{"id":15649,"date":"2015-02-06T18:35:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-07T00:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/?p=15649"},"modified":"2015-02-06T18:35:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T00:35:37","slug":"greek-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/2015\/02\/greek-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, Greek <strong>end<\/strong> of the week anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and my own American version of Greek flavor&#8230; longtime reader Margaret can take me to task if I&#8217;ve misused any terminology :) !!!<\/p>\n<p>The story really starts on Wednesday, which was sunny and warmish and beautiful and with the forecast after being not so great, I took some time to run to town for a few items and also to enjoy being out and about while it was nice!  It meant a longish day as I worked into the evening to make up for the town run and so started Thursday thinking about a treat to get me going.<\/p>\n<p>I had Feta and Kalamata olives:  both with country of origin = Greece!  I have no love for the American brands of Feta with the Greek sounding names as they just taste WAY too salty and the ingredient list says only &#8220;milk&#8221;, not &#8220;sheep&#8217;s milk&#8221;.  And the Greek originating Kalamata olives are packed in red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil vs the canola oil that some American brands use.  I make NO apology for being a feta and olive snob.<\/p>\n<p>Tomatoes.  Well.  This time of year it can be tricky to find anything fresh that actually tastes like a real tomato.  I typically buy grape tomatoes from Mexico and they are usually good, but this year&#8230;not so much.  However&#8230;cut in half, drizzled with olive oil, garlic and oregano&#8230;and slow roasted (225 oven until they shrivel&#8230;2 hours or more) &#8211; they sweeten and become wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>Much as I enjoyed the <a target=\"Feta and Chive Sour Cream Scones\"  href=\" http:\/\/beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/?p=15542 \" title=\"Feta and Chive Sour Cream Scones\">Feta and Chive Sour Cream Scones<\/a> several weeks ago, the scones have a fair amount of butter and are a bit of a splurge.  On occasion, I&#8217;ve made a <a target=\"Quick Foccacia\"  href=\" http:\/\/www.kingarthurflour.com\/recipes\/blitz-bread-no-fuss-focaccia-recipe\" title=\" Quick Foccacia\"> Quick Foccacia<\/a> (not using the pizza flavor\/spices or cheese powder&#8230;subbing my own herbs of choice) and decided to see what would happen if I adapted that recipe to include feta, olives and roasted grape tomatoes&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0598.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0598.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Success!!! &#8211; SO good and much easier than the scones and no butter or sour cream so less of a hit calorie-wise with no sacrifice in flavor.  As this did so well, I am sure that other adaptions of the recipe would be scrumptious also.<\/p>\n<p>I simply eyeballed a mix of feta, tomatoes and olives that looked to fit into the dough.  And I make 1\/2 of the linked recipe using a standard bread pan vs the specified 9 x 13 pan. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0620.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0620.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>After the sun of Wednesday, Thursday did an about face and got damp, gray and drippy&#8230;a fire was going&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0621.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Thu0621.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And soup with toasted focaccia for lunch!<\/p>\n<p>The toasted focaccia was wonderful with just a wee drizzle of olive oil.<\/p>\n<p>The tomato soup is a blitz of roasted tomatoes, jarred tomato puree, oregano, garlic, cumin, a little curry powder and a puree of white beans to make it creamy.  Using the white bean puree with just a smidge of heavy cream makes for a creamy soup with mostly no cream!<\/p>\n<p>On to Friday.<\/p>\n<p>It was time for a loaf of bread and I had so enjoyed the tomato-feta-olive mix that I decided to try a Greek-ish version of the <a target=\"Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread\"  href=\" http:\/\/beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/?p=15486 \" title=\" Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread\"> Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0625.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0625.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I added enough olive oil to a mix of tomatoes\/olives\/feta &#8230; enough to make a slurry &#8211; and put that in a well of the dough for my boule.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0626.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0626.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Wrap the dough around the mix, turn it over and shape it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0627.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0627.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;give it an &#8220;asterisk slash&#8221; and bake.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0634.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0634.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like the <a target=\"Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread\"  href=\" http:\/\/beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/?p=15486 \" title=\" Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread\"> Meyer Lemon Rosemary bread<\/a>, the slurry rises up and the result is an almost &#8220;pull-apart&#8221; bread.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0638.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0638.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;but sliceable!<\/p>\n<p>And it worked with a soft boiled egg for my breakfast and as cheese toast for a side to another bowl of tomato soup for lunch.<\/p>\n<p>It was a Greek (-ish) end of the week!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0640.jpg\" target=\"Large\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/beardogco.com\/WPBlog\/blogimages\/Feb15\/Fri0640.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nothing Greek here, but with the warm and all&#8230;some ground is showing&#8230;ground not seen for over a month!  The chairs say &#8220;Hello&#8221; to the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, Greek end of the week anyway&#8230; &#8230;and my own American version of Greek flavor&#8230; longtime reader Margaret can take me to task if I&#8217;ve misused any terminology :) !!! The story really starts on Wednesday, which was sunny and warmish and beautiful and with the forecast after being not so great, I took some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-weather"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15649"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15662,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15649\/revisions\/15662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}