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.

Panzanella or panmolle is a Tuscan chopped salad of bread and tomatoes that is popular in the summer. It includes chunks of soaked stale bread and tomatoes, sometimes also onions and basil, dressed with olive oil and vinegar.

I am glad to be hosting again Weekend Herb Blogging #177 – 30th March – 5th April, 2009, the brainchild of Kalyn, of Kalyn’s Kitchen and now continued by Haalo, of Cook (almost) Anything at least Once.

I am also hosting Bookmarked Recipes, …..where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc, make it and submit it to a weekly roundup.. To take part here’s what you do……. 1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show …

Halvas is one of my favourite desserts which I always make during Lent. I am giving you the basic recipe which was given to me by my sister, who serves this in their restaurant, but I would like to tell you how I made some changes. Halvas Nistisimos – Basic Recipe Serves: 12 Ingredients: 1 …

If you ever visit Cyprus never order à la Carte.In Cypriot restaurants or tavernas your will see that they serve meze (plural mezedes) on their menu.Cypriot cuisine is famous for its mezedes, which translate as appetizers. Don’t think as mezedes being small appetizer plates as starters but Cypriot mezedes are more than just starters but …

Tashi is a Cypriot vegan dip made with tahini, garlic and lemon juice. It goes well with almost any food and this appetizer is served in all Cypriot restaurants.

Pastitsio nistisimo (pr. Pah-STEE-tsio Knee-STEE-see-moh) is a vegan pasta casserole dish made with tubular pasta, vegetable filling and topped with a vegan faux béchamel sauce. The same dish can be made vegetarian using the same filling but adding a real bechamel sauce on top.

Nistisimi Béchamel is a vegan substitute which can be used on top of Greek dishes such as pastitsio, moussakas, papoutsakia etc to make them vegan.

Indian style chicken curry includes a variety of aromatic spices simmered in a coconut milk-based sauce and served with rice.

Traditional Greek Macedonian Halvas, is one of the main Lenten sweets. It’s main ingredient is sesame, which is turned into tahini and used to be sweetened originally with threpsini, which is a natural sweetener produced from raisins. During the War, when the Germans had confiscated all the production of raisins in Greece, other sweeteners were …