Spaghetti with meat sauce ( Μακαronia me kima in Greek)

SPAGHETTI WITH MEAT SAUCE

(Recipe for 4 people)

Ingredients

Sauce

600 g. ground beef

2 large onions

5 cloves garlic

150 g. olive oil
1 bay leaf

2 seeds allspice
4 large ripe tomatoes (700g approx.)

Salt, pepper

Very little red chili pepper

Pasta 

Ingredients

500 g. spaghetti or linguini no 7

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt to taste

250 grams grated parmesan cheese.

Instructions

Sauce

Put over medium heat, a saucepan. Put in it oil, chopped onions and garlic and stir.

Let onions to sauté and stir them from time to time.

Add the mince meat, some salt and little red chili pepper.

Mix often the minced meat with a wooden spatula and break the lumps that form.

Cover the saucepan with its lid and decrease the heat more.

Let the minced meat produce all its fluids and boil slowly in them.

Mix often the minced meat and check its fluids.

Rinse tomatoes and mash them in the blender.

Once the fluids of the minced meat are reduced, pour into the saucepan the mashed tomatoes and stir.

Let the meat boil until it softens and absorbs most of its fluids.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and try the taste of the sauce.

Spaghetti

Put 4 l of water in a pot.

Place it over high heat.

Wait for the water to boil and put some salt in it.

Add the pasta and stir well to avoid sticking.  

Pasta takes about 8 minutes to boil.

The time required to cook each kind of pasta is written on its package.

Let the pasta to boil until it becomes as soft as you like it.

Put the pasta in the drainer and let it drain well.

Put the pasta back into the pot and add to it two tablespoons of olive oil and four tablespoons of the meat sauce.

Mix well so the sauce covers all the spaghetti.

Serving

Put the pasta in a deep dish.

In the center of spaghetti put as much meat sauce as you want..

Put over the sauce grated cheese.    

Burgers in the oven or on the barbeque

Burgers in the oven or on the barbeque

Ingredients

1 k. ground beef or 700 g. ground beef and 300 g. ground pork

3 large dried onions

4 cloves garlic

Salt, pepper, oregano, very little ground cumin

50 g. breadcrumbs

90 g. olive oil + 3 TB

1 medium potato

1 medium ripe tomato

Instructions  

Peel the onions and garlic.

Put them in the blender and chop.

Put some salt in the minced meat and knead well.

Put the chopped garlic and onions in the minced meat.

Knead the minced meat to mix it well with the onions.

Add the oil into the minced meat and knead again.

Add the ground pepper, oregano, and very little cumin into the meat and knead.

Peel the potato and pulp it in the blender.

Add it to the previous meat mixture and knead again.

Mash the tomatoes, add them in the meat mixture and knead again.

Add breadcrumbs in the meat mixture and knead all the ingredients together well.

Put the burgers in the fridge for at least two hours, so the flavors will mingle.

If you make the burgers the previous night, their taste improves.

Burgers in the oven

Put 3 TB Olive oil in a dish and dip your hands into it.

Get a piece of ground beef in the size of a tangerine from the above mixture.

Place it on your left palm and turn it until it takes the shape of a small ball.

Pres with your right palm the meat ball to take the shape of a burger.

Continue this way until you make all the burgers possible from the ground beef.

Smear every burger around with olive oil.

Slightly grease a baking tray and put the burgers on it side by side.

Bake in the second top rack of the oven at 180 C degrees for 25 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven. Turn the burgers upside down to cooke their other side.

Put the pan back into the oven and bake 10 more minutes..

When the burgers are cooked, their color gets darker.

As soon as they get ready remove them from the oven.

.

Barbeque

Use a grill that folds and has a handle.

Smear the grill with oil with a brush.

Arrange the burgers in the grill and close it.

Place the grill with burgers over hot coals.

The fire should not be too strong, because the patties burn outside but remain uncooked in the inside. 

When the burgers are cooked from one side, turn them to the other side.

Turn them often to avoid burning them.

When you have invited a lot of people you need many burgers very fast.

It is impossible to cook many burgers at once.

In this case it is better to half cook the burgers in the oven in advance.

So when the people arrive, the burgers need only two minutes on the barbeque to get ready.

Shortly before serving put them on the grill and place it on the barbeque.

This way you prepare many burgers quickly.

         

Carot cake

CAROT CAKE

Ingredients:
3 large eggs,

3.5 cups of grated carrots

1 cup raisins

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup corn oil
1 cup grated almonds or walnuts
1 TB cinnamon

1 tsp soda

1 TB sharp baking powder
1/2 tsp clove
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg, 

2 TB of powdered sugar for garnish

Instructions

Put the olive oil and the corn oil in a bowl. Add the sugar in the bowl. Mix with your hand until it dissolves. 
Add carrots and stir. 
Put the eggs in a small bowl and beat them with a whisk. Add them in the bowl with sugar and mix gently.

Add in the bowl baking powder, cinnamon, soda, cloves and nutmeg. 
Mix gently all these ingredients and add flour.

Mix until the batter homogenizes. Add the almonds and the raisins.
Butter and flour a cake pan, or spring form pan 26 cm in diameter.  
Turn the pan upside down and heat lightly, to drop the excess flour. 
Pour the batter into the cake pan. 
Place the pan on the bottom rack of the oven. 
Bake at 160 degrees Celsius for one hour. 
Let the cake cool and then remove it from the pan.

Garnish

Sprinkle with powdered sugar the surface of the cake.

Sprinkle cinnamon over the icing sugar.

 

Red peppers stuffed with cheese

RED PEPPERS STUFFED WITH CHEESE

Ingredients

14 big red peppers,

400 g. Feta cheese

200 g. grounded Gouda or Edam cheese

150 g. gruyere cheese

8 cloves garlic

1/2 bunch parsley

80 g. olive oil

Filling

Put in the blender the oil and garlic and beat them.

Stop the blender. Smash Feta with your hand and add it into the mix.

Beat the mix for another minute.

Empty the content of the blender in a bowl.

Grate all remaining cheese. Put them in the bowl and stir.

Peppers

Wash the peppers and cut their stalk.

Cut them with a knife lengthwise to fill them easily. 

With your hand remove the seeds from each pepper.

Clean the parsley and wash it. Cut it into small pieces. Put it into the bowl with the cheese and mix with your hand.

Take a pepper, open it and stuff with 1 TB of filling.

Press the two halves of each pepper to close it.

Place the peppers in an ovenproof dish, next to each other.

Put 80 ml of water in the dish.

Cover the dish with foil. 

Put the baking dish in the bottom track of the oven.

Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for half an hour. 

Uncover the baking dish. Look at the stock’s quantity.

Usually peppers release a lot of stock. 

If the stock is too much, cook until most of it evaporates. 

When the peppers are ready, they have little sauce. 

These peppers are offered as an appetizer and accompany very well meat dishes..