collapsing building. Except my dad.

Passionate and committed, my dad took on the huge responsibility over the next nine years to acquire everyone’s shares and spend his life savings on fixing up the house.

Our visit to Limnos back in 2004 was just the beginning of this process and at the time involved a lot of emotional negotiation (and even permanent fall-outs) with greedy relatives. Added to this was a good five weeks of hard physical labour to clear out the mountains of squalor inside the house and the dense jungle of overgrowth and rubbish out in the garden.

Physically and emotionally taxing as this Greek island visit might have been, we were on a Greek island, and with any Greek island comes the reprieve of gorgeous weather, pristine beaches, and a joyous village atmosphere. When our hands and minds were at rest, it wasn’t difficult to turn our awareness to the relaxed and easy lifestyle that the Limnian locals embrace, and nothing assists that better than a morning tea break with frappes and bougatsa.

Taking a stroll down the main market promenade of Limnos known as the "Agora" can bring peace to any troubled mind, and when the work around the house got a bit much, it was a relief to be amongst the happy locals.

Every morning the Agora is alive with activity. Closed to cars, the one-kilometre Agora is the backbone of the island’s capital, Myrina, where people go about their daily shopping and banking, taking baby for a stroll, and catching up with friends.

Lined with an endless array of shops and speciality stores from artisan bakeries and designer boutiques, to vibrant fruit and vegetable markets and tacky souvenir shops, the Agora air is filled with the seductive aromas of freshly ground coffee beans, roasted nuts and sweet pastries.

Perfectly positioned half-way down the Agora is a leafy square where people take a break to catch up with friends for coffee and bougatsa. Under the shade of enormous plane trees the tables are always full at the popular Axni & Kanella (“icing & cinnamon”) cafe where they make the best bougatsa I've ever eaten.

Thought to have originated in Macedonia, it’s not surprising that bougatsa is now popular in the northern parts of Greece around Thesaloniki and the north Aegean islands such as Limnos and Lesvos.

There is also a savoury version of bougatsa that is filled with cheese, and another variety with minced meat. But it is the sweet custard bougatsa that brings a smile to my face, and the recipe for which I’ll be sharing with you today.

If (unlike me) you can master the art of making your own fillo pastry, your bougatsa will reach heavenly levels of melt-in-the-mouth delectability (see video below). Using commercial fillo pastry certainly doesn’t disappoint though. As long as your custard filling is smooth and creamy with just the right balance of sweetness, you can’t go wrong.

(Video filmed in Athens by Michi's Videos)

Bougatsa me Krema (Greek custard-filled pastry)

Recipe for custard filling adapted slightly from Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart by George Calombaris.

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons cornflour
• 4 tablespoons semolina
• 2/3 cup castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 650ml full-cream milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 16 sheets filo pastry
• 250g melted butter
• Icing sugar to dust
• Cinnamon to dust

Instructions

1. Place cornflour, semolina, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla essence in a large bowl and whisk until smooth. 
2. Transfer to a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until mixture thickens. Remove saucepan from heat and whisk custard to smooth out any lumps.
3. Place lid on saucepan and allow to cool.
4. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
5. Lay four buttered sheets of fillo pastry on top of each other, brushing between each layer with melted butter. 
6. Pour around half a cup of the custard mixture into the centre of the pastry.
7. Lift the corners of the pastry and fold over the custard to form a squarish parcel. Make sure the pastry is sufficiently folded over and the custard is sealed well within the pastry. See the video above to get a rough idea of how this is done (Note: Commercial fillo pastry isn't as pliable as the pastry in the video (and the sheets won't be as big) so you might want to go easy on the wrapping technique. Unless of course you've made your own fillo pastry.)
8. Repeat with the rest of the fillo pastry sheets to make four parcels.
9. Using a large spatula to lift the parcels, place them, sealed-side face down, on a baking tray lined with greased baking paper and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden.
10. Using a large, sharp knife, cut each parcel into small squares around 4cm x 4cm and dust with icing sugar and cinnamon.

Bougatsa can be kept in the fridge for around 3 days in an air-tight container, but must be reheated on an oven tray (preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for 5 minutes) before serving.