my sister's sensational spanakorizo

Last night I made a very simple yet lovely (and healthy) spinach rice recipe (spanakorizo as we call it). I used risotto rice instead of your Uncle Ben's long grain white rice that most Greek-American's use. Just a preference. Here's my sister's recipe. I also like to add in the beginning with the onion some chopped celery. And I prefer without a doubt the fresh spinach.

If I have baby spinach, I'm lazy and I don't even bother to chop it. Still comes out wonderfully delicious and the texture is great (my mother will roll her eyes if she hears this). Crumble some feta cheese on top. Gorgeous!

1/4 cup of olive oil
can of tomato sauce, 8oz.
pack of frozen chopped spinach (1 lb. of fresh spinach)
1 large white onion, chopped
1 cup of rice
1 1/2 cups of water
salt & pepper to taste

Chop, wash, drain spinach & set aside. Then, put chopped onion with oil in medium size pot & sauté it until golden brown. Add tomato sauce & cook for a couple of minutes then add water & bring to boil. Then put in the fresh spinach (or frozen spinach -which ever your choose) & cook until it wilts. Put in the rice a touch of salt & pepper. Mix...cover....lower heat....medium is ok...as long as you check it from time to time. Add more water if rice is not tender enough or if it's getting stuck to your pot. This should take about half an hour.

like the Greeks, the Israelis and Palestinians do everything over food

The awesome Arianna Huffington just posted about her final day in Israel, where she's been visiting over the past week and discussing on her blog the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Peace, peace...in the Middle East.

a little bird told me that I was in a Greek newspaper

I got a bunch of emails from the Motherland yesterday from friends and family telling me Kathimerini printed the piece on our show. I had the privilege of spending two days in the gorgeous island of Kea with Vassiliki Kerasta and her photographer Pavlos Fysakis who joined our team during our shooting. Lovely folk.

Anyway, back to thesis work. Dinner tonight is a rainbow trout with herb butter baked in the oven (super cheap, from Waitrose), coupled with a very simple and delicious salad.

Black-eyed pea salad

1 cup of cooked black-eyed peas

2 handfuls of washed baby spinach

2 cooked beet-roots

1/2 cucumber, chopped coarsely

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsps balsamico (I'm running out of the good stuff, darn)

2 tbsps of extra virgin olive oil (where else is my new bottle from but from Kalamata)

Mix all the ingredients, and dress with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Add a little fine sea salt. Work with your bare hand the dressing into the ingredients......freaking delicious!

kokoras krasatos

Coq au vin. They say it's French, but we also make our version in the land of Greece. I made it last week, albeit I used chicken instead of rooster since I couldn't find any at the market.

Recipe will be coming to y'all soon. One thing I have to say. F******* amazing. Also I want to give a shout-out to my friend Nathan who just got his PhD, officially a doctor now. And also, to my lovely friend Denise for having graduated on Friday along with the rest of our mates. Kai sta dika mas.

y-a-l-e, go yale, go

There's a reason why I love Yale so much. They are thinking of developing a course, interdisciplinary, in food. Maybe after the financial meltdown.

I'm really impressed with the work of the Yale Sustainable Food Project.

lentil soup (with a little bit of porcini mushrooms, feta, and thyme)

Off to bed. As if I'm going to post the recipe now for the lentil soup I made today. I want to but I can barely keep my eyes up. I know. I have had so much work today that I am finally getting to this thing called a blog to which supposedly I'm supposed committed. Apologies to all you lovely folks who read up. Have just been knackered from my great trip. However, one thing I have to say - you all should really look into submitting a paper at the 2010 Oxford Symposium. I attended this weekend, and I can say it was one of the most inspiring conferences I have ever been on.

And shaking the hand of the legendary Raymond Blanc was an experience in itself. He's a superbly lovely man. I'm also after this weekend a huge fan of world-renowned food writer Geraldene Holt.