Gayle’s Greek Gourmet: Food of the Olympic Goddesses
Gayle’s Greek Gourmet is the source of great Greek food in the Cowichan Valley. All of our recipes are made with love, care, and the best ingredients available. When we launch late this spring, we will be preparing and selling Greek delicacies often made with homegrown herbs and produce from The Garden of Eatin’s, our small farm in Cobble Hill.
Like the produce from The Garden of Eatin’s, Gayle’s Greek Gourmet products will be available through Cow-Op.ca, a farmer’s collective in the Cowichan Valley that operates as an online farm stand.
I also intend to create some pop-up dinner events, including some bacchanalian extravaganzas that reflect the party culture of my family. Bouzouki’s, belly dancers, zeibeko dancers, the works!
Our recipes will be published here so you can see what you are getting, plus I refer to the website while cooking.
My recipes never skimp on the quality of the food, and neither do I. My baklava uses only honey and never uses crushed walnuts, which can age faster because of the larger surface area. I chop my walnuts when making the recipe so that there are variable sizes, which adds to the texture flavor of the baklava.
More recipes are on the way, tarama, fassolia, skordalia, moussaka, and keftethes are coming soon (it’s April 7, 2024 today).
I’m also working on developing some anise flavored liqueurs from the herbs I grow, which will become part of the mix along with the Limoncillo and Nocino already published.
Keep watching this page for updates!
Spanakopita: Famous Greek Appetizer with Spinach and Feta
Spanakopita is one of the classic dishes of Greek cuisine and at the same time, one of the most versatile. A main course, side dish, or appetizer, depending on how large you make it.
Greek stuffed grape leaves are one of the classic recipes of Greek cuisine and made throughout the Mediterranean with regional variations. Within Greece, they are also known as dolmathes, dolmades, dolma, dolmadakia, or yaprakia..
My favourite olives both to make and to eat are dry-cured. These are so easy to prepare that it's generous to say that I "made" them. They have other advantages aside from the ease of preparation. Dry-cured olives last considerably longer than brine-cured, and the salt used in curing the olives becomes deliciously infused with the olive essence.
It's much more complicated making olives in a small rural town on Vancouver Island than it was in Toronto, but it's still very well worth doing. It's easy, they last for a very long time, and the flavors are more than worth the small amount of effort.
Having The Best, Brine Curing Black Olives At Home
Ripe black olives are ready to cure immediately with no need to soak and rinse for 7 days before brining. Instead, these can be ready to eat in as little as 7 days…depending on how brined you like them to be.
In the Neapolitan vs Scicilian pizza debate, I ask “What about Greek pizza?”. When I was growing up in Vancouver, most pizza available by delivery in the Lower Mainland was a Greek style pan pizza. While we also make Neapolitan pizza regularly on pizza nights, this style of pizza is ideal for breakfast. Yes, you read that right. The best pizza is breakfast pizza.
