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Truthfully, I was hesitant to dive in because I knew it would take me to a dream world I might not ever get back to in real life. When I lived in Turkiye and traveled along the Aegean Coast, I was always trying to get to Ikaria, but could never make it.
The adventurer inside of me remembered my young self..
When I was just 19 years old, I became a solo traveler through Europe, by accident. I was visiting my family in Sicily when I got the travel bug to see more and more, so I hopped on a train to Bari and took a ferry through the Adriatic and landed on the island of Corfu.
This was way back before the internet, blogs and social media hailed the glories of solo travels, women solo travelers especially, and all the hot spots to take a selfie. Instead, I was able to peacefully take photos, meet incredibly warm local villagers who showed me their gardens and invited me for fresh home-grown watermelon. I ate the purest seafood directly from Aegean, unseasoned vegetable salads that actually taught me what cucumbers are supposed to be, and spoke to village Yaiyas about their secrets to reaching old age in such a healthy way. One told me to always peel your cucumber!
While enjoying my little cup of Greek coffee and a village breakfast high up in a mountainside home for just $12 USD per night, I wrote in my diary (not a laptop or cell phone notes) a vow to myself that I would someday make a life for myself in the Mediterranean. To live in this simplicity. In this healthy air. To have neighbors, friends and family that were just as kind, happy, quiet and hard-working as the people of Corfu.
Fast forward to now and my life looks nothing like that. I broke all the promises to myself about living in the Mediterranean. I’ve tried and feel like I failed, but I have learned to cook some pretty great things.
And I’ve learned to bring the Mediterranean lifestyle with me wherever I go, as much as I possibly can.
One way I do that is to eat as many greens as possible. To get as much sunshine as possible. To keep inspiring myself with stories, books, and recipes about the Mediterranean so that I can share that with all of you.
So I wanted to bring you a recipe this week that invokes both sides of the Aegean Sea, yet shared in both Greece and Turkiye. This is my specific take on it, my version, with the greens that I could find: Aegean Village Greens Pie. It’s not a sweet “pie”. Pie in this culinary cultural context is savory.
Aegean Village Greens Pie
Serves 6
I always tell people not to be intimidate by fillo dough. It’s much more forgiving than you think. I’m not including a recipe for homemade fillo dough now, because first I want you to get used to sourcing and cooking- and enjoyably eating those greens!
First, go out and look for greens- not just spinach. I promise you, you’ll find them. Also, spring onions and leeks (leave out the leeks if you can’t find them, it’s okay):
Spinach
Dandelions
Beets (you’ll use only the greens)
Swiss Chard (any variety)
Spring onions
Leeks
Next, I want you to look for fresh herbs and onions. Please try to avoid dried herbs for this recipe, except for dried thyme.
Dill
Parsley (flat leaf, if possible)
Mint
Next, I want you to find the creamiest feta cheese possible:
For me, the best one is the Macedonian style feta cheese (more readily found in Canada). You can use other types of feta, but in my opinion most are way too dry except for perhaps the Valbreso brand French Feta Cheese, which is more easily found in the U.S. I think I may have even seen it at Costco…
*I used Sotidakis Goat Feta Chevre (from Costco) once and it was good, but not moist enough for this recipe, in my opinion.*
If you can’t find either, then so be it – just use what you can find.
Lastly, find a good fillo dough (in the freezer section of most Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets, as well as most grocery stores). My go-tos are Fillo Factory Organic or Krinos, but you can really use any that work for savory pies. Just make sure they’re not shaped like a triangle or molded into cups- that’s for other types of fillo dishes. You’re going to bring the fillo home and put it in the refrigerator. But not for too many days (3-4 days tops), otherwise it will start to get moldy.
You’ll probably have the rest of the ingredients on hand at home, but just in case:
A really great quality olive oil (that should be part of your cooking at all times, anyway, not just for this recipe). Might I be a little bit proud and mention our beloved Oil of Anatolia from Turkiye?
Farm fresh eggs
Black seed or sesame seeds (whichever you wish to top the spinach pies with)
Milk, for mixing with oil or butter, to wash the fillo
Silicone pastry brush
Rectangular deep pan (i.e. lasagna pan is good but a bit large). Round pans are okay but you’ll have to fanagle the fillo, which can be annoying
Measurements of Ingredients:
Approximately 3 cups cooked greens mixture (see below)
Fresh or dried garlic or garlic powder (optional)
All fresh herbs, washed, dried and roughly chopped
1-2 eggs (1 large or 2 small)
3/4 cup Feta cheese
1 teaspoon crushed black or white pepper
dry thyme or oregano (1-2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 packet fillo (also spelled “phyllo”) dough, thawed in the refrigerator
Directions for Assembling and Baking:
HOW TO COOK THE GREENS
Wash and dry all the greens and onions. If using, chop the stems of any Swiss chard finely. If using spring onions or leeks, use the white parts for this recipe by chopping them finely.
In a small saute pan or pot, gently heat the olive oil. Add the onions then the stems or hardy parts of any of the greens. If you want you can add garlic (1 clove fresh) or garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon), too. Cook down until softened and set aside to cool completely.
ASSEMBLY & BAKING DIRECTIONS
To a large bowl, add the greens. Add the herbs, eggs, feta, pepper and dried oregano or thyme and mix well. If necessary, add salt. Set this bowl aside.
Prepare one cup of warm milk and add a generous drizzle of olive oil to it You can also/alternatively add a tablespoon of melted butter. This will be your wash for each layer of the fillo dough. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
To the bottom of the baking pan, brush it generously with olive oil only.
Open the packet of fillo dough. It will be large and rectangular. Cut it in half vertically so that you have two sections. Keep one out to work with and cover the other half with a damp towel. These pieces should fit the size of the pan with which you’re working.
Brush the first layer with the milk-olive oil/butter. Continue to do this with each and every layer of this first half of fillo sheets. When you have finished the first half, pour the cooked greens/feta/egg mixture on top and level it flat with a spatula. Drizzle olive oil on top generously.
Continue to use the other half of fillo sheets and brush each layer with the milk-olive oil mixture until you get to the very last layer on top. Drizzle the top generously with olive oil. Sprinkle sesame or black seeds on top and bak in the oven for 30-35 minutes.
Let cool a few minutes before cutting. Serve with a fresh cucumber-tomato-olive salad, if desired.Καλή όρεξηKalí órexi / Afiyet olsun! Share Everyday Mediterranean by Yvonne Maffei if you’d like to subscribe to my culinary newsletter on Substack.
I love eggplant and I love peppers, but on a day when I’m in a huge hurry and don’t have time to fry the eggplant (actually, I really don’t even like to fry eggplant because it seems to just eat up oil if you don’t pre-salt it). I usually don’t have time to pre-salt the eggplant either (it takes out excess moisture). So, instead I tend to cube it, and bring out the sliced peppers I have in the freezer. This makes things so much faster, easier and super-deliciousness is not sacrificed.
This is how I make it:
If using frozen peppers, you need to take out any excess water, so what I do is put them in a frying pan on low and keep a keen eye on the pan, making sure all the excess water is evaporated before putting them into the baking dish with the cubed eggplant.
Season with salt, pepper, olive oil and dried parsley.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes- at the 20 minute mark, pull it out and mix it all up to move the oil around and be sure nothing dries up.
After 40 minutes or so, it should look like this.
Our favorite way is to eat it over rice, but you could also serve it with pasta or rustic bread.
Roasted Eggplant & Pepper On Rice
This is such a straightforward, mess-free dish to make.
Makes 4 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 eggplant, half peeled
4 cups sliced peppers- mixed colors or just green ones
Mix the eggplant and peppers so they are thoroughly combined and place them in an oven-safe dish large enough to spread it out so that they’re not too crowded.
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Last New Year’s Eve was a quiet affair, and very lovely at that. We decided to stay home and invite friends for something simple, and I offered to do the cooking- a chance to entertain and nourish is something I usually jump on, particularly when I know they’ll appreciate even the smallest of gestures surrounding food. It’s always nice to feel that way. All the recipes I made were such a hit that I promised to share them, but I’m only now getting around to sharing them- sorry! Better late than never, righ?
So, my original plan was to make Sicilian style dishes since eating seafood is traditional on New Year’s Eve. That and maybe a calamari salad. A tuna pasta. Such great dishes, but it just wasn’t going to work. And that turned actually out for the best.
I needed to make vegan food because one of our friends is strictly vegan. I was quite worried about cross-contamination of ingredients so I just decided that everything I made that night would be vegan.
Then, I panicked just a little. I thought about how difficult this might be since I am so accustomed to using dairy in my cooking, especially in pastas (except things with fish and seafood).
I thought it would be best to buy some vegan products for this meal so I intended to look into cashew butter, vegan dairy and anything else that might go with appetizers or pasta-making. Then I ran out of time to do so, but to be honest, the purist in me just doesn’t want to go near that processed stuff – and I certainly didn’t have time to figure out cashew butter making at home. I was a bit lost about all of those substitutes, and after being in the food industry and Halal industry for so long, I’ve learned my fair share about food science and what’s in our food, so I tend to be uber skeptical about everything processed. It takes a lot for me to buy something pre-made or “processed”.
After all of these conversations in my head, I decided to just go for traditional Italian dishes that don’t even have meat or dairy in them to begin with. What I didn’t realize is that there are more traditional dishes that are just naturally vegan than I can even count. All I needed was a little inspiration and memory-jogging, which I got from these two books:
So, I made several things from whatever I already had in the fridge: Bruschetta with Roasted Peppers
Stuffed Zucchini (and Peppers)
Roasted Carrots with Cumin
Mushroom Pasta
Everything was vegan, and very easy to make. I’ll share the other recipes in later posts, but the pasta was the main course, so that’s the one I’d like to share now. Get yourself some fresh Spring mushrooms and make this over the weekend for lunch or dinner. It will be so satisfying, so tasty and so inspiring – and you don’t need to be vegan to try it and love it.
Vegan Mushroom Pasta
Note: It is best to time this dish so that the pasta is just about to finish cooking so that you can use some of the pasta water in the mushrooms; otherwise, simply finish cooking the pasta and drain most of the water, reserving about 1-2 cups of the pasta water for the dish. If cooking and reserving the pasta ahead of time, be sure to drizzle some olive oil on top to keep it from sticking.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 pound egg noodle or Papardelle pasta, cooked al dente.
1/2 bunch fresh flat Italian parsley, roughly chopped
Directions
Prepare the pasta or arrange for it to cook around the time you start cooking the mushrooms.
In a large saute pan, gently heat the olive oil. Add the mushrooms and cook until well-browned on one side and flip all of them over, making sure to cook out any water moisture created in the pan. Next, add the onions and cook until translucent. Add a little more olive oil if and when necessary. Add the garlic, salt, pepper.
Continue to saute the ingredients until well-blended and everything is nicely browned. Ladle about 1/4 cup pasta water into the pan and stir to combine. Add all of the drained noodles into the pan and combine everything well. If it is the consistency that you would like, don’t add any more pasta water; if not, add a little more until it reaches what you like.
And that’s it! We (non-vegans) were going to add some Parmesano or Pecorino cheese to the mix, but it didn’t need it at all. The mushrooms are so rich and meaty that the dish tastes and feels complete just as it is.
Buon Appetito!
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For those of you who saw my video interview with Mustafa Koita, Entrepreneur and Founder of Koita foods (plant-based nut milks), you may have watched till the end when I made this pretty tasty smoothie that contains the Koita Oat Milk product and just a few other things. Here’s the recipe all laid out and a few notes on the substitutions at the end.
To a blender, add the banana and pour in the Koita Oat Milk. Add the tahini and mix well on high. Add the Medjool date and almonds and mix again on the highest setting to finely chop and blend both ingredients.
Pour into one tall glass or two small cups and garnish with chopped pistachios, if desired.
NOTES
Try to consume this drink soon after making it, as refrigerating it may not taste as good since the banana is quick to degrade.
If you require a little more sweetener to this drink, you can add about 1/2 teaspoon honey or grape molasses (will change the color slightly). (The honey would make this smoothie vegetarian instead of vegan).
For a different topping, you can garnish with any type of chopped nut or coconut flakes and it would be equally delish!
Nothing is better than a bowl of hot soup on a cold winter day, would you agree? You’d be amazed what you can put together with what you’ve already got in your fridge and pantry, so why waste food by going out to get any extra special ingredients for something a little more complicated or time-consuming? This type of soup is so quick and easy, too.
Let me tell you how it’s made: use what you’ve already got.
In my case, in the fridge, I had one carrot, a bit of spinach, and a couple cherry tomatoes that would have been on their way out if I waited another day to consume them. Just that alone, however, didn’t feel filling enough, so I looked in my pantry for something to bulk it up, like small pasta noodles or rice and that’s what I had. I actually had a very small amount of rice left and didn’t even use it all – remember, it expands quite a bit in water (and in your belly), so I added about 3 tablespoons- that’s it! Spices are up to you, but I’ll list the ones I used in the recipe instructions below.
I love how the recipe is very #zerowaste, a common hashtag circling around these days, but it’s true- why waste food? Are we addicted to grocery store shopping? Are we so busy we can’t go to the grocery store more than once a week? I chalk these things up to boredom and lack of priorities, and believe me I have definitely been there. I would go to the grocery store just to have something to do. To look for novel things. That I didn’t need. I probably went more than the average person because I write about food, but nevertheless, I should have prioritized freshness of food and not wasting it, more than I did.
Here in Turkey, things don’t operate the same way. I go to the market two times per week to buy fresh produce, but it also goes bad rather quickly, so I don’t buy too much of it. That’s a good thing, hopefully indicating fewer or no pesticides, but also that I am way more careful about using up all the leafy greens and fresh fruits and vegetables I’ve bought in between market days; and if I don’t, then I don’t buy more of it at the next market day.
I think things are changing in the U.S. for the better, as well. There are more outdoor markets in the Spring or Summer and in the winter there are indoor markets that can be utilized to buy a lot of greenhouse-grown produce. Check your Local Harvest website for markets near you.
The complete recipe instructions and ingredients are below, and some of the ingredients you may want to get for this recipe are also listed here. Enjoy!
Recipe: Zero Waste Winter Vegetable Soup
The point of this recipe is to use what you have so if you have anything similar to these ingredients, use them. If you have less or more of the ingredients, use those. The amount of water or broth added to the ingredients is totally dependent upon the amount of other ingredients you have, so adjust accordingly and always remember that the rice/pasta/tarhana expands when boiled.
Sauté half of a small onion in olive oil, heated very gently. Next add the carrots and cook until the carrots are softened, mixing often so as not to burn the onions. Add the tomatoes and cook until soft.
Add the water and bring the pot to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, covered, for about 10-15 minutes. Add the rice or pasta or tarhana and continue to cook until the grains are soft. The time will vary depending upon which type of grains are used.
Remove from heat and serve with grated Parmesan or a sprinkle of Turkish oregano or crushed red pepper, if desired.
As many of you readers of my blog and followers on social media know already, I’ve been in Turkey for several months exploring the cuisine and the sights of the southern Turquoise Coast. It’s a beautiful place with some majestic scenery and a tradition of down to earth local foods that combine the Aegean with the Mediterranean cultures, as where I am in Fethiye-Mugla is literally the place where both waters meet.
The thing is, that being here has given me an entirely new appreciation for my own Sicilian heritage. The island of Sicily is not far from here- a straight shot west basically- and has a similar, albeit dryer, climate. So it’s no surprise that the ingredients here are quite similar to those I grew up with, showing up in delicious Sicilian recipes centuries old that must have been created out of sheer availability of local and seasonal foodstuffs.
My grandmother used to make a dish called lenticchie, which is basically a soup with lentils and small pasta like ditalini. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it because the lentils always seemed to go mushy all over the pasta and I’m particular about the texture of my pasta, as well as the taste. It takes a lot for me to eat it without real tomato sauce…
Nevertheless, I grew up and reminisced about everything my grandmother made and wanted to try my hand at it all just so that I could be surrounded by the smell of her cooking again.
As such, we all develop our own tastes and techniques for recipes- at least that’s what I always do no matter the origin of the recipe. I don’t stress about making things exactly the way someone else made certain dishes; instead I go upon my own intuition and let the smell and taste of the food guide me towards what I’d be satisfied to eat.
This Aegean Lentil Pasta recipe is just that. Years of formulating my own taste preferences and an appreciation for what’s not just seasonal and local, but what’s available in my own kitchen in an effort not to waste what’s already there. In this case, it was many of the Turkish kitchen basics: onion, garlic, tomato, red pepper paste, lentils, olive oil and key spices like Turkish thyme and ground red pepper.
I think what helps me to get the texture of the lentils just how I like them is to cook them ahead and separate from any of the other ingredients. That way, I keep a watchful eye and boil them just until they get how I like them- cooked, but not mushy. Depending upon how much you’re cooking, in a typical dish that feeds 4 people, this should take about 20 minutes.
Once the lentils are cooked, strain and set aside.
In a medium to large deep pan or deep-bottom sauce pan, warm the olive oil and then add the chopped tomatoes, onions and garlic all at once.
Once the onions have gone translucent, add the thyme, salt, black pepper and ground red pepper. Also add the cooked and strained lentils.
Next comes the addition of water and the red pepper paste, which you should be able to find at Mediterranean markets or even sometimes at World Market. If you’re in a Turkish market (whether in Turkey or abroad, you can find a large jar of the Ipek brand, and it’s called in Turkish “Biber Salçası” (literally, “Pepper Sauce”). This brand also has a halal mark on it, though I am not deeply familiar with it so I can’t say more than that about it or their certification.
You need to add the water before the red pepper paste in order to thoroughly whisk or combine the paste into the liquid mixture. It gives it that nice red color and deep, earthy flavor. I’ve only ever been used to using tomato sauce or paste in this recipe before, but the red pepper really has converted me into making it with this flavor profile instead–and it makes it very Aegean, and very Turkish.
At this stage, I also add some fresh parsley– not too much, because I’ll add it at the end, too, but just some for flavor. Next, once the water comes to a boil, add the ditalini pasta. Please don’t use large noodles or anything larger than the largest size of ditalini available- it really sort of ruins the proportions of this dish and you probably won’t enjoy eating it. There’s a reason why the small ditalini pasta is used here, and it’s not just tasty, but also pleasurable.
Because the pasta has to cook, you’ll need to cover the pan at this point and let it cook for the customary 10-12 minutes it normally takes to get done. This is not the time for al dente pasta here, please. I don’t use a whole bag or box of pasta, either. I just sprinkle the amount I want- about 1/2 cup or about half the amount or less than the lentils. Once the pasta cooks, you may still have a lot of liquid in the pan. At this point, you can either 1) enjoy this dish as a soup (that’s how my grandmother served it); or 2) let most of the liquid cook out until you reach the desired consistency and serve it as a pasta.
I chose the latter for a couple of reasons. First, it’s too hot to drink soup right now; and second, I just really loved the way this turned out once most of the liquids evaporated- it was super easy to eat with a spoon. On top, just add a drizzle of olive oil, chopped fresh parsley and if you have a good fresh Parmesan or dried goat cheese, go for it. I didn’t have any cheese, but it’s the one thing I know for sure was missing. Otherwise, it’s a completely vegan meal.
Once the onions have gone translucent, add the thyme, salt, black pepper and ground red pepper. Also add the cooked and strained lentils. 
Next comes the addition of water and the red pepper paste, which you should be able to find at Mediterranean markets or even sometimes at World Market. If you’re in a Turkish market (whether in Turkey or abroad, you can find a large jar of the 
At this stage, I also add some 
Next, once the water comes to a boil, add the ditalini pasta. Please don’t use large noodles or anything larger than the largest size of ditalini available- it really sort of ruins the proportions of this dish and you probably won’t enjoy eating it. There’s a reason why the small ditalini pasta is used here, and it’s not just tasty, but also pleasurable. 
Once the pasta cooks, you may still have a lot of liquid in the pan. At this point, you can either 1) enjoy this dish as a soup (that’s how my grandmother served it); or 2) let most of the liquid cook out until you reach the desired consistency and serve it as a pasta. 