Pasta with Tzatziki dressing

A little twist to the world famous tzatziki salad, which i just looooove when i go on vacation do Greece. Its a simple, savory and really healthy fast to make salad that the greek people use on almost anything, whether its a dip for crisps, a side dish that goes with every kind of fish or just to add a little freshness to the Gyro ( a kind of tortilla like dish), which i will capture in the next blog on
The Savory Place.
First of all i would like to point out that i am momentarily on my vacation in Greece and that`s why i had the idea to combine the famous Tzatziki salad with some homemade pasta for today`s savory recipe. We are in the little shore village of Parga that`s about 2 hours drive and 2 hours ferry ride from the beautiful island of Corfu.
Greek-style tzatziki sauce is served with allmost evertyhing  or may be served as a mezze alongside other mezzes, dishes and ouzo. Tzatziki is made of strained yogurt (usually from sheep or goat milk) mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, and sometimes lemon juice, and dill or mint or parsley.
That`s the whole gist of it :D
But ill be doing it with some homemade pasta as i said, an not everyday use of this beautiful and healthy salad.
I`m not going to get in with the whole making of the pasta (that will be another post) but concentrate on the tzatziki dressing.

Ingridients:

1. 400 ml solid Greek yogurt
2. 3 Cucumbers
3. 2 tablespoons of olive oil
4. half a lemon
5. Salt and pepper by taste
6. Little dill to give it a nice kick

And that`s all there is to it :D
Chill the Tzatziki in the fridge for half an hour while boiling the Pappardelle ( a kind of sting pasta ) , which is one of my most beloved kinds of pasta.
After you extract the water from the pasta thru a strainer, throw a piece of butter ( 50 grams) in the same pan the pasta was boiling and return the Pappardelle mixing it with the melted butter.
Add a few spoons of the tzatziki dressing in a before prepared bowl of pasta, throw a bit of olive oil and some dill.
The next time you go to Greece, sit in a little tavern while having Ouzo and some tzatziki, let your thoughts fly to the masters that perfected this easy recipe , close your eyes and enjoy the taste of the Mediterranean.

Malidzano- A summer eggplant delight

We in our country usually spend our summers at home or nearby lake Ohrid which is about 120 miles from the capital of Macedonia-Skopje and in those hot summer days no one likes to over eat a lot of
carbs or foods that consist of fats and sugars.

Thats why the great and ingenious peoples
 of the Balkan peninsula have invented a hand full of summer spreads usually consisting of bell peppers, eggplants or regular green peppers that u can combine with some delicious sheep cheese or some beautiful greek feta cheese so u can ease you`re craving and in the same time don`t collapse under the hot summer sun eating calorie rich foods.
My grandma was the expert in making the Malidzano that im going to present today and a master of 

concocting weird summer dishes that her grandma and her grandma created centuries ago.

In the spirit of easy summer dishes and cool summer drinks i present to you one of my favorite comfort foods that i loved growing up in my small town of Skopje. The grandpa of the all famous Ajvar....The Malidzano ( I know it sounds Italian but it isnt )
How to make the perfect Green Ajvar
The quantity given in the recipe is for more jars

Ingredients:

1. 20 pieces of eggplant
2. 4 kg of green bell peppers 
3. 1 liter of sunflower oil 
4. 200 milliliters of wine vinegar
5. 200 grams of sugar
6. 800 grams of ground walnuts 
7. 150 grams of mustard
8. salt by taste

Preparation:
First of all bake the peppers and eggplants
Second , after baking them clean them from the seeds and skin. Third, the cleaned peppers and eggplants get grounded in a meat grinder ( its the easiest way believe me )
Add the liter of oil to a big until it boils and add the cleaned and ground peppers and eggplants.Fry them for an hour and a half.At the very end of the frying add the vinegar, ground walnuts, mustard , sugar and salt
While the Malidzano is still hot, put it in pre prepared and cleaned jars.
The best thing of preparing this easy dip is that u will most possibly have to call to help a few of your friends for the preparation so its not just preparing a common Balkan delight but also the whole day spent with your closest friends and family with a few glasses of wine and a whole lot of love :)

A traditional Sarma (stuffed vineleaf) recipe

Sarmas are a traditional dish and in my family are cooked traditionally in sour cabbage. Of course it's more winter food. When summer comes, we turn to those lighter and more pleasant dishes, and the minced meat ends up in leaves.. In the family where I grew up, however, they were not prepared in the grape list, although the town my dad came from were full of vineyards. The cooked sarmas are quickly finished and extremely easy to eat, just as if they were made for children, and somehow they are, because in this variant it's hard to pass up this savory summer recipe.
There are many variable recipes concerning sarma but this is my favorite and one of the tastiest.
Combine it with some sour cream or Kiselo mleko (sour milk) a kind of cream enjoyed in my country
So lets begin with the first steps in preparing this beautiful recipe

Ingredients

30 grape vine leaves
350 gr/12 oz ground lamb or beef
2 small onions, finely chopped
115 gr/4 oz long grain rice, rinsed and drained
1 bunch fresh dill and flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
5 ml/ 1 teaspoon dried mint
45 ml/ 3 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and ground pepper to taste
8 fl oz/ 1 cup water to cook the stuffed vine leaves
90 ml (or more) / 6 tablespoon plain yogurt to serve

Place the ground beef or lamb in a bowl and combine it with onions and spices.
Put it in a frying pan with hot oil and fry it till it becomes brown 
Boil the rice in water until its the right size and color and move it to the side and dry it off.
When the rice becomes dry and cold add it to the mixture of the fried meat and onions and mixed it all together while rinsing it all together and the whole mixture is well fried.
Put some of the boiled leaves on the bottom of the pan and start with wrapping the cooled mixture in little sausage like pieces.
While wrapping the little sarmas place them in the pan one by one in a circle and after u finish with this step add a glass of water so they can cook through all the way
Cook for 15 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees Celsius until they get a brownish color
Serve them with some sour cream and minced hot chili pepper powder all over them

This is one of my favorite recepies that my mom and grandma used to prepare all over the year.
I hope u enjoy it and let me know if u have any questions regarding the preparation of this savory goodness :))