Compile a list of fabulous, 30 minute gourmet recipes

Most people in America have Greek salads with lettuce in them. Not so when I was visiting Greece years ago. Greek salads were made of 6 main ingredients:

2-4 Ripe tomatoes (the sweetest ones you can get)
1-2 Bell peppers
4-8 oz Feta cheese
1 can Greek black olives
Extra Virgin Olive oil to taste
Vinegar if you like
1 Loaf good french bread or other bread you like. French bread is good because it does not have it’s own strong flavor.

Cut the tomatoes up into wedges of small chunks. Slice up the bell peppers into small bit size pieces also. Mix those two item together, crumble the feta cheese on it. Sprinkle on the black olives too. Regular canned black olives will do, but Greek olives add the most flavor. Liberally pour extra virgin olive oil on top and mix again.

To serve, slice up the bread let everyone take portions with oil in them. The BEST part of eating the Greek salad is using the bread to wipe up olive oil, feta, tomatoes and peppers. See how much you and soak and pile onto a piece of bread and then ENJOY! If you and your friends are informal, everyone can dip out of the big salad bowl.

(OK, this one will take more than 30 minutes)

Classic philly cheesecake

1 Cup Honey Maid Graham Crackers
3 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
5 pkg. (8 oz each) Philadelphia cream cheese or Philadelphia Neufchatel cream
cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 cup Breakstone’s or Knudsen sour cream
4 eggs

Pre heat oven to 325 degrees (300 if using dark nonstick springform pan). comb crumbs, 3 Tbsp. sugar and butter; press firmly onto bottom of 9-in. springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

Mix cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, flour and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour over crust.

bake or 1 hour, 10 minutes, or until center is almost set. Loosen cake from side of pan; cool before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate for four hours or overnight.

Makes 16 servings.

To decorate, arrange 2 cups mixed berries on top of chilled cheesecake. Brush with 2 Tbsp. melted strawberry jelly.

I’m getting some very good recipes from Yrush’s virtual party.

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

From
“The Sugar Reef Carribean Cookbook,” by Devra Dedeaux and
http://www.dianaskitchen.com/page/poultry/jerkchk.htm .
1 tablespoon Ground allspice
1 tablespoon Dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons Cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Ground sage
3/4 teaspoon Ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons Garlic powder or fresh
1 tablespoon Sugar
1/4 cup Olive oil
1/4 cup Soy sauce
3/4 cup White Vinegar
1/2 cup Orange juice
1 Lime juice
1 Scotch bonnet pepper (habanero)
3 Green onions—finely chopped
1 cup Onion—finely chopped
4 to 6 chicken breasts

Seed and finely chop Scotch Bonnet pepper. Trim chicken of fat. In a large bowl,
combine the allspice, thyme, cayenne pepper, black pepper, sage, nutmeg,cinnamon, salt, garlic powder and sugar. With a wire whisk, slowly add the olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar, orange juice, and lime juice. Add the Scotch Bonnet pepper, onion, and mix well. Add the chicken breasts, cover and marinate for at least 1 hour, longer if possible. Preheat an outdoor grill.
Remove the breasts from the marinade and grill for 6 minutes on each side or until fully cooked. While grilling, baste with the marinade. Bring the leftover marinade to a boil and serve on the side for dipping.

Here is something contributed by Pioneerspirit

Cuban fish/polenta chowder

Though for a picnic or potluck, I now remmeber to bring plastic bowls and
spoons…

You’ve gotta start with the sofrito (the foundation of cuban cooking):
8.5 oz. can of diced roma tomatoes
6 cloves (not heads) of garlic (crushed)
half a large yellow onion (diced)
half green bell pepper (diced)
1/4 cup of dry sherry
1/4 cup of spanish olive oil _{(smell, make sure it’s not rancid)
I’ve had to return several bottle of oil (olive, sesame, etc) lately…}
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Start by heating up the polenta in a seperate pot: 1 cup of cornmeal, 6 cups of filtered water, 3 Tablespoons of spanish olive oil, 2 teaspoons of salt, and pepper to taste (but a generous portion). Combine everything but the pepper,
and let it simmer over very low heat, mixing frequently, until it thicken, will take about 20-25 minutes. Add a generous amount of freshly cracked pepper.

Then start on the sofrito: heat the pan, warm the olive oil until it’s fragrant. Add the garlic and onions, then after a couple of minutes add the green pepper, sauteé until translucent. Now add the tomatoes, bay leaves,and sherry. Salt
to taste. Cover and let the flavors blend. Add the cod, and let it simmer over the stove, cook until white and flaky at it’s thickest, but don’t overcook (will be too chewy). Finally, pepper to taste.

Bring two the seperate serving bowls to the table (polenta and fish), and serve the polenta in the individual bowls first, with the red stew plopped afterward, in the middle. This dish is traditionally cooked with crab but my husband is allergic to shellfish, and everyone seems to love this dish, it looks so pretty too.

This is a simple and delicious sauce that I had with salmon at a Japanese restaurant. It tasted like they put beef buillion in it and I could not get them to give me the recipe and only experimented until I got it.

1/2 stick of butter melted (more if you have more people)
2 or 3 mushrooms minced and dropped in
1 or 2 onces of soy sauce or braggs 
1/2 lemon added to taste

The basic recipe is to melt the butter in a sauce pan, add the mushrooms and cook a few minutes. Then, add the soy sauce and lemon at the last minute and cook another 30 seconds. It should taste like a beef flavored sauce and you can always add more lemon or soy sauce to your own taste. This is a great sauce on fish, chicken and beef. Make more than you think you’ll need because it will go fast.

Oh the humble garlic cloove. I guess this was one of theit “ward off the vampires” recipes. Simple ingedients. Chicken, loaf of french bread (or baguette if you live in France) and garlic.

Take the bread and slice it into 1/2” thick slices. Lay them out on a cookie sheet so it covers all the surface. A few heads(?) whole garlics. Break them up into large clooves (no need to peel the skins off; the bigger the better). Place a few whole garlic clooves, with skins onto the bread. More if your friends like garlic. Lay the chicken pieces; thighs and breasts work best and I prefer thighs over breast meat) and pop into a 375 degree oven for 40-60 minutes. OK, the cooking takes more than 30 mintes, but the prep is something like 10 minutes.

The chicken drippings fall onto the bread, the garlic clooves cook and the chicken is nice and tender. The garlic should be in the cosistency of mush and you can take the clooves and squeeze out the center straight into your mouth. Yummy! Bread can be eaten and will have all the chicken drippings soaked into them. For the very adventurous, make a sauce of pesto mayonnaise with 30% pesto added to mayo and heated a little. You can either put a bowl of it into hot water, or use a microwave. Great sauce that takes 2 minutes of you have the premaid pesto and mayo ready.

Rolf, from Florida, contributed this recipe

Springtime.
Frankfurt, Germany is known to most Americans mainly for its Rhein-Main Airport, and maybe associated with ‘Frankfurters’ – or hot dogs. In culinary circles it is known for a long history of all kinds of pallet-pleasing goodies.
During Spring, I remember a dish called: ‘Gruene Sauce’. You went to the store and bought a bundle of seven fresh herbs (parsley, chives, etc) – wrapped in newspaper.
You chopped these very fine, and mixed them with a little oil. Depending on your pocketbook, you served the mixture over small boiled potatoes with or without thinly sliced ham, and garnished with sliced, hard boiled eggs.
I adopted part of that recipe to make my Florida ‘Green Puree’.
I had plenty of parsley and radishes in my garden. I separated the parsley leaves from the stems – a nice fist-full, quartered about 8 medium red radishes, added a little olive oil, a tablespoon of margarine, a dash of Kona Sea-Salt, and chopped the whole thing in the Cuisinar to a spreadable mix.
I just eat it on top of a slice of wheat toast. I have to try it with some scrambled egg inside a peta bread for ‘lunch on the road’ one of these days. A reminder of some of my favorite places : Kona, HI – Frankfurt, Germany.

are welcome to contribute their best simple recipes. I will get some more soon.

Recipe #1
Here is a fabulous recipe for a salad dressing that I had at the Four Seasons in Hawaii.

1.5 oz ground black pepper
9.0 0z white miso
0.5 oz chopped ginger
0.5 oz chaopped garlic
6.0 oz soy sauce or braggs
1.5 oz sesame oil
4.0 oz rice vinegar
1.0 oz white chili pepper
1.5 oz salad oil

I did not have all the ingrdients wheen I made this dressing, but just used whatever I had and still still tasted fantastic. Obviously, the miso, vinegar and pepper are must have ingredients. We made a largr bottle of it and last nite, I put it on top of pan-friend fish and that was good also.

It’s TO DIE FOR…

PS If you make this, let me know how you like it.