Greek Cooking Class: Spanakopita, Greek Salad, Baba Ganouj, Hummus, Couscous (and Chocolate Baklava)

We were away at the beach from Saturday through today, returning just in time to shop for and have cooking class 5 of 6 (we were off last week). Tonight, we made less than we usually do to give the class plenty of time to work with filo dough. One team of four made spanakopita, and the other team of four made my chocolate baklava. In addition, we had dips baba ganouj (made with eggplant) and hummus (made with chickpeas; both dips have sesame paste - tahini - and other ingredients, including garlic); pita bread; Greek salad (vegan as with all my dishes!); and plain couscous. Not shown here is the wonderful chocolate baklava that my students made!

Wherever we travel to, we seem to have good fortune getting tasty vegan food. This trip to the beach was a bit of an exception. Luckily, we had taken some leftovers with us and stayed at a lovely ocean-view condominium with a kitchen.

On Monday, we had hoped to eat out, but were disappointed at the few choices we had. We ended up at another Thai restaurant, Thai by the Sea, but unfortunately could only get some rice paper "summer rolls" and a very uninspired cucumber salad. Though we had called in advance, we found that all of their curry sauces are pre-prepared and already have fish sauce.

After our appetizers, we decided to do a quick shop and cook, or should I say 'prepare', a simple meal. It was late and we were hungry. The biggest grocery store on the island had so much processed food and a relatively small produce section (why is vegetarian dining and food on islands, which should be food havens, often in our experience not so forthcoming?!); we ended up buying some frozen potatoes, tostada shells, and some fresh vegetables. The dinner was too simple (and embarassing :-) ) to document here - it was just tostadas, potatoes, and leftover garlic scape stirfry.