If you haven’t worked with phyllo dough before read the package directions very carefully. Every detail is for a reason. This is the recipe I use to make Spanakopita.

Spanakopita

1/2 package phyllo dough, completely thawed
olive oil to brush between layers, about 1 cup or more

2 Tbls. olive oil
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. dill weed
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp dried mint

2 – 10 ounce packages of spinach, washed and roughly chopped, leave wet

6-8 ounces feta cheese, broken into fine pieces
4 eggs

Chop then rinse the spinach and leave to drain in a colander but don’t dry it.

Heat the olive oil and saute the onions and garlic gently. Add the dill, nutmeg and mint. Add the wet spinach and cook until the spinach is well wilted. Allow to cool slightly.

Meanwhile layer about 1/2 of the phyllo dough in an 8 X 13 pan, brushing each layer with olive oil.

Beat the eggs with a fork and add the crumbled Feta cheese, salt and pepper. Add to the slightly cooled spinach and mix well. Pour the spinach / egg mixture over the prepared phyllo dough and adjust the filling so it is well spread out and flat.

Before the top layer of phyllo dough goes on.

Top with the remainder of the phyllo dough, brushing oil between each layer.

Bake in a 350 oven about 30-45 minutes until the custard is set. Remove from the oven and allow to set about 15 minutes before cutting into squares.

Enjoy with a salad and some fruit for dessert!

Many years ago I visited a friend, Judith,  and she served me a salad made of what I thought to be unusual and unexpected ingredients. It was delicious and is standard fare at Moonmooring. I call this salad and dressing my house salad.

Looking down into the blender.

The Dressing

Place these ingredients into a blender;

1/4  medium white onion *see below*
3/4 C.  olive oil
1/4 C.  cider vinegar
1/2 C.  sugar
3/4 tsp.  salt
1/2 tsp.  dry mustard
Blend till smooth and creamy looking. Then add;

1 tsp.  Poppy seeds

Blend just enough to incorporate.

*Note* A white onion will make an off white creamy dressing
A red onion will create a pink dressing
Use garden fresh green onions for a beautiful light green dressing

Serve this dressing over the following salad ingredients;

The Salad

1/4 head loose iceberg lettuce, broken into large bite size pieces
8-10 sections of ruby-red grapefruit
1/4 C. broken walnuts or pecans
1/4  avocado, sliced, optional and my own addition to this marvelous salad

Pour about 2 Tbls. of the dressing over this and serve. Yummy!!

It is light and filling. Using organic celery really is a boost to the environment and your own system.

Cream of Celery Soup

1 head organic celery, cleaned and diced

1 large onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch fresh ginger, minced
olive oil for sauteing
1 – 1 pound sweet potato, light fleshed, cooked, peeled and diced
2 cans chicken broth
4 cups whole milk, or your prefered milk
1/4 cup cold water
3 Tbls. flour

Prep the celery, onions, garlic and ginger . Cut the sweet potato in chunks and simmer in water till tender, cool and peel, dice into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces. Meanwhile heat enough olive oil in a soup pan to cover the bottom, add the celery and onions and cook till tender. Add the garlic and ginger stirring often. Do not burn the garlic.

Add the chicken broth, prepared sweet potato cubes and salt and pepper A dash of cayenne is nice. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Using a stick blender, puree the soup for a few minutes till the ingredients are the desired consistency. Add the milk and bring to a light simmer. Mix the cold water and flour in a glass jar and quickly shake vigorously till blended. No lumps! Add the flour/water mixture slowly ( you might not want to add all of it at once, so you can adjust the thickness of the soup) while stirring continuously to prevent lumps, until the soup comes back to a boil. Lower heat and simmer lightly till the soup starts to thicken. Add more milk or more of the flour/water to suit your self. Season gently with salt and pepper.

a moonmooring orignal recipe

If you want, about 1 pound (more or less) diced, cooked chicken can be added at this point. If you like. I prefer my celery soup meatless.

Serve with good crackers, a tuna or chicken salad sandwich, a salad or some fruit for a complete meal. Even Adrian and Holly liked this soup!

I can’t imagine paying hard-earned money again for what passes as good food. My example today was a meal at Ruby Tuesday’s.

When Ruby Tuesday came to town there was a lot of excited people. A nice chain where one could get nutritious home cooked down home food. I think it may have actually met that criteria at one time, but todays meal was fraught with chemically treated wilting “fresh” vegetables, prefab fish patties, high fructose corn syrup and saccharine sweet scripting designed to allow the customer only one civil response – a positive one, when in fact a strong negative was really in order.

The shrinking salad bar contained wilting and brown lettuce. The mixed greens contained decomposing slim ready for the compost pile. I picked through and found enough to make a salad. About a year ago I made my last complaint about the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday after they refused to throw away the totally rotten lettuce on the salad bar and I boycotted them for a while.

The cut ends of the broccoli was brown and the head was wilted. I picked out a few passable pieces. My dining companion bravely ordered the salmon with steamed broccoli. It was obviously a prefab frozen patty before being what looked to be deep-fried.

I don’t have to have a stellar meal every time I eat out. Please don’t charge me for a stellar meal.

I understand scripting, every industry uses it now. Scripting has its’ place but is easily overused. Over burdening the wait staff with paragraphs of verbiage does little to make up for the less than stellar food. When the statement arrived, “Isn’t everything delicious!”, one is left with two options, buy in to it and agree or tell the truth. The truth was, it was not delicious, it was passable but just barely. Hence the dumbing down. How many times does it take before it is believed? Can anyone say 1984?

High fructose corn syrup, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, preservatives, unpronounceable chemicals whipped into a mass hysteria of pica. And scripting. Brain washed into deliciousity of non food. We live in a world where soda pop and corn chips constitute the breakfast of champions; or if one moves up the scale toward a nutritious meal, instant oatmeal (stripped of all nutrition), laced with mock apple bits and cinnamon flavor.

I don’t rant very often, but rant is where you find me tonight. And you find me eating real food. Vegetable wraps made with freshly grated cabbage, carrots and radish, seasoned with home made pepper jam and real cream cheese.

Skip the margarine, the fake cheese, the milk substitute, and artificial sweeteners. Skip the meat patty containing 100% real beef (along with 100% fillers). Skip the fruit juice drinks, the scramblers and the extruded patties.

Have a real meal, made at home (how novel!) and have it be real food. Whatever is in season will be fresh. Whatever is grown locally will be fresh. There really is no reason to eat something that has been disassembled, recombined, flash steamed, flash frozen, packaged in plastic and shipped back and forth across the country a couple times then heated in a microwave or deep fried.

S.

My husband's grandmother used to make tamales every Christmas and send them out to all the family too far away to enjoy them in her own kitchen.  They were delicious – we looked forward to them every Christmas.  A few years into our marriage, they stopped coming.  She was getting old enough that they were too big of a job for her to handle anymore.  I wanted to learn how to make them, so I started asking.  I found two problems – one, none of the … Read More

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By popular request I will bake one more batch of Walnut and Cherry fruitcake. There will be 14 one pound cakes only (unless enough people request them to bake 2 batches, then there will be 28 cakes). If you … Read More

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These tomatoes were picked weeks ago and all ripened nicely. I didn't grow them. They came from someone's plot in the community garden in West Plains. No I didn't confiscate them. I came by them honestly via another. I have no idea how they acquired them. So, anyway, I turned them all into tomato soup. I would have been happy to share the recipe with you but it didn't turn out well. Too much garlic and basil, and that after I told someone you cou … Read More

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Aroma Dolce Cafe and Bakery is always a delight serving up European food. They were unfortunately, out of Plov, so I settled for the Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and broccoli. It was nicely presented with black olives, an aromatic lemon twist and a slice of delectable bread. The only complaint I have is about the four minute pieces of broccoli it contained. I don’t understand the inclusion of the word broccoli in a menu description if the amount isn’t going to amount to anything. Nonetheless it was excellent. As was the house salad; at $5.95 it was a large bowl of fresh romaine, olives and tomatoes dressed with parmesan and creamy Italian dressing, enough for 4 small salads or 2-3 large servings. The two of us were not able to finish it all.

Will had the beef dumplings which were presented with a hefty side of sour cream and a lovely whole romaine leaf. A bit plain and dry for my taste the filling was moist and tasty, and I’m a sucker for anything with that much sour cream.

They have “made from scratch” “in their own kitchen” desserts, baklava, puff pasties and 2 kinds of scrumptious looking cakes. The baklava was exceptionally tasty but a tad dry. I may be spoiled from my venture in Greece and the best Baklava in the world. One never knows.

The dining area was a little chilly for my taste although comfortable and roomy. It was and is always impeccably clean and tidy. The service was good, not great but good. I failed to visit the washroom. They don’t bring the ticket to your table requiring one to figure money maneuvers and calculate tip while at the cashier, then another trip back to the table if you are leaving a cash tip.

Overall, for this neck of the woods, the Ozarks, I rate Aroma Dolce a 4 out of a possible 5. They can be contacted via phone 417-256-3755 or e mail aromadolce_cafeandbakery@yahoo.com but don’t seem to have a website.

Do visit them if you are in West Plains.

There's nothing quit like the feel of warm moist earth under your feet and between your toes on a cool Saturday afternoon. The sunshine was toasty enough for me to break a sweat when out of the light breeze. My favorite kind of day! Without checking the temp I, still in my pj's and robe, went out to inspect and water the garden. It … Read More

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Since the last few years I have tried many fruitcake recipes and finally took the best from several of them to create my own. The traditional fruitcake I make is dark, rich, spicy and moist; filled with raisins, dates, cherries, walnuts and citron. It has creamy butter for richness and plenty of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves with a bit of ginger. Walnuts or pecans either one will do as far as I am concerned. Then soak it in Southern Comfort! Soak it as long as you can wait.

Growing up I was never a fan of fruitcakes. I always thought they were kind of icky. I’m not sure what changed my mind, but sometime in my 30′s or so I had a serious change of heart. Wish I had a memory of the exact fruitcake that did it, but it’s not there.

Nowadays I can’t keep my hands or mouth off a good fruitcake. Now, many of you may be saying, “good and fruitcake in the same sentence… I don’t know about that”. I beg to differ! Rich, dark with spices and chock full of nuts and cherries… those are the ingredients a great fruitcake is made of. And the Southern Comfort. Lets not forget the Southern Comfort, one of the main ingredients!

Order you one (or two or three or maybe even a dozen!) here and set it to soak up some of your favorite cordial, whether it’s rum, brandy or bourbon. I’ll have mine soaked in Comfort!

Take a look at my Etsy store and order a fruitcake or other fun vintage or handmade items!

Fruitcake bites. Just enough for one great big bite or 2 reasonable bites! To be listed in the store soon.