My Big Fat Greek Dinner

Saturday I worked in the store all day and had a sudden and instantaneous craving for some Greek food. Tzatziki, grape leaves, feta... I quickly hopped into Chowhound and was kinda disappointed in the recommendations I found on the boards. Nothing new or mind blowing. Greek Isles (close to me but expensive), Greek Corner (far from me but good), Steves (average but cheap), Cafe Jaffee (again cheap, but not as cheap as Steves and not quite as good even). I debated all day calling in a take out order over to Steve's and going after work to pick it up.

But as I ended my day, it started to look like rain and I didn't want to get take out food and have it and myself end up being soggy from getting stuck in a downpour. I had to go to the grocery store for ingredients for this month's DBC anyway so I stood in front of the "Greek" aisle of my ghetto Shaws and pondered what I should do. I grabbed some grape leaves, pine nuts and feta. On my way out, I passed by some pita bread and picked that up too, along with some tazaki. I had every intention of making my own yogurt cucumber sauce, but I got really lazy while shopping, plus I had a DBC to get started on that evening.

Once home, I cut up a pita, tossed the pieces in a cake pan with olive oil, Italian seasoning dried mix and a little sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Into the already prepared tzatziki, sauce, I added mint and a squeeze of lemon juice. I had leftover brown rice that I had made earlier in the week and rolled a few of the grape leaves I had purchased earlier around the rice. Once the pita chips were crispy, I topped them with feta, my juiced up tazaki and some pine nuts. On the side I placed my make-shift stuffed grape leaves.

I was pretty pleased with the results. Okay, okay so it wasn't exactly "Greek" food but it was certainly Greek inspired. My grape leave rolling technique definitely left a lot to be desired and I'd like to experiment in the future with actually making true Greek dolmas. But overall, it was a nice, quick easy meal and a fast way for me to ease my craving for Greek food.

Aha!

I'm sorry I've been a little MIA lately. It's not that I've given up eating, it's just that a lot of my meals have been had out of the house. And by the time I think, "you should really be taking a picture of this", I'm done with my food.

But I've made two very important to me food discoveries that I want to share.

1.) I have a long standing love of brown rice. It's filling and hearty and it makes me feel like I'm eating something that is kinda good for me but it's still a carb (yay). But I also have this long standing issue with cooking it. My rice is always hard or just bad. I follow the directions to the letter on the packages of rice and still it sucks. Sigh. I'm kinda embarrassed of my lack of rice expertise for a very silly reason too. I'm Korean and while I was raise by a white family that didn't eat a lot of rice at all, I still think it's suppose to be ingrained (heh) in me to be a rice cooking master.

So imagine my delight when reading Saveur this month and there is a recipe for cooking the perfect brown rice that starts with the following intro:

Cooking brown rice, or at least cooking it well, is tricky...Unfortuntely, the labels on most packaged brown rice recommend an ineffective method that suggests boiling water and rice in a two-one- ratio.

OMG YES!!! THIS IS TOTALLY MY ISSUE!!!!

Saveur goes on to say that the key is to boil like pasta and then finish it by steaming it off. I'm so excited. I'm going to try their method and I'll let you guys know how it all goes. This Korean's gonna have game when it comes to brown rice!!! You know it!!

2.) I adore veggies from Chinese restaurants. My favorites tend to be peapod stems or Chinese broccoli but I like my veggies in the simple garlic/sauted sort of preparation. I like oyster sauce but not on my veg. Anyway, I was having lunch at Mary Chung (love that place!) and I was thinking about how I wanted to be able to make veggies like this at home. I look on line for a recipe and after doing a little bit of research, I think I might have found a sorta similar recipe. It's from Elise's blog Simply Recipes and it calls for mustard greens but I have a feeling any green will work.

Mustard Greens Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup thinly sliced onions
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 pound mustard greens, washed and torn into large pieces
• 2 to 3 Tbsp chicken broth or vegetable broth (vegetarian option)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Method

1 In a large sauté pan, sauté onions in olive oil over medium heat until the onions begin to brown and caramelize, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook a minute more, until fragrant.

2 Add the mustard greens and broth and cook until the mustard greens are just barely wilted. Toss with sesame oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 4.

I'm excited to try it. I have some kale and green beans at home I've been waiting to eat so this might be a perfect recipe to try with them. Again, I'll let you know how it goes.