Ground beef leftovers with orzo

It is too often that you wind up with cooked ground beef leftovers. Almost once in a week, I cook spaghetti with ground beef sauce and most of the time we eat the whole spaghetti but not all the meat. So I make this recipe that my mother in law taught me and present a whole new food to my husband.
You will need the leftover food, hot water, a deep pan with a lid and some orzo.
Turn the stove on medium heat and place the ground beef sauce in the pan. Pour some hot water and some salt and allow to come to a boil.
 I cannot tell you how much water or orzo to use as it all depends on the leftover beef sauce you have. It is easy to see that by yourself.
When the sauce boils, you throw in the orzo and stir occasionally until it cooks to your liking. Sometimes it takes more water than anticipated so be sure to keep some hot water nearby.
You taste the food, add some more salt and pepper if you like and take off the heat.

You can serve it as is or with some parmesan sprinkled on top.

Hope you’ll give it a try. Till next time


P.S. If you don't know orzo, it's a durum wheat pasta that looks like this.

A different pizza

         Remember when you were at home and your friend suddenly decided to visit you and we made something like pigs in a blanket? Well today she is coming again for a “Godfather” marathon and you don’t have any refrigerated pizza or dough or anything but you still have sliced bread...

So let’s make a pizza with sliced bread instead of dough. My husband and his buddies love this pizza. It’s lighter than the one with pizza dough so they can eat more. Almost every time they come for a match or a movie, I make pizza. It is very simple.

You take a baking pan, oil it and take the slices of the bread and put them on the pan to cover it’s surface. You can cut smaller pieces to cover all the surface if needed.

Take a small bowl and put some ketchup and a bit of butter and mix together. Put some of this mixture on every slice of bread that makes your pizza. On top of that you can put anything you like. Usually I put sliced cheese, then some salami or ham or turkey, bacon, sliced red pepper, a sliced tomato (if I have one) some mushrooms and finish with grated cheese.

 Put in a preheated oven at 180 celsius (356 Fahrenheit) and bake until the top cheese melts and takes a nice color.

Take out of the oven, let it to cool down a bit, cut it and enjoy.

Salad with cabbage, bacon, green apple and mayo

    This is a salad my youngest brother tasted once at a restaurant called “Krasopoulio”. The name means, where you can buy wine as in the past, in Greece, we had a lot of shops selling wine that wasn’t bottled. It was kept in big wooden barrels and you could bring your own bottles and fill them up. Nowadays these shops are replaced by the big liquor stores.
Back to this very simple salad which I guarantee that your family and friends are absolutely gonna love.

Ingredients

1. shredded cabbage
2. 4-5 slices of bacon
3. 1-2 green apples
4. Mayonnaise  

Take a small pan and cook the bacon. Cut it into medium pieces and put aside to cool. Peel the apples and cut them into medium pieces.
In a big salad bowl mix the cabbage, apple and bacon. Put 2-3 spoonfuls of mayo and mix everything. Put the bowl in the refrigerator and leave for an hour or two.
Enjoy.

Pigs in a different blancket

   

        Let’s say you are at home, being lazy, maybe reading a book or watching a show or doing absolutely nothing. Suddenly a phone call from your best friend saying she’s coming over and she has lots of news and she’s bringing the wine.

  It’s the end of the week, you haven’t gone to the supermarket yet and you have next to nothing in your cupboards and fridge. What do you do? Let’s say after searching, you only come up with a few cocktail sausages and some sliced bread. That’s it, you have everything you need to make a great snack, ideal to accompany beer or wine and lots of talk.

Kagianas

Hi, I’m Georgia and this is my tiny kitchen.

Although it is small, I have been able to make numerous recipes and I will be sharing some of them with you. Some are mine, some are traditional Greek and some I have found around the internet.

Today’s recipe is one of the first I learned to cook. It’s super easy and it’s mostly a summer time food as your main ingredient is very mature tomatoes. It has a plethora of names but in our family we call it “Kagiana” and I think it’s Turkish for omelet and that’s  exactly what that  food is. We are making an omelet with tomato and feta cheese.

Ingredients: