stella-marina.org

We have friends and family scattered all over the world, and this is a way of keeping in touch. The food presented here consists only of food we make for ourselves or serve to our guests. It is not intended to be representative of a particular cuisine, gourmet, or diatetic. Most of it has a Mediterranean flavor because that is where we are from.

A link to the written recipes has been added to each post. (If a recipe exists.)

We got a good buy on some old fashioned pickling cucumbers. This was the quickest way to preserve them for later eating.
Just pack them in a jar with the spices of your choice. Dill and garlic in this case. Fill the jar with boiling brine and put the top on. We used about a tablespoon of sea salt and a quarter cup vinegar for each quart of pickles. (You can put that directly in the jar and fill it with plain boiling water if you wish.)
These can be eaten in just a few days and will keep for quite some time in the refrigerator.

These are sage leaves dipped in batter and fried.

If you live where you don’t have to buy these from a gourmet shop, the price is quite reasonable.
Miniature deviled eggs are sure to attract attention on the appetizer tray.
These were boiled, peeled, and put in a salt/vinegar brine to make them keep longer.

Zucchine, zucchini, courgettes, whatever you call them, they are always good.
This is the yellow variety getting cooked with cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic.

This one weighed 3 lbs.

Boiled for an hour with salt, pepper, and some bay leaves.

Here he is with some olive oil, lemon juice, lemon slices, mint and parsley.

This is the salsa we use for just about everything.

Ten pounds of tomatoes

Cut the fruit in halves or quarters.

Salt Pepper Basil Onion Garlic

Add about 3/4 cup of olive oil here.

Cook for an hour or so

Puree it

These tomatoes turned out a little sour so we added 1/4 cup of raw cane sugar here. Fresh vine ripened fruit will never be sour. Supermarket tomatoes are green tomatoes that have been colored red. They will always need some correction.
Cook another 90 minutes and put into containers for freezing.

“Panissa” means different things in different regions. This one is actually an “official” recipe put out by the Vercelli chamber of commerce. It is heavy duty winter food and not recommended for dieters.

The written recipe is here

There are hundreds of recipes for this Greek classic. The recipe we use was obtained from a Greek who admitted that it had been adjusted for European taste. Nevertheless, we like this way of doing it best.

The written recipe is here

Potato, asparagus, tomato, and some cheese. Pretty simple, but it went over well at the table.

You can see what’s in this one. Kidney beans, garbanzos, tomato, cucumber, and red onion. Dressed with some olive oil and vinegar or lemon.

Bean salad

Cucumber, dill, and some garlic in Greek yogurt.

Cucumber salad