A Weekend over Baked Food

Let's start from the basics. Place: X's country house in Kineta. Date: Weekend of 19-20/11/2005. Persons: Me and X.


Our idea to hit the road while the weather forecasts stated heavy storms over the weekend was kinda risky. But we did it. Packed our stuff and go. It's only 40 minutes drive though. Why waste our weekend in busy Athens while we can go to Kineta and relax? (we thought) and that's why the big storm found ous trapped at X's house.

But for the weather, everything else was planned until the last detail. The food, the food and the desert! We both had the idea to use the big oven (the old style ones that use wood and charcoal to bake) and prepare a nice piglet (sorry Winnie fans!) with potatoes and quinces!

Preparations started 2 hours in advance in order to heat up the oven and turn woods into charcoal. Until then we prepared the tray with the food. An old greek recipe suggest placing the piglet on top of vine tree branches to add taste and that's how we proceeded. Two hours later everything was ready. 5 extra minutes later everything was devoured!

Since there was extra heat left, X suggested preparing our own bread and baking it in the oven. The dough was ready in 15 minutes and the bread (actually two loaves of bread, one plain and the other filled with the tradiotinal greek cheese: feta).

Finally our lunch/dinner ended with a specially prepared chocolate profiterol prepared by myself. All from scratch, all deliciously eaten with worries and concerns! Recipes for the cheese bread and profiterol follows.

CHEESE BREAD WITH FETA
1kg of flour (better use 1/2kg of white and 1/2kg of whole grain flour)
20g of yeast
2 big spoons of olive oil
1 big spoon salt
300g of feta cheese (ok use any other type of cheese you prefer)
water (probably round 3 glasses of water)

Stir in flour, yeast and salt so they will mix together. Add the oil and start pouring water until the dough is detouched from your fingers. Keep adding water for a little more until the dough is soft and is about to become sticky again. Lay dough on a tray, cover with cheese and pinch edges together so as to make a little basket. Let dough rest somewhere warm for an hour and bake in 200C for about 45 minutes. Bread is ready when the crust is brown and the inside is not moisty.

MILK CHOCOLATE PROFITEROL
Puffs:
100ml milk
50ml water
3 big spoons flour
1 big spoon butter
2 eggs

Creme:
1 litre milk
250gr flour
150gr sugar
2 vanilles
1 big spoon fresh butter
300kg milk chocolate (less/more to taste)

For the puffs stir in milk, water and butter in a saucepan, medium heat, bring to boil and add the flour. Remove from heat and add the eggs one by one. The final mixture should be able to stand. Take small portions of th mixture and place them on a baking tray, leave space between them, and bake for about 15-20 minutes in 170C so they will rise.

Prepare the creme by adding all above ingredients except chocolate in a saucepan, medium heat, and once thickened remove the 1/6 of the mixture in order to fill the puffs. Add the chocolate to the remaining mixture and remove from heat.

Fill the puffs with the vanilla creme and place them in a bowl. Cover with the chocolate creme and put it in the fridge for more than 4 hours before consuption. Enjoy!