Greek Night

Last night I decided I wanted to make a greek dish we enjoyed during our trip to Corfu. I was inspired to this by the oil and vinegar set we got from my parents, which in turn was inspired by the oil and vinegar sets on the table of each restaurant we went too on the island. In Greece or I should say Corfu, when people order salad (which is not called greek salad but Horiatiki), they flavour their salad by adding their own salt/pepper oil and/or vinegar. The restaurant will have added herbs and spices of their own of course to add flavour. I thouroughly enjoyed the salads and so we ended up with a wonderful oil and vinegar set before we went back to Canada. At home we were almost out of olive oil and we didnt have the right type of vinegar, so since I had to go to the grocery store anyway I decided I might as well do some more groceries. I found a nice recipe for Stifado, a beef stew in a very nice red wine sauce. So of I went to bulk barn to get some spices, to loblaws to get the other groceries and some fresh rosemary (which to my disappointment they did not have) and back home. Then I went to the LCBO to get some red wine. I know nothing of wine. At all.. So I randomly picked a red Italian wine, which was on sale and had a nice looking label like every pro wine buyer does. On the way home I walked past the market which to my excitement has re-opened again! They were selling little herb plants, 3 for $5 and I could not resist, I am now the proud owner of fresh Italian Large Leaf Basil, Cilantro and Rosemary. I have not planted them yet, as my pots are in the scary shed underneath a whole bunch of stuff on a shelf, so I will have to get them later at some point. I hope I wont kill these plants with to much attention. I sound way to much like a suzy home maker, cooking dinner buying herbs.. geezz.. oh well. Speaking of dinner. I made horiatiki, which turned out really nice, I had bought new good quality olive oil, red wine vinegar, to which I added a sprig of fresh rosemary.. sorry rosy.. and got some ok feta cheese. I also got black olives which I totally forgot to add to the salad.. waahwaaahhmm. The stifado had great potential to be an amazing dish but the red wine in it wasnt quiet what it should be. It was to strong/overpowering or there was to much in it, so that was to bad, it still tasted good but it could have been so much better. Next time it will be super! Alan made risotto which was rather tasty, so all in all we had a wonderful meal. Than we watched the finally of the amazing race, which was downloaded from the internet. I was pleased to see the frat boys got beaten in the end by the hippies. My evening was complete!
I am thinking maybe my first two week theme should be wine.. although I would like to learn more about blogging, changing stuff, adding headers etc etc... but that will perhaps just show up as we go along.. ok it is official. I am going to teach myself more about wine!
oh, when I get a chance I will post a picture of last nights dinner.