Hello, I hope all is well, and you all enjoyed your long weekend. Sunday, was the first day we BBQ for the year, it was great!!! The weather was nice, so we took out the bbq and starting our preparations. My hubby really does a great job grilling. 🙂 He has his own little secrets when it comes to basting the meat before placing on the grill, I don’t get involved when it comes to grilling, seeing that he truly enjoys doing it, and he does do a great job, and believe you me it tastes fantastic. Yummyyyyy.So, to accompany our Wine, and Ouzo I made some appetizers, Dolmadakia. It really does not get any more traditional than this, seriously….. I have never actually seen anyone not use their fingers to grab one of these delicious little green stuffed with rice leaves. This is why I like to call them Finger Food…..whenever a plate of these appetizers even comes close to landing on any table, you can see how everyone just tries desperately to grab one. It’s like once everyone sees them coming it’s race on!!!A truly loved appetizer dish, along with Tzatziki, Taramosalata, Tyrosalata, Fried Zucchini, Fried Eggplants, Calamaria and the list just goes on and on. I forgot to add French Fries an absolute must! 🙂

These can be made with or without meat. I have been practicing so that one day they will be perfect, like how my grandmother made them! This summer I'm looking forward to using fresh grape leaves too

Here’s a recipe for Stuffed Grape Leaves (Dolma) in English, similar to the Persian-style Dolmeh Barg-e Mo.

Vine leaves that are stuffed with a mixture of rice and diced vegetables with olive oil are rolled in fingers and cooked.

My Greek Yiayia (meaning Grandmother in Greek) raised me after my mom died when I was 6 years old. She is from the Peloponnese part of Greece and she always made Baklava and other Greek foods as well. We lived in ALABAMA so she used the pecans from her pecan tree. This was a task because she gathered, cracked and cleaned all of the pecans herself and then milled them with an old fashioned hand turned grinder that she clamped to the side of the kitchen table. She made everything from scratch and I am truly blessed to be raised by her !! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ #baklava #greek

Never been a spinach fan but that's all they fixed in my former work place. I came home one day and my mom was cooking never asked what it was I just ate and been loving it ever since. I'm all for simple!

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well..I have recovered from the flu and happy to be feeling better. Thank you all very much for your kind messages, I was so moved. 🙂This time of year my mom comes over the holidays, and she brought over Melomakarona this is a delicious Greek Christmas Cookie treat that mom makes along with my Aunt Soula. Each year they get together and tackle the kitchen to make Melomakarona and Kourambiethes and share amongst the family . (it’s their little thing they like to do) 🙂I wanted to share with you the picture and recipe just in case you wanted to tackle this recipe to see this delicious taste. Melomakarona is a sort of egg shaped cookie made with Olive Oil, Honey and Semolina, interesting combination of ingredients right!! 🙂If you up to trying out the recipe I have step by step instructions but no pictures…:( Sorry, but if you do need any help let me know..I have the expert here for great advice if necessary. 🙂

My mom is Vietnamese, but when she married my Korean dad, she learned to make all the dishes he loved, and this is one of them. This is her recipe for Mandoo (pronounced MAHNdoo), and it's the one we use for our New Year's morning mandoo making tradition.This recipe makes about 200 pieces, but you can halve it (or double it... or triple it - this year we made a CRAZY amount of them). One hundred mandoo will actually go quicker than you might think!You'll want to take the meat out a good 30 to 45 minutes before mixing the filling to avoid chilling your hands too much while mixing, which really does need to be mixed with the hands to get everything thoroughly and evenly incorporated. I don't recommend using a food processor because this will result in too fine a paste and an overly dense pressed sausage texture once cooked.This process goes considerably more efficiently if there are people dedicated separately to folding and cooking.If you have at least one person to fold and one person to cook, you should decide in advance whether you want to steam and/or deep fry your mandoo and begin warming the appropriate cooking vessel/medium as soon as the folding begins.I'm usually the cook, and my mom and kids do the folding. Mom usually makes ten for every two of everyone else's.

This is my first daughters favorite recipe. I found it a long time ago online and didn't have many of the ingredients to make it, so I had to improvise, but still works. Enjoy!

The BEST.