Lamb kofte with mint salad wraps and capers.

Well hello there, I shan't delay you with futher excuses or apologies for the delay in my updating the blog.

 Rather, I'll just go ahead and post the recipe for this little delight!

 The recipe is simple. I used the same mixture as with the Greek style gyros. For those who aren't bothered to go check that out (you should!), i'll post it here as well.

Ingredients (enough for 2 people, plus seconds)

• 1 kilo lamb minced meat
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cinammon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp parsley powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp oregano

Fry them in olive oil for 3-5 minutes on each side on medium-high heat. Cut into one to check if it's ready.

Fun fact
Kofte is a Middle Eastern dish. Each country has its own variation. It varies from Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and reaches as far as Morocco. There is not right or wrong way to kofte ( which also has different pronunciations according to the region). In Cyprus, kofte is usually fried, or at least that's how my grandmother makes it. When she doesn't fry it she usually puts it in the oven with tomato sauce and some potatoes, but we call it bifteki.

 Now because the kofte have quite a bit of garlic in them, we pair them with some tomatoes and some mint salad. Where is the salad you may ask? Well, we put a salad mixture (lettuce, alfa alfa sprouts, cucumber, carrots and parsley) in some rice wraps along with mint... Tada! Fresh spring rolls!

You should eat the kofte first and the salad last, because that's the best way to get rid of garlic breath! No one wants garlic breath; it's vile. The mint, parley and tomatoes are natural ways to get rid of garlic breath. They are odor fighters and because you swallow them and they go down the throat, they get rid of the remaining garlic that's left there. No toothbrush or mouthwash will ever reach down that far!

Last but not least, we added some capers to the dish. These particular capers were marinaded and very salty. So we just soaked them in water to drain some of the salt out.

In Cyprus, we use the baby shoots of the plant as well as the capers and the 'cucumbers' and we pickle it. The caper bush can be found nearly everywhere on the island and it is a very nice companion to the main meal. The only downside is the thorns, which you usually clean off before marinating, or else you hope they will have softened and wont injure your mouth (ouch!).

 Benefits of capers
Capers are so good for you. They offer such a big punch for something so little. They contain vitamins A,K, riboflavin and niacin, as well as antioxidants. They help in stomachaches and can help lower LD cholesterol due to the niacin. The antioxidants they contain are rutin and quercetin, which  have anti-bacterial, anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory properties.
And this isn't even all! Iron, copper and calcium are also in capers.

In short, they are a superfood. So eat them up and enjoy!

 Yum.. look how nice it looks inside! It's crispy on the outside while juicy and so flavorful on the inside!

Give it a try and let me know how you fared.

Until next time.

Haddock delight.

 This is really simple. Using the leftovers from yesterday's pork dish (aka wine sauce and potatoes and whatever else you may have), we added 4 small haddock fillets in our crock-pot along with some vegetables and tandoori powder. Let it cook for 4-6 hours, turn it on high until it warms up and then back to low.

For the rice, we cooked it (1.5 cups) separately while we lightly fried one red pepper, one yellow pepper and about 10 thin asparagus chopped up.

After frying the vegetables for a minute or two, we mixed 2 tablespoons of soysauce and 1 tablespoon unrefined, raw brown sugar and stirred it together. Add a few tablespoons of the rice into the soy sauce mixture and continue stir-frying until it gets covered well.

Add that soy sauce/rice mixture into the rest of the rice and mix.

That's it, you're done! Take a look at more photos. I hope you enjoyed this, give it a try and let me know what you think :)

Shrimp-Herring dish

I love smoked herring. It's been an accompanying piece whenever I eat beans, black-eyed peas etc. My favourite part is the egg sack/roe. But in this case the store only sells small (really small) sliced herring fillets. Since it's so salty, we put it together in a dish containing shrimp and veggies.

• 1 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 small slices of smoked herring
• Shrimp
• Frozen vegetables of your choice

We eyeballed the vegetables and shrimp. You can put however many you want that will suit your needs. In this case, it served two.

We thawed the vegetables as well as the herring and shrimp.

Place everything together in a cookware (drizzle the olive oil and soy sauce on top) and set in a preheated oven at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes. Just ten. We don't want all the nutrients to go away.

The result is a delicious, saucy meal that's been enriched by the aroma provided by the herring, which is hiding underneath the vegetables and shrimp. We placed 2 herring slices on each side of the dish.

Quich and easy, delicious and healthy!

Hope you like it :)

PS: There's a lot of sauce that will be left over in your cookware. Don't let it go to waste. I put it in along with the food and took some pita bread, tore it up and let it absorb the liquid. It was so good!