Let me first just say that I don't like cooking. It's just so daily. And involved. You have to plan a menu, go shopping, cook, and clean it all up. Every day.
That said, I do it, because my family needs to eat. If it were just me, I'd probably have a bowl of popcorn for dinner every night.
As we are studying, though, part of my subtle schooling is cooking. We are studying ancient Greece now. So I've been cooking Greek food. Not much. We had meatballs and stuffed tomatoes and some kind of vegetable bean soup and Greek salad. Today I'm cooking scrambled eggs with fried tomatoes. Sometimes Mi'ita helps me, sometimes not. I try to get her to, but I pick my battles.
With the food, though, comes other lessons. This scrambled egg dish is cooked commonly during their Lent days, so we'll be discussing the evolution of Greek religion from the Greek gods to Christianity and what Lent is. The bean soup was a dish that they cooked back in ancient Greece, and was simple and cheap enough that the common folk probably ate a bunch of it. Olive oil and olives are a big part of their diet, and with that comes some knowledge of the climate in Greece and what grows well there. Sometimes I can remember the Greek names of these dishes and tease a little Greek out of it.
These are things that they couldn't do in school--cooking and talking religion.
Recipes, please! :)
ReplyDeleteGreek Bean Soup
ReplyDeletehttp://greekfood.about.com/b/2006/04/12/fassolatha-the-best-greek-bean-soup.htm
Greek meatballs
ReplyDeletehttp://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2005/11/greek-meatballs.html
Stuffed tomatoes
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1950,144163-240195,00.html
Avga Me Rize (scrambled eggs with rice)
ReplyDelete4 large firm tomatoes
salt, pepper, sugar
1/2 cup cracker crumbs
1/2 cup veg. oil
4 tbsp butter
2 large onions, grated
8 eggs
1/2 cup cooked rice
Cut tomatoes into thick slices, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar. Coat with cracker crumbs. Heat oil and fry until brown on both sides. Crain on paper towels.
Melt butter and saute onions. Beat eggs, add salt and pepper, rice. Add to onions and cook over low flame.
Mound eggs in center of dish, encircle with tomatoes.