Essential Services at Easter

New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern made an important announcement leading up to the celebration of Easter this year in a world of restrictions, lockdowns and shutdowns.  She confirmed  that the Easter Bunny will continue to operate throughout the alert level 4 lockdown now in place in New Zealand.  The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are essential workers, providing essential services.  

She is described by the New Yrok Times as a politician of the people and I can see why.


If he's on the job in NZ then you can bet your cotton socks the Bunny will be hopping all around the world.  You can reassure your own children and grandchildren that wherever you are the Easter Bunny's a-coming.  Just make sure you've stocked up on some chocolate so you can help him/her out!!  No stock piling or panic buying please.  We do NOT want a chocolate shortage.

Monday Morning Up with the Lark

Don't 'think I'll take a walk in the park'

Instead today it's all about cooking, food and eating
All of them major events  in the day of a detainee,
wherever they might be

Whatsap and Viber were working overtime again this morning as messages and photos flashed across the world from London to small town NZ and a few places inbetween.

Round the bay on Poros my son-in-law is baking bread for his family.

London weather apparently was good enough for a picnic, in the garden, yesterday

A Greek feast.  Skaty cooked souvlaki, meatballs with ouzo flambe, tzatziki, greek salad and whatever else you can identify on that table

 Skaty came up with A Plan, plan A.  They can't come to Greece so they brought Greece to them.  Why not travel this way every weekend.  A different country, a different cuisine

Meanwhile, down in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Niki made apple and blackberry crumble with Hokey Pokey icecream.  You have to be a kiwi to know the exquisite taste of hokey pokey icecream still made by the iconic Tip-Top company.

Look at that 2 litre container of icecream.  I can see the pieces of hokey pokey (think honeycomb/toffee) sticking out of that tub of icecream but I can't taste them.

Niki's eating for two.  She can enjoy as much as that cold sweet stuff as her heart desires

Over the Tasman sea in Perth my big bro is tucking into a Greek souvlaki take-away.  Looking at him you'd think he hadn't visited Greece a trillion times, didn't know that you have to pick it up in your hands and get grease running down your chin to enjoy that greek classic.  Your clean shirt is a disgrace boy, not even a spot of oil.  Still haven't had the courage to show this photo to my traditional person.  He'd probably notice you haven't  got a glass of beer either

Here in the eastern Med our lunch was cuttlefish and spinach, stewed with tomatoes and dill

End of today's poste de cuisine

What's Up Doc

What's happening around this greek island

Everyone in the family that could went and gave blood yesterday.

The mobile blood clinic comes around every three or four months, essential in a crisis

The rowing grandaughter's athletic coach moved all the ergonomic rowing machines from the gym and gave them to athletes that had room in their homes .  Our two rowing sisters can now do daily workouts in the living room.  

Watching the sun go down over the Pacific ocean. 

 New Zealand

Never mind a Greek island, who wouldn't want to be locked down with this view

The view over Poros town today.  It has been raining all day, it's cold and damp.  The fog came down early and there was an orange glow in the sky long before sunset.  Maybe clouds of orange dust,  blown up from the Sahara.

We have had the fire lit since midday

Not Meat Pies

I had loads of homemade crazy pastry leftover from my last recipe of minced meat pies.  Cousin Jenny back home in NZ came to my aid again.  She suggested samosas.  Some sort of small pie with potatoes, chickpeas and curry.  Well, guess what we cooked yesterday?  Chickpeas.  Tons of them.  I soak them overnight and cook them in the pressure cooker the next day.  Some we eat that day, the rest go in the freezer.  Supermarkets here do not have tins of chickpeas on their shelves.  We buy them raw, by the kilo.

So, I had the pastry and I had the chickpeas.  After a google search I got the gist of samosas and made my own.

We can get curry powder but not most of the other spices that seem to go into them.

I fried some onions, boiled some potatoes, mixed it all together with curry and chickpeas, rolled the pastry out thin and baked them, not fried.

There's one of them in the photo above, what else.

I made them quite small, two-bite size.  I can tell you they are really scrummy as a meze with a glass of wine or even a vodka and lemon, our lemons.

As for the vodka.  That came from Bulgaria via a friend whose daughter is up north studying at a University near the border.  He hops/hopped over for the border to Bulgaria now and again for cheap supplies.  K thought he had been given another bottle of raki.  Fortunately I squinted at the label, in Bulgarian, and realised it was a much more precious liquid.  K's raki supply is essential for his mental health during these troubled times, well now I have something to boost my spirits too.  

Island Scenes

A couple of octopuses hanging out to dry along with my woolly 

slippers

A back street scene on this greek island

The little car ferry sailing across the bay on a sunny winter's day

Red roof tiles and blue sea

Our last Sunday lunch has just gone into the oven.  Tuna cooked on a roof tile.  Just a little lemon juice, garlic and oregano added.  Exactly 40 minutes and lunch is ready

Out But Not About

I had a short stroll down our deserted road this morning.  I usually turn left out the gate, up the hill, round the corner and up to the rubbish bins.  Turning right takes me to the end of the cul-de-sac and past the olive groves.  There are no permanent residents down this road but usually there are a couple of neighbours who come daily to their farms feeding chickens, tilling a piece of garden or inspecting their olives and grape vines.

Only the wind in the pines today

A lone poppy amongst the rocks

Spring is somewhere in the air but the

 weather is turning to cold and wet again, and windy

Nets to catch the olives just dumped and forgotten after November's harvest.  This piece of land is abandoned except for the olive harvest

My nasturtiums are climbing over the wall onto

 our neighbour's driveway, overgrown

Just before Easter they usually arrive and strim the drive.  Not this year

One of our own lemon trees

and the garden swing, waiting for fine weather to be scrubbed and moved onto the terrace

And another lone poppy, growing beside Vaso's fire pit where she dragged and burnt the olive trimmings after the harvest

April 1st today, no more fires till October

Easy Pies

Mince pies, as in minced beef

I have been using this recipe with great success for years and years.  Can't remember where I first found it.  It's easy and always turns out scrumptiously.

Little minced beef tartlets.  I used to call them cornish pasties.  That's what I was trying to make.  They aren't cornish pasties of course but almost.

Mmmmm

1/4 kilo minced meat (raw). You could use beef or pork or chicken 

I use beef because it is the only mince we can get here

1 big potato, grated

1 big onion chopped finely

Add salt and pepper.  Squish all that together really well.

Fill pastry squares.  Seal well and bake in a medium oven for about 30-40 minutes.  Till the pastry is nice and brown.  Eat.

No precooking the mince, no fuss and bother.

I usually make my own pastry.  Crazy pastry my friend Anna used to call it.  But these pies work really well with puff pastry, short pastry and I often use fyllo pastry because it is readily available here and cheap.  Try them all.

Crazy Pastry

- One packet, 250 grams, of margarine or butter, melted

or   I often use olive oil instead because it is what I always have on hand

- one tub, 200 grams, of yoghurt.  Sheep, cows, goats, thick or thin, low fat or full fat

- about 500 grams of self raising flour.  Keep adding flour till you have a nice elastic dough.

- salt

Mix that all together with a spoon, then get your hands in there and knead it a little till you get a smooth ball.

Leave 20 minutes and then roll out into small squares or circles.