Indo-Greek Honey Pie

Now, late last year my family and I went to India... Now that the whole trip is just memories. photographs and some pretty awesome souvieners the whole experience seems a little surreal...

Anywho - while I was there it was my Birthday - and I wanted to have a dessert day with all my favourite things... Which, in hindsight is not the greatest idea when you're in a country with amazing local cuisine, but that  you're totally unfamiliar with and doesn't cater too well to adapting western recipes... Hey, hindsight is 20/20...

As testimony to that, I have previously mentioned the Red Velvet Frisbee... We won't go there... On the plus side, I also got out of my dessert day Birthday the amazing Rose Falooda which  is basically one of the yummiest drinks ever and was introduced to me by our host/hostess Geoff and Joanna - Hi! Geoff and Joanna!!! :) Thank-you for having me! Right. Now. Back to point.

Pictured above is my third dessert, and second successful one of the day. I first made this Greek Honey Pie, or melopita last year for a pot luck dinner with my family in my flat - It. Is. AMAZING! I want for it to become my "signature pie"! The recipe, of course, comes from about.com! Naturally, I wanted to make my "signature" pie for my Brthday dessert... Enter: Problem. Ricotta, in India (or at least in Goa) is expensive. Enter: Daddy. Who suggested that I use the Indian cheese paneer, which is readily available, cheap and of a similarish texture...GENIUS! (Hi! Daddy!!!)

This pie is amazing whether you make it with ricotta, paneer or cottage cheese (the student's ricotta)... I haven't really changed the original recipe much, so I'm only going to link y'all to it - because credit where credit's due, and all that - also I think the original blogger gets points every time someone goes to her page, and that's important too.

But I did make two other changes besides the cheese swap. And those are/were to halve the amount of sugar and to use all alcohol in the pastry instead of water as I do...

Aaand that's it!

Yummy! Try it. You know you want to.

Greek: Cheat

Back to online shopping fiascos... This one week I'd orderd a half kilo of pork steak so that I could make beautiful souvlaki for my flatmates... But they only showed up with 200 grams! Gah! Luckily I had a little pork schnitzel left over... Enter:

 Greek Marinated "Stir-Fry" on Cheat's "Greek Spinach Rice"...

Complete with Lemon Pip...

The original recipe comes from AboutFood.com - a brilliant website, everyone should have it bookmarked! And the rice recipe is inspired by a book we have at home, but this particular Cheat is all me!

Recipes follow the jump...

Spanokopita - Kat's FAVOURITE!!!

OM NOM NOM!!! Spinach is my favourite food! This recipe is not a traditional Greek recipe, as it uses Savoury Short Crust pastry instead of the more difficult, traditional Filo (Phyllo) pastry... Furthermore this time 'round I was short on Feta - so I've added a little salted cottage cheese to make it go further! Note the reference to salted cottage cheese - I once tried to make Spanokopita with cottage cheese and no added salt, it was BLAND! I think that, in theory, cottage cheese should work as a Feta substitute



Clockwise from top left: steamed spinach and asparagus, last night's left over veggies (not shown: aioli for veggies), dinner plate soon to be filled, classy Spanokopita with a bow tie, tzatziki - Greek, garlic and cucumber yoghurt sauce...

The recipe for Kat-Esque Spanokopita follows the jump...

Saturday Roast...

OM NOM NOM... Roasted anything is among my flat mate's favourite food!

This is my Greek-Style Roast Chicken! I sorta developed the recipe myself - using Greek-ish flavours... :) Lemon, oregano, olive oil and salt!

Before Carving!

After cooking, and eating... You can boil up the carcass to make stock. I didn't to that this time, because I'm (hopefully) moving out soon...

I cook the chicken in water to keep it moist, and then the gravy is easy!

Recipe after the jump...