"It's all Greek to me" - but try these succulent dishes

I often wonder what the origins of phrases are, so I looked that one up. Shakespeare first used it in his play Julius Caesar, and of course it means “that some won’t understand it.”

The word kalimera means good day or good morning and it gets you off to a good start with the locals when on holiday in Greece.

I always try to use a bit of the lingo when abroad, wherever that might be. I love Greece and I love the food especially.

We invited friends Glen and Lyn around for a meal the other day and I decided to go down the Greek route with the menu. I settled on Stifado, the Greek version of beef stew, and served it with a roasted vegetable dish called Briam and some potato skordalia.

The stifado was cooked long and slow and I used my slow cooker. It’s very simple: I browned stew beef in a bit of oil in a frying pan then put into the slow cooker and sprinkled a tablespoon of plain flour over it. I added chopped onion, garlic, a few chilli flakes, a teaspoon each of cinnamon and allspice. I threw in a tin of chopped tomatoes, a big squirt of tomato puree and a glass of red wine.

I made oxo stock and added about 200ml, put the lid on and left for five hours. Then I gave it a taste, seasoned with salt and pepper and added a handful of round shallots then let it continue cooking until they were soft.

With a slow cooker nothing evaporates so when everything was meltingly tender, I continued cooking but with the lid off, this allows the liquid to thicken.

In other news,we popped down to the station again last week as it is our local, and had another great meal as part of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

I was delighted to bump into my old work friend Maria and her dad Peter Keany. Apparently, Peter reads my column every week and looks forward to seeing what topic I cover.

I also spotted a couple of ladies from Durkar WI lunching and we had a quick hello.

It is so great to be out and about in our communities again; it does make all the difference to be social once again albeit with social distancing guidelines in mind.

Well readers, have a great week, same time, same place next week!