The Real Life Cooking Strategy Guide Blog: Ancient Greece; Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, and Dinner

Breakfast
Grape Juice
Bread and White Sauce
Olives
Figs
Feta Cheese
Preparation Time : 10 Minutes
No Marinating needed.
The Ancient Greeks often liked to go to see a play first thing in the morning. So often they would pack a sack breakfast, and gather at the theater to wait for the sun to rise. When the sun rose, the play would start, and they would eat breakfast. Their white sauce on a bread plate was the beginning of the invention of pizza. (Ancient Greeks ate breakfast, lunch, a late afternoon snack, and a dinner. Modern Greeks eat a very small breakfast, a mid morning snack, a huge meal around 2PM, followed by a 2-3 hour nap, and a large late evening meal around 9PM. It very hot in Greece, so it basically shuts down from 2PM until 5:30PM.).

Ingredients and Shopping List:
½ cup of Alfredo Pasta Sauce
1 glass of Grape Juice (It was really wine, but their wine was kinda like watered down wine compared to our, also grape juice is healthier for the brain than wine).
1 cup of Olives
½ cup of Figs
½ cup of Feta Cheese

Equipment:
No cooking equipment needed, unless you would like to warm up the Alfredo sauce in the microwave.

Instructions:

Put the white sauce in a little cup. Put everything on the plate. Get your grape juice.

To eat the bread dip the bread in the grape juice and/or the white sauce before eating.

Pour grape juice into glass.

Eat.

Note: The mastery of the cooking of white sauce from scratch is an accomplishment that chef students take pride in. You take 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, meat broth, or fish broth. 2 Tablespoons of flour, and 1 cup of milk, and mix them all together just right to come out with this very tasty sauce. The oil goes in the sauce pan first, when its hot enough you add the flour so that there are not lumps. Then you stir in the milk, just right, so that it gets to just the right thickness, and voila, you've got white sauce. If you are a really fancy chef, you can add just the right amount of white shredded cheese to the sauce (Mornay white sauce). And if you are even fancier you can add an egg to the cheesy white sauce (Carbonara white sauce). Most modern chefs make white sauce with butter. The white sauce of the Ancient Greeks was more like the modern day Veloute white sauce. Alfredo sauce is butter, mixed with a heavy cream, and Parmesan cheese.

Note: The brain foods in this meal are olives and grape juice.

Note: Unbleached flour makes a healthier white sauce than, white flour. Whole wheat flour is even healthier, but it will make your white sauce have little brown speckles in it.

Lunch
Grape Juice
Moussaka (Eggplant baked in hamburger sauce, and thin white sauce)
Preparation Time: 15 - 30 minutes
No marinating needed.

Ingredients and Shopping List:
1 glass of Grape Juice (really watered down wine, but grape juice is healthier for the brain)
1 Eggplant
1 pound of cooked or raw Hamburger
1 cup of Alfredo Sauce
¼ cup of milk
½ teaspoon of Allspice (optional)

Equipment Needed:
Microwave and a skillet with stove top for the tastier version
Small baking dish, preferable glass
Oven or toaster oven

Instructions:

Get the hamburger and crumble it up if its already cooked. If its raw, crumble it up, cover it, and cook it in the microwave for about 4 minutes.
Wash and slice eggplant the long way.
Add the milk and allspice to the Alfredo Sauce and mix it up well

There are 2 versions, the tastier version and the super quick version.

For the super quick versions:
Sprinkle the crumbled hamburger over the sliced eggplant, and then pour the Alfredo sauce over the eggplant and hamburger. Bake at 350 for thirty minutes and eat. (Of course you could skip the oven altogether, and microwave the eggplant, hamburger, and sauce for 15 minutes, but it won't be crunchy at all). Pour grape juice into glass and eat.

For the tastier version. Wrap the eggplant sliced individually with paper towels and microwave it for about 1 minutes to dry them out so that it will fry better. Then fry the eggplant slices in olive oil until they are all browned on both sides. Then lay them in the baking dish, cover it with hamburger and Alfredo sauce, bake for 30 minutes, pour grape juice into glass, and eat.

Note: The brain food in this meal is eggplant.

Note: This meal would be brain healthier if you cook the white sauce from scratch using olive oil, instead of using already made Alfredo sauce.

Note: Low-fat hamburger is healthier for the brain than regular hamburger.

Note: Modern Greek moussaka is made with eggplant, but ancient moussaka probably wasn't because Greek literature doesn't mention eggplant until the Medieval Era. Chinese literature mentions it as early as 544 A.D. or C.E. I chose it for this recipe because eggplant is one of the best brain foods in the world. Like blueberries, it is outstanding at helping the brain cope with stress.

Mid-afternoon Snack

Individual Tryopita or Feta Cheese Pie Snacks
Preparation Time: 20-25 minutes.
No marinating needed.
Greek traditionally ate four meals a day, one being an afternoon snack. This is a great snack for having friends over to watch TV or whatever. They look like little paper footballs made into a pastry.

Photo courtesy of DC Central Kitchen

Instructions and Shopping List:
1/2 pound of Feta Cheese
Phyllo Bread Dough aka Filo Dough (Probably not available at Walmart; try a Greek or Arabian grocery store, Whole Foods may also have it.)
2 Eggs
1/2 cup of Olive Oil

Equipment Needed:
Mixing bowl
Cooking scissors or washed and sanitized regular scissors
Paper towels
Pastry brush or paper towel
Cookie Sheet
Oven

In the mixing bowl, mix together the feta cheese and eggs
Carefully open the filo dough and very carefully roll the sheets.
Take out about ¼ of the sheets.
Roll the rest of the sheets back up.
Put them back into the package, and then put it in an air tight Tupperware (or reused margarine ) container or a zip lock bag, so they won't dry out.
Wet some paper towels put them over the sheet you aren't using, so they won't dry out.
Cut the first sheet long ways into a 9 inch by 12 inch sheet, about the size of a piece of notebook paper.
If you bought the dough already in 9 inch by 12 inch sheets you won't have to cut it.
Brush or coat the sheet with olive oil.
Put one tablespoon of the egg and cheese mixture in the center of the sheet, about 2 inches from the bottom edge.
Fold in half, into a 9 inch by 6 inch sheet.
Smooth out the folded sheet, so that the egg/cheese mixture is no longer making a big lump in the sheet.
Then fold up the folded sheet like a paper football into a little triangle.
Put the little triangles on the cookie sheet. Keep making the little triangles until the egg and cheese mixture is all gone.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 – 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Eat.

Note: The brain food in this snack is olive oil.

Note: for a fancier snack, you can add 1 teaspoon of blue cheese, ½ pound of ricotta cheese, and 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, and 1 more to the egg/cheese mixture.

Note: Phyllo aka Filo dough doesn't come in whole wheat and its very hard to make from scratch.
Picture of layers of baked Phyllo dough aka Filo dough, its very very thin. (Picture courtesy of Wikipedia Phyllo Dough page).

Dinner
Grape Juice
Imitation Blackened Fish
Chilled Artichokes
Preparation Time: 20 - 25 Minutes
Marinating Should be Done.

Ingredients and Shopping List:
1 glass of Grape Juice (really watered down wine, but grape juice is healthier for the brain)
One Tuna or Salmon Steak
1 bottle of Lemon Juice
½ cup of Olive Oil
Garlic flakes or powder as needed (or Italian Seasoning for a more Roman flavor)
1 can (or little glass jar) of Artichokes Hearts
Salt and Pepper to taste

Equipment:
1 microwave-safe or glass bowl for marinating
Skillet (preferable a not a non-stick skillet; if non-stick you'll have to get someone to show you how to cook with non-stick cookware) and stove top
Spatula
Cookie Sheet
Oven

Put the can (or little glass jar) of artichokes hearts in the refrigerator.
Put fish steak in bowl cover them with lemon juice. Marinate in the refrigerator for 1 – 4 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Pour the lemon juice marinate down the drain.
Turn the stove top on high, pour in olive oil and wait about 4 minutes until the skillet smokes a little.
Sprinkle garlic flakes or garlic powder on both sides of the steaks.
Put the steak carefully in the skillet, don't splash the hot oil!
Carefully press down on the steak for about 2 minutes. Don't burn. This is called searing. Turn the steak carefully over and sear the other side.

Take the fish steak out of the skillet and put it on the cookie sheet. Turn off the stove top!

The oven should be hot enough by now.
Bake the steak in the oven for about 10-12 minutes. Don't burn. One side should be really really crusty, but the meat inside should be tender.

Take the steak out of the oven, put it on a plate
Open the can of artichokes, pour the water down the drain, put them on the plate. Sprinkle olive oil on artichokes. Salt and pepper meal to taste.
Pour grape juice into glass.

Eat.

Note: The brain foods in this meal are salmon or tuna and olive oil (and garlic, especially if its real garlic and not garlic powder).