Your Cooking Coach
Show MenuHide Menu

Tag: kalamata olives

Greek Meatballs- Revisited

Greek Meatballs Revisited My daughter loves meatballs. Whenever I ask her to guess what is for dinner- inevitably, she guesses spaghetti and meatballs.

We had family coming over and I asked my daughter for suggestions for a meal- of course she asked for meatballs. She requested the Greek ones I had made a while ago. I don’t like to repeat a recipe if I don’t have to .. so I started thinking about how to make these meatballs different from the ones I made before. While looking at the previous recipe, I realized I did not use any kalamata olives. That was it- I decided to add some into the meat mixture. The combination of the feta and olives made the dish deliciously salty and nutty.

It was a big hit. I served it with spaghetti, a big green salad and garlic bread. My daughter thought it was a perfect meal…
read more …

Blood Orange and Feta Salad

Blood Orange Salad1 Blood oranges are in season- and they are delicious!

A friend noticed a citrus salad recipe in the New York Times food section. This particular salad was made with a grape fruit and a navel orange. She had bought some blood oranges and we paired them with a grape fruit. She had some olives in the house decided to top the salad with them. I am always happy with a pop of salty goodness. We made a simple dressing and enjoyed the salad.

I decided to replicate the salad for a dinner party. Trader Joes has an abundance of blood oranges. I love buying them- it reminds me of being in Italy. This past summer, while we were staying in Spello- we would do some basic grocery for breakfast. Usually we are a juice free house- but there I bought a carton of orange juice. My daughter was fascinated to see the dark red color of the juice- I explained to her the orange juice is made out of blood oranges- hence the color. The juice was delicious!

I cut the oranges into disks and topped them with the olives and feta. For some reason feta comes to mind when I think of citrus. I also remembered I had a orange muscat champagne vinegar from Trader Joes. I used that to make a delicious, clean dressing with a hint of honey.

The salad was delicious! Everyone loved it. I have a big bunch of blood oranges which I am planning to use them again. Definitely make the blood orange salad- you can even substitute regular oranges- any citrus will be delicious!
read more …