Ivy Liacopoulou

Ivy Liacopoulou grew up in Limassol, Cyprus, a beautiful island in the eastern Mediterranean, where her passion for cooking began as a child, helping her mother in the kitchen. Ivy belongs to a new generation of home cooks who loves to experiment and create new recipes of her own. She is the author of two cookbooks and she owns and manages Cooking Classes, in Nafplio, Peloponnese.

There have been a lot of changes in my diet the past months and I am really happy with all these changes. We eat less meat which means that the pork we used to eat at least once a week is now limited to once a month, the beef we used to eat once a …

Poached fruit, especially grapes, become delicately ambrosial when poached in a sweet, Cypriot wine called Commandaria. They are perfect on puddings, with Greek yogurt or even in salads.

Insalata Caprese, which means Salad made in Capri, the region of Campania, in Italy, is a simple salad using plum tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, olive oil and season

Revithia giahni sti gastra is a vegan dish with stewed chickpeas, traditionally cooked in a clay pot and baked in a wood burning oven. However, not all of us have wood burning ovens or clay pots but we can still cook it in a Dutch oven or any casserole dish in our home oven. If you don’t have any of the above, use a baking tin which cover with an aluminium tent.

Glystarkes or glistarkes or gyristarkes, from the Greek verb γυρίζω = turn, is a kind of Cypriot grid-like crusty, sesame rusk.

Summer Vacation Parti V : Mystras’ Panigyri and Parori Mystras or Myzithras (Greek: Μυστράς, Μυζηθράς) meaning cheese-maker probably because they made the Greek cheese myzithra there.Mystras, which is situated on a steep foothill on the northern slopes of Mount Taygetus, 6 kilometres northwest of Sparta, was a fortified town in the medieval Peloponnese. In the …

Summer Escapes – Part IV – Kladas, Laconias Kladas is a small village just a few kilometres before reaching Sparta and that is where we usually stay when we visit our relatives. This is the view of the village from the house and the last buildings near the mountain, is part of Sparta. This is …

A zebra cake is a type of layered cake with a distinctive striped pattern, similar to the black-and-white stripes of a zebra.

Mint Pesto is a twist to the classic Italian sauce which is made with basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and parmesan. There are many kinds of pestos using different herbs, cheeses and nuts but my favourite is the one I have made with mint and of course almonds and halloumi which are used in Cyprus to suit the tastes and flavours of my country.

Kariokes is a Greek dessert made with sponge cake, chocolate and lots of walnuts (karydia in Greek) from which it takes its name.