Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

Most people would use a bell pepper for this recipe, but not my Mom.  These long red peppers are a big part of my Macedonian heritage.  My parents grew up in two different villages within Florina (Northern Greece), where sweet pimiento peppers are a big part of this region's agriculture.

It's amazing how many meals Mom could make from these red peppers.  My favourite being stuffed peppers.  I loved the aroma coming from the kitchen as they'd bake in the oven.

When eating these peppers today, my younger daughter chooses to remove the peppers and eat the stuffing only.  She says she loves the pepper flavour infused into the stuffing, but does not like the taste of the baked pepper itself.

In the meantime, my older daughter removes the stems and skin and slices the pepper in half, lengthwise. Then she crumbles feta cheese overtop.

My husband, on the other hand, likes to butcher these stuffed peppers.  He discards the stems, removes the skin, cuts the stuffed  pepper into pieces and mixes everything together on his plate.  Give him a glass of red wine to accompany this meal and he's content to no end!

Pasta Sauce

Pasta Sauce

Pasta is always a favourite in our home and my famous meat sauce is one that everyone seams to love.  I'm often asked for this recipe and have therefore documented my original version below.

Over the years of making this sauce, I've been known to cut back or add an ingredient to give this sauce a different flavour.  The possibilities are endless!  Some family members enjoy their pasta saucy and others like just a little sauce as illustrated, but the one thing that everyone loves is a handful of grated Swiss Emmenthal Cheese sprinkled all over.  

Try sprinkling some fresh chillies overtop to give this dish a bite.

Beef Burgers

Home Burgers

Homemade burgers can be made with any type of ground meat.

The secret to a moist burger is the addition of an onion.  The finer the onion is chopped, the better the texture, flavour and moistness. Unfortunately, the knife I used in the illustration was dull and therefore, my onions were not fine enough and the burgers weren't very moist.

In this recipe, I substituted an egg with ketchup.  This works well as a binder, especially if you have someone in your family with an egg allergy.

You can substitute the seasonings I used with your own personal preference or add some chilli peppers to the mixture to give it a bite.  Be creative and put a piece of Feta cheese in the middle while shaping into meatballs.  (Cheddar cheese works too).

These burgers can be baked in the oven on a cookie sheet at 350F for approximately 30 minutes, or fried, or grilled on the barbecue.

Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage Rolls

There are so many different ways to prepare the filling for your cabbage rolls.  Do you prefer pre-cooking the ground meat and rice prior to filling?   If yes, be careful not to overcook the meat.  There isn't a right or a wrong.  It's a matter of personal preference.  

No matter which method you choose, just be sure to remove the vein from the centre of each leaf before forming a roll.  The first time I made them, I had not performed this step and boy oh boy were those cabbage rolls ever tough to eat.

A quick tip is to freeze the cabbage as a whole and then pull apart the leaves as it defrosts.  I was amazed to see this really works.  No need to boil.  Just be sure to remove those centre veins.

Stuffed Zucchini with Lemon and Egg Dressing

Stuffed Zucchini with Lemon  & Egg Dressing

This zucchini recipe is another that I learned from my Mom.  It's the Macedonian twist on a Greek recipe, It's my understanding the Spartans have a similar recipe they bake in the oven, however, this recipe is cooked in a casserole on the stove top.

The egg and lemon sauce is a classic in Greek homes and added to a variety of recipes.  Its purpose in this recipe is to take away the bitterness from the zucchinis, resulting in a scrumptious flavour for you to enjoy.

This stuffed zucchini recipe will feed a lot of mouths, so once again, this meal can be frozen as long as the ground meat is fresh and has never been in the freezer.  It also makes for great leftovers the next day.

Anyone with a vegetable garden that includes zucchinis, will also experience the great amount of vegetables that come from one plant.  Do you end up giving them away to family and friends?  Heres a solution:  You can always clean out the centres (seeds) and freeze as a whole and use them with this recipe throughout the winter.

Note:  zucchinis cannot be thawed and then refrozen.

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie

As a teenager in Toronto, I used to babysit a little French girl from Montreal.  Zoe loved Shepherd's Pie so much that her mother always made it for us on babysitting nights. This was a meal that Zoe and I enjoyed together ever so much.  Zoe insisted that we eat it with red pickled beets on the side.  This little 5 year old knew what she was talking about!

I never thought to ask her mother for the recipe and wish I had so that I could make the same meal for my 2 little girls.  Nevertheless, this didn't stop me.  Based on remembering the basic ingredients of ground beef, corn, and mashed potatoes, I put together a recipe of my own that's become a classic in our home today.

If there's a hunter in your family, try replacing the ground beef with ground deer.  It's so tasty!

This recipe is very simple and can be frozen in a sealable glass container and reheated at a later date.  I always used to make two and freeze one that I could pull out of the freezer after a day with my family on the ski slopes.