April’s Challenge for Lin’s Recipes

I entered my first challenge since we started this blog! So exciting! The challenge was from Lin’s Recipes, and it was a surprise challenge. Meaning I chose a number and then discovered only later what I would be cooking 😀

It happened to be a Greek recipe I never heard before in my life, but luckily for me it’s something I really love!! And it was also easy. I thought about adding some ingredients like cheese or bacon but then I decided against it and kept it traditional. As you can see from the first picture, there are colourful veggies involved and that made me really happy while cooking! I don’t know but there’s something that makes you relax while you are cutting and slicing tons of fresh and colourful veggies. If you’re not in a hurry. I wasn’t!

The recipe itself is really easy and it requires ingredients that I always keep at home, especially in spring when the tomatoes begin so be extra sweet and juicy. It’s meant to be a side dish but I’m actually eating it by itself with some bread (bretzels actually) and sriracha, it’s perfect in this season because you can eat it cold or hot, it’s good both ways.

Obviously, since I never heard about this dish, I researched the recipe before cooking it and I found that most recipes were almost the same. Nonetheless I had some troubles with the baking: all of the recipes asked for raw potatoes and raw zucchini, but they were still half-uncooked at the end (and I kept them in the oven 20 minutes more anyway), so I had to transfer all the veggies to a pan a second time. So the recipes that follows takes that into consideration 🙂

 

 

Briam: Greek Healthy Mixture

• Servings: 4 servings, maybe 6 if used as a side-dish
• Time: 30 minutes + 1 hour in the oven
• Difficulty: easy!
• Print

While cooking…

Listen to: Sheryl Crow – If it makes you happy

Drink: Corona Beer – not Greek but summer-ish as this dish

Ingredients:

• 1/2 eggplant
• 6 medium tomatoes
• 2-3 zucchini
• 1/2 onion
• 400 grams potatoes (3 medium potatoes)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 150 ml tomato sauce
• 100 ml water
• salt, pepper, oregano, parsley

Preparation:

1. Prepare all the veggies this way: slice the eggplant into thick slices, then cut them in half. Slice the tomatoes into medium slices. Slice the zucchini, onion and garlic into thin slices. Dice the potatoes into small cubes, half an inch maximum
2. In a pan, sauté the eggplant for 5-7 minutes, until it softens a bit and gets some color, then remove from the pan and place into a large bowl
3. Preheat the oven at 430° F (220° C)
4. In the same pan sauté the onion and the garlic for 5 minutes, until soft, and add them to the bowl with the eggplant
5. In the same pan again sauté zucchini and potatoes for 7-8 minutes, until soft, then add to the bowl with the rest
6. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, water and tomato sauce to the bowl and mix well. I used my hand because it’s not easy to coat all the veggies evenly with the condiments
7. Transfer to an oven-proof casserole dish and bake in the oven at 30° F (220° C) for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 390° F (200° C) and bake for another 20-30 minutes. You should check after 20, to make sure the veggies on top aren’t burning
8. If you want, you can top with some of your favourite cheese in the last 20 minutes 🙂 Just saying…

Now for the final touches:

• Calories: 149 per serving, if making 4
• Fridge: it will keep 2-3 days
• Freezable: maybe…?
• Next day: still awesome, even better
• Cold: awesome!!
• Hot: really good
• Re-heating: just microwave it and it’s perfect. You can also trasnfer to a pan but be careful not to burn anything, maybe you will need to add some more tomato paste
• Made by: Eli