The girl and the forest

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved the summer. She spent her vacations watching the butterflies and listening to the song of the birds. She prepared herbarium from the little flowers she picked, she was watching the sky for hours and the shapes of the clouds transformed in her imagination into people and ships, questions and answers. 

Trees were friends of this girl and while she was growing up she gradually learned that they had their own language and she was able to speak with them and they allowed her to see some of their secrets. 

Years went by and certainly she realized that spending her days worrying about the little problems of the days, she has forgotten that the forest was her friend, ready to listen to her thoughts and soothe her pain. 

It is not too late to be a little girl again. I am back to the forest.

Green Beans Stew

Gold of Bacau is my favorite bean. This pale yellow variety has juicy, slightly sweet taste and long flattened pods. No strings, no starchy flavor. Fresh and tasty - perfect for the summer.

Summer, Magic and Chanterelle Soup with Garlic and Summer Savory

Hello, Summer! You know, I've been waiting for you for so long. 

I love your long days and noisy nights, I enjoy the abundance of species you give birth of, I love the forest with its magic. The birds, the insects, the people, we all love you, summer. 

I hope, you will not go away fast. Let us appreciate the abundance of your fruits and vegetables, the freedom, the magic. You make me so happy... 

Since ancient times women have been celebrating the night of the summer equinox. Full moon is also soon, in only two days. 

I love the magic of equinox - the balance between the seasons after which the scales start growing heavier to one of the sides. But today there is a balance - ephemeral, but still. This magic time of the year deserves a magic kind of dish to celebrate. The fruity smell of Chanterelle. Its golden color. Its orange skin and peppery taste. 

A Chanterelle Soup with Garlic and Summer Savory. The summer forest in a bowl.

Zucchini phyllo pie

My mother-in-law is the best cook I know. She is not a professional chef, but she knows such increadible recipes and she respects food so much, that she can turn every single ingredient into something absolutely delicious. This is one of her masterpieces. Zucchini phyllo pie - it is a sweet phyllo dough pie, which holds the fresh taste of yound early-summer zucchinis. Two weeks ago when I spent a spent a week with her in her country house she prepared for me her soft zucchini phyllo pie and I took some pictures of her during work. Here is the recipe she is famous for.

Crispy fried zucchini (κολοκυθάκια τηγανητά)

I love the taste of fried zucchini. And what makes them so lovable? Their crispiness. Fried zucchini should be hot and crispy. If you have an opportunity to travel to Greece, you definitely should try the fried zucchini served in most of the restaurants and they will never disappoint you. κολοκυθάκια τηγανητά have crispy crusts tender insides.

If you want to prepare this delicious appetizer at home it will be good to follow three  important steps:

Cretan Dakos - Cretan rusk salad

Suchlike Panzanella - the Italian bread salad, Cretan rusk salad (Kρητικός ντάκος) is based on bread. 

In fact, it is a large barley rusk topped with chopped tomatoes, crumbled Feta or Mizithra cheese and some olive oil. People in Creta and especially the sailors, used to eat a lot of rusks. Main reasons - rusks are lighter than fresh bread and more of them could be laded on the ships. They are unexpensive and long-lasting and do not get mouldy which is important on any island where every product is limited. Cretan dakos is still one of the traditional Cretan salads. If you do not have rusks on hand, you can use toasted or grilled bread - taste is nearly the same. 

Eggplant Parmesan (Melanzane alla Parmigiana)

Melanzane alla Parmigiana is a rich dish from Northern Italy, composed of alternating layers of fried eggplant, tomato sauce, Parmesan and mozzarella.  

Roasted eggplant dip (Kyopoolu)

One of the main characteristics of the cuisine of the Balkans is the wide variety of salads. Countries in the region have hot and sunny climate and vegetables grow full of taste. But this is only one of the reasons for the huge consumption of salads here. The heart of the matter is that we start lunch and dinner with hard alcoholic drinks. Rakia in Bulgaria, raki in Turkey, ouzo and tsipouro in Greece are national drinks served at the beginning of the meal. These strong drinks go well with salad. Kyopoolu - a roasted eggplant dip, is one of the most popular Bulgarian summer salads, although it has a Turkish origin. The typical smoky taste of its roasted skin, the soft inside which absorbs a lot of olive oil and salt, the freshness of grated tomatoes and roasted peppers, the garlic as an ingredient make this dip irresistable.

My favorite sour cherry cake

The last sour cherries of the season. I picked them from our sour cherry tree, trying not to eat too many. I needed two cups for the sour cherry cake. My favourite sour cherry cake, the one my mother-in-low prepares. She knows I love it and so does everybody else in our family. Half of the tray is for me, the others share the other half. 

Bean and nettle soup with wild plums

We escaped from the heat in a large forest yesterday. The excursion took some hours along a fast flowing river under the shades of old trees and I was surprised to see new nettles  - fresh, soft and young. So I collected some handfuls. No, I did not have gloves, but my craving for nettles was so huge, that I took the risk. Yes, my finders have pins and needles now and they are covered with tiny red spots. But it was worth it. Coming home with my plunder, I decided to prepare a cucina povera dish from the Bulgarian cuisine - bean and nettle soup with wild plums. Although this dish consists only of simple ingredients, it has a rich and diverse flavor. With grassy softness of the nettles, fresh and sour taste of the wild plums and velvet base of the beans, it is deffinitely something to remember. The perfect warm weather bean dish - good for vegans, vegetarians and everybody else. Recipe calls for crushed beans - the only reason for crushing beans is making them faster soft, if you prefer you can keep them whole. 

Cherry and blue cheese salad

Cherries are my favorite fruits. And this is my new favorite salad - sweet and salty.

Panzanella - Italian bread salad

Do you know what cucina povera means? It is an Italian term for the poor man's food. 
But nothing offensive. Peasant cooking means take the best from the ingredients you have on hand. Fresh ripe vegetables. Cheap cuts of meat and offals. Stale bread. The meaning is  cheap ingredients or ingredients you anyway have at home, simple recipe, rich taste.
In fact, bread and olive oil are two of the fundamental ingredients of Tuscan cookery and stale bread should not be wasted. So, Panzanella is a way to use a day-old bread. Roast or pan-fry the bread. Chop some ripe, but firm tomatoes. Add dressing and some more ingredients and you've got the summer taste in your plate, even if it is late spring outside. Bread soaks up all the juices from the vegetables and dressing and melts in mouth. Most of the recipes call for fresh basil as an ingredient, but I prefer to skip it in my version. I also substitute hot green peppers for the sweet ones used in the original. 

Scrambled Eggs with Pepper, Feta and Tomatoes (Mishmush)

I used to think, scrambled eggs with peppers, Feta cheese and tomatoes is strictly Bulgarian dish. Called Mish-mush in Bulgaria, which means 'mixture', it is an easy to prepare dish, which is good for a light lunch or a quick dinner. As with many other dishes I tried to google a description of the ingredients only to be sure that this is a Bulgarian national cuisine dish. And that is what I found:
Menemen is a Turkish dish, served for breakfast. It is a fresh tasting combination of vegetables - peppers, onion and tomatoes and simple spices (salt and pepper) with scrambled eggs. 

Shakshouka is a beloved part of the Israeli cuisine, which came from the Lybian and Tuinisian cuisines.
Different names, nearly same ingredients and taste. Obviously, this is a dish, which traces back its roots to ancient Ottoman empire centuries ago. Anyway, I still accept it as a Bulgarian national cuisine dish. Prepared in a cast iron pan, it is served with lots of fluffy bread to mop up the sauce. My Granny prepared it with roasted and peeled peppers, I prefer it with fresh ones, most of them hot peppers. To bold the spiciness I even serve it with some red hot peppers flakes sprinkled above. You can omit the onion and the hot peppers if you don't like it to be too spicy or if you serve it for breakfast.