Nashville Greek Festival overview

This is a posting from one of my other blogs, Tennessee Christian News. It shares my experiences eating Greek food at a festival.

Tennessee Christian News ™

NASHVILLE — The 26th Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church Greek Festival in Nashville is wrapping up this evening.

The church provided a plethora of Greek/Mediterranean dishes, Greek music and folk dancing, ethnic merchandise vendors, and an explanation of Orthodox history and liturgy. They also shared the history of their congregation, which dates back to 1917!

As you can see frkm these photos, my wife and I enjoyed several Greek foods, including gyros and spanikopita. The coffee was Greek coffee, which is similar to Turkish coffee. We took home several varieties of baklava.

I loved learning more about Greek Orthodoxy as well as eating some delicious food!

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Reason for local food

Here’s an example of the benefits of local food. Heart healthy ties into eating an overall healthy meal, and you can’t totally eat healthy if you don’t know what you’re eating. Local food gives you a better chance to know what you’re eating.

http://news.yahoo.com/french-horsemeat-scandal-firm-says-government-too-quick-081550439.html

Throwing together a black bean salad

I’m not always the kind of cook who obsesses over exact measurements, especially if I’m in a hurry.

The other day, I threw together a quick black bean salad when my wife came home from work for lunch. I loosely based my salad on a recipe on the box of beans (Whole Foods is putting its brand of beans in boxes now.). The recipe called for things we didn’t have, like corn and cilantro, and I wasn’t sure about some of the measurements. But that’s part of the fun of cooking – modifying recipes to meet your whim or to go by what you have or don’t have. Here’s what I came up with, more or less:

• one can (or box) of black beans
• several dashes of oregano
• several dashes of black pepper
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil plus a little
• 2 tsp rice vinegar
• handful of diced bell pepper
• handful of diced onion
• 1 diced Roma tomato

I’m gonna wash that salt right out of those beans

Here’s a quick tip to cut the sodium out of a meal.

Stores like Publix and Whole Foods are great places to find no-salt added beans, but not everyone has access to them.

If you can’t find a can of no-salt added beans at the grocery store, just rinse the beans in a strainer before using them. You’ll remove some of the excess sodium that way.

It’s all Greek (dressing) to me

I threw together this Greek dressing tonight by combining a couple of recipes and then adding extra olive oil. It has a little zing. It easily fits in a dressing bottle. Mix the ingredients together and shake ’em up. And it went great over our salad!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tbsp dry oregano
• 3 tsp fresh basil
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 10 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard

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Sweet pork chops

Recently I concocted an entree I refer to as sweet pork chops.  I chopped up about a fifth of a Lipstick sweet pepper from my container garden, poured in two-thirds of a bottle of a pineapple-coconut-mango-tequila sauce available from Whole Foods and several teaspoons of low-sugar orange marmalade.

Basically, I sprinkled the diced peppers in the skillet, placed the pork chops in, and covered everything with the sauce and marmalade. I cooked until the chops were well done. The sauce will get all runny as it heats up and marinate the chops.

• INGREDIENTS:
• 4 pork chops
• 1/5 sweet pepper
• 2/3 bottle pineapple sauce of your choice
• 3-4 teaspoons orange marmalade

 

A Heart-Healthy Diet is Good for the Brain and Memory

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStrokeNews/A-Heart-Healthy-Diet-is-Good-for-the-Brain-and-Memory_UCM_441866_Article.jsp#mainContent

Heat advisory

Our container garden is faltering…weeks of 100-plus degree heat are taking a toll, having nearly killed off two tomato plants. We lost a bell pepper yesterday, and at least one of my nearly ripe Lipstick sweet peppers is dead.

On the plus side, we got about 20 minutes of blessed rain last night, thank the Lord, the first in several weeks. One of my sweet peppers should be ready to pick tonight. My Czech hot pepper plant has grown a small pepper too. We have gotten over a dozen cherry tomatoes from the third tomato plant and have been tossing those into salads.

In the garden

We harvested our first tomato today!
Strong winds last night blew over the tomato plants and knocoked several romas off…they’re probably lost because they’re still green and small.