Piskopiano, Crete, A Family Travel Resort

Back in July the girls, my Mum and I  returned from a week's holiday in Crete, staying at the Piskopiano Village Apartments, in the village of the same name on the Heraklion side of the island.

This was my Mum Vicky's third time visiting these apartments in a couple of years, and aside from them being set in a lovely, picturesque resort, I think the owner's warmth and hospitality is what has drawn her back.

Piskopiano is one of three traditional Greek villages that are joined together in a triangular set of roads, the other's being Koutouloufari and Ano Hersonnisos - all slightly in-land, but only 1km from coastal Hersonnisos.To say they are pretty and traditionally Greek, is somewhat of an understatement; I love the islands of Greece and this was only my second visit to Crete, my first in a decade, and I'd definitely like to return.

A beautiful house in Piskopiano

Piskopiano Church by night

The Accommodation

Piskopiano Village Apartments

The apartments themselves, had a very welcoming reception and bar area, all modern in décor and to the 'shabby chic' style, a great place to enjoy an evening beverage before or after a nice meal out. There were two pools, one on each level, as the apartments are set out across two different levels. We were on the lower level, close to the snack bar area, and with the baby pool section inside, which suited us perfectly and we spent our time at this pool.

The apartments also had an area with Little Tykes play equipment, a house, a slide and some swings - which were great of an evening to keep Bridget entertained. The pools had a collection of inflatables, that it seemed everyone shared, which was nice, and there was a really good, friendly atmosphere throughout.

Mum and Beatrice enjoying one of the two pools

The room we had was lovely and spacious, a big, double bedroom with two sofa beds in the living area, a kitchen table and dining chairs and a huge patio terrace. As is the norm in Greece, there was no bath, just a shower, which was fine, we bought a little paddling pool on the first day, and Bridget and Beatrice had some lovely warm, al fresco 'baths' in these.

Bridget and Beatrice in our lovely apartment at Piskopiano Village

The snack bar  at Piskopiano Village is run in full by Maria, daughter-in-law of Mr George, the proprietor, and she works tirelessly, cooking everything from scratch in her immaculate, open plan little kitchen - I was impressed. The snacks on offer included English and continental breakfasts, a variety of toasties and pizzas and a few Greek options - I tried my first ever Dakos (a hard bread rusk topped with grated tomatoes and feta) at Maria's.

Bridget waiting for a milkshake at Maria's bar

Cretan Dakos

We enjoyed a really fun, 'Greek Night' BBQ with traditional bouziki playing and dancing, which was great, and almost the entire inhabitants of the apartments signed up, which I think is testament to how popular the family running the hotel are.

Our first day coincided with the opening of the hotel's new Spa service, and I enjoyed a fantastic 60 minute deep tissue massage in the tranquillity of the Greek hills, with the Mediterranean sea as my backdrop - bliss.

The Villages

Piskopiano Village, Koutouloufari and Ano Hersonissos are such beautiful, traditional Greek villages, I adored them. With a smattering of obvious tourism, there were still the odd touches that screamed old Greece to me. Picturesque blue doors, grapes and pomegranates growing, and of course, elderly Greeks gathered at doors and around tables, speaking animatedly. Just beautiful.

Koutouloufari village

Grapes lining the road on the walk into Ano Hersonissos

Postcard beautiful door

Rustic charm in Piskopiano

The Food

I'm a huge, huge fan of Greek food and Crete did not disappoint at all.

I over-indulged on the fantastic Greek frappe iced coffees every day - there is literally nothing more refreshing in the heat. My Mum and I massively OD'd on taramasalata too, we literally couldn't not order it in pretty much every restaurant.

Big shouts to our favourite restaurants in Piskopiano - Asposperida where the dolmades, calamari and taramasalata were second to none, and Kostas Taverna - quite possibly the most beautiful, traditional looking tavern I've encountered, with a very decent souvlaki and retsina.

Kosta's Taverna

Kosta's Taverna

One of many Taramasalata dishes

Ice cream in a taverna in Ano Hersonissos

In Koutouloufari we had two stand out meals - the first being at Emmanuel Taverna; firstly Bridget who was almost-three at the time, was having an absolute 'terrible twos' evening, and the staff were just fantastic with her and with us; which made a huge difference. Any parent knows eating out with toddlers can be an adventure, and often not a good one, but understanding staff and owners, who immediately told me about their children, nieces, nephews etc, really made us feel at ease with her strop-throwing. Aside from their general pleasantness, the meal we had was sensational, it didn't look the most appetising but tasted so good; their version of a 'Sunday roast' from what Maria at Piskopiano Village explained to me, they like many of the restaurants, had a wood-fired oven and the meats we enjoyed were the restaurant's specialities. I had the slow cooked pork in various herbs and spices, my Mum had the lamb and both were served with village potatoes and vegetables. Absolutely delicious - well worth a visit.

'Meat in the oven'

The other place, where we enjoyed a fantastic, gourmet meal was Gallini's. It's located at the far end of Koutouloufari, and we spotted it on the first day, all Greek pillars, and fine linen tablecloths, the décor was beautiful. The girls nodded off on one of the last afternoons during a walk, and we took our chance with them both safely ensconced in their buggies and I'm so glad we did. It was less 'traditional Greek' and more focused on a finessed style of making the most of the local produce in novel ways. We saw someone enjoying a gorgeous looking shrimp cocktail and had requested the same, but our friendly waiter persuaded us to try the prawns in honey, soy and ginger - what a triumph they were - like a tempura, and half dipped in this sticky, sweet yet sour, moreish sauce. Delicious. We also enjoyed a fine beef carpaccio, and a lemon sole baked in a cream and dill sauce with more prawns - delicious. Slightly more expensive than the other restaurants in the surrounding area, but the service and attention to detail was that bit better.

Beef carpaccio at Gallini's, Koutouloufari

Prawn Tempura, Gallini's

Gorgeous wine at Gallini's

In main Hersonnisos, we had a few meals too, a couple of casual ones, and then the meal of the holiday at the lovely Karavi restaurant. Karavi is a café-restaurant and lounge - with a section to the beach and then a pool and sun lounge area, very modern, and chic. Mum and I both opted for the Lobster Soup - which was absolutely gorgeous, served in a rich, tomatoey bisque and with a whole lobster tail, full of soft, perfectly cooked, sweet lobster meat, it was to die for. I followed mine with a seafood linguini which was also perfection - different to other seafood linguinis I've had elsewhere too, finished with a milder sauce with a hint of dill running through, and generous with the seafood, including mussels, clams and prawns - really lovely. Well worth a visit to Karavi if you're in the area.

Seafood Linguini at Karavi

Lobster Soup at Karavi

Family Activities

Star Beach 

Star Beach is a great Hersonnisos beach-front waterpark with lots going on for both older teenagers down to tots. Both of my girls really enjoyed the shallow splash pools, and Bridget loved the various toddler-sized slides, sprinklers and climbing frames set within the water. It's an inexpensive place to have a great family day or afternoon in the sunshine.

Hersonissos

Bridget enjoying Star Beach

Hersonisssos Train Tour is another hour-long activity which takes  you around the main tourist points in the area, and which we really enjoyed.

The beach itself, isn't the most sandy, but there is sand, there is sea and frankly with children of Bridget and Beatrice's age, what else do you need? Equally most places will allow you into their pool, so long as you are happy to buy some food or drink on their premises, so if you did fancy a day or a few hours away from your own pool, you can change the scene easily.

Greeks are notoriously good on hospitality and when children are involved, they're just fantastic. My two had a wonderful holiday and so did Mum and I - great memories to be treasured. I would thoroughly reccommend Crete and Piskopiano as a family resort and will undoubtedly return.

A wonderful family holiday

Cooking with Kids: Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Biscuits

This is a really fun, quick and easy way of getting the kids involved in making some Halloween treats at home.

I use Oreo’s as they’re sturdier than single-layer biscuits, but you could adapt this to whatever round biscuits you have in the house. I also use liquorice sticks as the spider legs, but this could just as easily be cola laces. Equally for eyes, I’ve used mini marshmallows with a little dot of melted chocolate, and for the lips some red jelly lips, but these could both be icing pens otherwise. I serve on a bed of spooky sweets, white chocolate mice, jelly snakes etc.

The below makes 8 spiders.

Here’s how:

• 1 pack original Oreo's
• 200g milk chocolate
• Pack of liquorice sticks
• 16 mini marshmallows
• Red jelly lips sweets 

Firstly cut the liquorice sticks down to quarter size, ensuring you have enough for 8 little legs, per spider - you’ll have 8 in total as a normal pack has 16 biscuits. Set aside.

Place a sheet of baking paper on the side to capture any mess of the assembly of the spiders.

Break up the chocolate into a china bowl and melt over a pan of recently boiled water. Use a wooden spoon to move the chocolate around and encourage it to melt.

Now you need to work fairly quickly at this point. Once fully melted, use a pastry brush to cover one side of 8 of the cookies with the melted chocolate. Bow rearrange the eight spider legs accordingly so they are dangling down, and one part is just pressed down into the soft, melted chocolate; this will act as your glue. Now, take one of the other Oreo's (the ones that were set aside and haven’t had chocolate on them) directly on top of the chocolate coating and legs and press down firmly.

Now brush on some more chocolate on top if the spiders ‘faces’ and assemble the faces. Position the two marshmallow eyes accordingly and press down so they stick into the chocolate, and then do the same with the sweetie lips.

Finally use a skewer or a coctail stick, dip the end into the remaining melted chocolate and touch the middle of the marshmallow eyes for pupils.

Leave to set for half hour then arrange onto spooky sweets, or however you are serving. Enjoy!

Some other ideas for keeping the kids occupied with a Halloween theme can be found below:


Making Mummified Sausage Rolls
Making these simple Chocolate Halloween Iced Biscuits
Make Halloween cards

Pastitsio - The Greek Lasagna

If you've never had the pleasure before, Pastitsio is often referred to as the 'Greek Lasagna' or 'Pasta Pie'. Instead of the thin lasagna sheets of the Italian variety, tubular pasta is used, and a thicker version of the bechamel sauce sits atop the finished dish. 

For me it evokes some fantastic memories of two summers, and countless holidays spent in Corfu in my twenties - great times, and the beginning of my love affair with Greek food, one of my favourite cuisines that I think is hugely underrated. What's more, this is a hearty, family classic, a crowd pleaser, and is devoured every time I cook it.

For my pastitsio I use the typically Greek method of thickening the bechamel sauce, adding a beaten egg once the sauce is off the heat, as well as Greek yoghurt, it just helps the sauce hold together more firmly once baked. I have used penne here, as I simply had some in the cupboard, but it also works with the more traditional bucatini or rigatoni - any tubular pasta.

Also I like to reduce the meat sauce right down by cooking for at least an hour and a half as a traditional Pastitsio is easily distinguishable by it's definite layers, rather that an oozing meat sauce moving into the layers below. I use a lot less pasta for a family sized Pastitsio than in a traditional dish too as it lightens it up hugely! 

Pastitsio

Pastitsio - Greek Lasagna

The below comfortably serves six.

Here's how:

• 300g tubular pasta - I use penne 
• 500g steak or beef mince
• 1 white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 large tomatoes
• 250g passata 
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 glass of red wine
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Pinch sea salt
• Pinch black pepper

For the topping:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 200ml milk
• 1 tbsp creme fraiche
• 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt (plain natural yoghurt will also be fine)
• Bayleaf
• 2 tsp black pepper
• Pinch sea salt
• 3 tsp nutmeg
• 100g Reggiano Parmigiano or other hard cheese

First prepare the meat sauce. Begin by finely dicing and mincing the garlic and adding to a heavy bottomed pan with the olive oil to soften and flavour the oil.

Roughly chop the tomatoes and set aside for the minute. 

Once the onion and garlic is softened add the meat to the pan to brown off. You can season with salt and pepper at this point and also add the cinnamon. Use a wooden spatula to break up the meat as it cooks and avoid any clumps. 

Once browned, add the chopped tomatoes and cook for several minutes, then add the passata, tomato puree, red wine, oregano and thyme and mix well. Now leave to cook for at least an hour, or more if you have the time.

The meat sauce for pastitsio

To make the topping sauce, add the butter to a non-stick frying pan and place on a low-medium heat and allow to melt. Add the flour a bit at a time, and use a balloon whisk or just a wooden spoon to mix thoroughly, repeat until all of the flour is added and then slowly add the milk, in the same process, stirring and pressing the floury bits down, till it all becomes one. Once all the milk is added, add the bayleaf and the black pepper and grate over the nutmeg. Be really generous with the nutmeg this is an important, flavour, and with the egg and yoghurt that will be added later, this delicate flavour can get lost if you're too cautious.

Add the grated cheese, retaining just enough to scatter over the top, and stir through, until combined. The sauce should slowly thicken. Whilst still on the heat, stir through the creme fraiche until combined then take off the heat. The sauce should be thick and glossy at this stage. Now add the Greek yoghurt and stir through, which will bring the temperature of the sauce down. Finally beat the egg in a separate bowl and then stir this through the sauce, which will thicken it further. Now set aside while you cook the pasta.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions and then drain and allow to cool for a few moments, until cool enough to handle. 

In the dish you'll be baking the Pastitsio, arrange one layer of pasta. It's traditional to have all the tubular shapes facing the same way and be in a pattern, as I have done with the penne here.

Layer one - pastitsio

Once that's done, spread over the meat sauce, make sure all the pasta is covered. 

Layer two - the meat sauce - pastitsio

On top of the meat sauce, add the final layer of pasta, again try to organise neatly, as it will hold together nicer when you serve. 

Once the meat topping is completely covered in pasta, pour over the thickened sauce, and use a knife or the back of a spoon to spread over all of the pasta shapes. 

Pastitsio

Add a final grating of nutmeg, scatter over the cheese and a season again. Leave for at least 30 minutes before baking, again, this just helps to hold the final shape.

Pastitsio

Place into a pre-heated oven at 180-200degrees and bake for 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Serve with a salad of your choice and enjoy!

Pastitsio

Some other favourite Greek recipes of mine:

Briam (Vegetable Stew)

Prawn Saganaki

Pork Souvlaki

Gemistes 

Greek Chicken One Pot

Greek Yoghurt & Honey Baked Cheesecake

Greek Salad

Tzatziki

Feta & Spinach Open Tart

Healthy Chicken Shish Kebabs

I'm as guilty as anyone else of loving my takeaways, and I always think if we have a Turkish takeaway it's healthier than most - although probably not when we have the chips to go with it all! I've been having a go for the last couple of months at different versions of a homemade chicken shish kebab, and this is where we've landed with it. Our very own fake-away!

I always serve it as a platter for the family, as it's just fun; it looks great to look at, and we all love digging in and sharing off of the same platter. I do have to do some plainer chicken, not for the baby, who will literally devour the chicken on these kebabs, but for Bridget who says these are too spicy! They are very mild, but that is toddlers for you! Luckily she does eat everything else on the platter! 

The recipe here is just for the chicken shish, but I serve with toasted pitta, a tomato, red onion and cucumber salad (literally as simple as that with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of black pepper), tzatziki, and either white rice, or couscous, or in this case, both! I'm obviously watching my calorie and carb intake, so couscous is a good option, but Bridget and Beatrice love their white rice, and Glen prefers it over couscous too! For my couscous, I use a basic one, and add parsley, mint, dill and chives plus some chopped up dried apricots - it's delicious with the chicken shish.

The below makes 5 healthy sized skewers and the trick is to marinate the chicken for as long as possible, if you can do overnight for the following evening meal, the chicken will be so flavourful and tender, it's well worth the wait. 

One final note - this is by no means an authentic Turkish recipe, it is in fact, an amalgamation of me trying tons of recipes and experimenting, and this is simply the one we've settled on as our favourite. 

Healthy Chicken Shish Kebabs

Here's how:

• 3 large chicken breasts
• 5 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 1 large lemon
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1 red onion
• 4 cloves garlic

Firstly open up the container you're using to marinate the meat, this can be a plastic container, a zip up bag, or you can use a large yoghurt container, as I have - I save these for such occasions! 

Pour in the olive oil, yoghurt and tomato puree. 

Now you need to grate the onion, and throw in the result, including the juicy pulp, into the marinade. 

Mince the garlic and add to the mix. Slice the lemon in half and then squeeze out as much of the juice as you can then throw the lemon halves into the marinade. 

Finally add all of the herbs and spices and give a really good stir. 

Now dice the chicken into decent sized chunks, this doesn't have to be exact, but try to get similarly sized pieces where possible. Throw all of the chicken into the marinade, and use a spoon to mix so all of the chicken is fully immersed in the yoghurt mix, then pop the lid on and place back into the fridge. 

Chicken Shish Marinade

Try to leave to marinade for at least four hours, but overnight is better. 

If using wooden skewers, soak these for an hour or so in water before cooking. 

To cook, simply load the marinated chicken pieces onto the skewer, pack them pretty tight together, and leave a good gap at either end of the skewers, and place under the grill for about five minutes, then turn and cook for a further five minutes. If you like a more charred chicken shish, increase the cooking time slightly. Before serving, just use a sharp knife and make an incision into one of the biggest pieces of chicken into the centre, to ensure the chicken is cooked through. If so, turn off the grill, and leave the chicken to rest for a few minutes, before serving.

Serve with your choice of accompaniments: pitta, rice, couscous, tzatziki, hummus, salad, chilli sauce, feta, halloumi - all will work a treat! If cooking for the family, do try and serve on a board to add a bit of theatre and fun to your evening meal, pile it high and let everyone dig in! Enjoy! 

Paprika Grilled Sea Bass with Creamy Saffron Peppers and Spinach

As you'll know, earlier this year I had my second child, another lovely little girl (Beatrice). I gained around 3 stone during pregnancy and managed to shift two stone of that pretty sharpish, the last stone, is being a little more stubborn. I lose a few pounds, and then being the foodie that I am, will indulge with a few nice meals, a meal out, a bottle of my favourite Malbec, and I'm back at that 1 stone over where I want to be. This has been going on for a couple of months now, so I've decided to try to overhaul my (and Glen's) lifestyle somewhat, and for the past 8 days have been adhering to The Body Coach or Joe Wick's philosophy. This is largely making smarter and healthier choices with food, cutting out the alcohol as much as possible, and most importantly introducing exercise, 4-5 sessions a week. I managed it last week, and am on track this week - I'm also a couple of pounds lighter, so will be attempting to stick to this and see where we land after 30 days, before I make a decision as to whether to continue. 

Joe's mantra is that you have to 'work for your carbs', so aside from if you've just carried out an intensive HIIT workout, the idea is to have 'reduced carb' meals. We've tried a selection of Joe's fantastic recipes, and certainly have our favourites, but me being the cook I am, I can't follow recipes continually, I like to get creative myself, and this dish was born off the back of that. We've had several Lean in 15 sea bass dishes, and I came up with this dish as I had a glut of peppers in the fridge.

It's a lovely light dish, takes no time to prepare and the sauce is rich and creamy, but low calorie. The below is for two adults, and a single portion comes in at around 500 calories.

Paprika Grilled Sea Bass with Creamy Saffron Peppers and Spinach

Here's how:

• x4 sea bass fillets
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• Drizzle olive oil
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red chilli
• 1 spring onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tbsp reduced fat creme fraiche
• Few strands of saffron steeped in hot water
• 2 handfuls spinach

First drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil into a frying pan and pop onto a low heat to warm up, while you prepare your vegetables. 

Slice the spring onion, garlic and chilli and place into the pan to flavour the oil and the pan. Whilst they are sauteeing, slice the peppers and throw into the pan also. 

Rip off a sheet of tin foil and cover the grill tray, so no fish sticks to the grates. Now in a small bowl, add the paprika, garlic salt and black pepper and mix. Take each sea bass fillet flesh side up, and drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil, then scatter over some of the spiced salt mix. Now place each fillet flesh side down onto the foil-covered-grill, and scatter the remaining spice mix over the top. Place the grill onto a medium heat and cook for seven minutes. (You may need to adjust this if you have particularly small fillets to avoid over-cooking). 

While the fish is cooking, the peppers should have softened a bit. Throw in the steeped saffron strands, including the water you steeped them in and allow to cook off for 30 seconds. Now add the creme fraiche and allow to cook down. 

Finally as the fish is almost cooked, add the spinach and just allow it to wilt in the peppers and sauce. Use a wooden spoon to move around, as it shouldn't take too much for the leaves to wilt. 

You'll know the fish is ready once the skin is crispy (the salt will help to make a beautiful crispy skin), and the flesh is a pure white colour, rather than opaque. Serve the fish fillets on top of the peppers. Enjoy!

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits - Cooking with Kids

These biscuits are super simple to make, a fun activity for half term next week in the lead up to Halloween or for any spooky gathering. 

I grabbed a pack of cookie cutters from Poundstretchers which had shapes such as bats, Frankenstein's Monster faces, gravestones, pumpkins and cats, but you could apple the same method to any biscuit. If you only have round cooking cutters, just ice and then write 'RIP' on them or grab some of the Haribo sweeties like I have in the pictures with things such as spiders, bones, skeletons and the like and apply them. The main thing is that this is a really fun thing to do for Halloween with the children.

Bridget absolutely loves cooking and particularly baking anything sweet - this was the first time Beatrice (8 months) got involved in baking too, and enjoyed a little mix with the big spoon plus trying to scoop out the raw biscuit mixture! 

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits

Here's how:

• 125g butter
• 110g caster sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• Flour to dust the worktop and rolling pin

To ice:

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• Few drops of water
• Food colouring (I just used red to make orange for the pumpkins)
• Red icing pen
• Selection of spooky sweeties (I used Haribo)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, then grease and line the baking trays with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg, butter and sugar together with the vanilla extract until combined. Slowly sift in the flour and cocoa, stirring through as you go. Add the milk if the mixture is a little dry. Once satisfied with the dough, cover with cling film and place into the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Remove biscuit dough from the fridge. Lightly dust your worktop space with flour, and rub flour up and down your rolling pin, then use your hands to pull off a small section at a time, and roll out into a thin dough, about 1cm thick. If it's too thin, it'll be very difficult to handle, unless your a very deft baker!

Now use your cookie cutter, to cut out the shapes that you wish to use, and place each shape onto the baking shape. They can be placed close together, but not touching. They shouldn't expand too much in the oven.

Repeat the process until all the dough has been used and the shapes placed onto the baking sheets. Now place into the hot oven and bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to completely cool on the baking sheets before moving.

To ice, you can do so however you wish, and decorate in any manner, we used jelly lips, teeth and fangs for the mouths of the bats and Frankensteins, raisins for eyes, I cut up a dried apricot for the ghost mouths, and once iced, we used spiders, bones and skeleton jellies to make the biscuits as spooky as possible. We wrote RIP on the gravestones in a red icing pen.

To make up relevant icing, you want it quite thick, so take 3 tbsp icing sugar, and just a drop or two of cold water, and stir through, you want it runny enough to pour or brush onto the biscuits, but thick enough to not set 'watery' or opaque. We just used simple plain icing sugar for most of the icing, then added a little drop of red food colouring to make an orange hued icing for the pumpkins. 

Experiment though, and most importantly let the kids enjoy this activity - it doesn't matter if the biscuits are the most beautifully decorated, it only matters that you all enjoyed making them together!

Beatrice's first baking experience

If you're having a Halloween get together or tea party, or just doing a fun and spooky dinner for the kids on 31st October, these easy peasy Mummified Sausage Rolls are a winner too.