anyone care to weigh in? what are your favorites, give me some good ideas!! I am having some friends over and we are all going to try to make Greek food for this potluck - should be interesting, 17 people all bringing hummus and pita bread!! haha

I am trying to avoid that.

Gee, hummus and Pita are my favorite Greek foods.

I also like moussaka, roast lamb with potatoes, roast lamb without potatoes, roast lamb with anything, spanakopita, stuffed grape leaves, Greek olives,

PS.

Baklava, chicken soup with lemon, pistachios,

Don't forget the ouzo and retsina.

I like that yogurt dish with cucumbers. I know how to say it but won't try to spell it.

Tzatziki ! yum
Taramasalata !
Grilled baby octopus !
Kalamata Olives !
washed down with Calliga Rubis......ahh the memories !!

Roast goat was the main Easter dish when I was there a few years ago. Grilled octupus and lamb fixed a million ways.

Olives
Good crusty peasant bread
Grilled very fresh fish
Tiny, tiny fish fried and eaten whole
Stewed lamb shanks
Tzatziki with good bread
Fruit
Not exactly a "favorite," but can be very good and easy: stuffed vegetables (pepper, eggplant, tomato) which can be eaten hot or cold (if you're eating them cold, put some mint in the stuffing, and also lemon).

IF you make baklava, add a really large amount of lemon juice to the water when you are cooking the syrup and put plenty of cinnamon stick and orange peel and lemon peel and maybe a touch of clove in the liquid that you are cooking into a syrup. The lemon juice makes it not so nauseatingly sweet, and the peels give it a good flavor and fragrance and the spices make the house fragrant while you are cooking it and make the flavor much more interesting. You do not need to add sugar to the nut filling though the recipes tell you to, and it's better without.

Thanks for spelling it for me Marko.

I'm Greek, and my favorite is spanakopita -- spinach and feta pie, made with filo. I make it for my friends, and they love it, too.

The appetizers are my faves!
tzatziki (yogurt, cucumber, garlic)
melitzanosalata (eggplant, garlic)
taramasalata (fish roe)
skordalia (mashed potatoes with lots of garlic)

moussaka is my all-time favorite Greek food, even though it is somewhat time-consuming to make. It absolutely HAS to be made with a béchamel topping or it isn't authentic. OK, so it takes ten minutes to make a good béchamel...........

I do also love fresh octopus roasted on the grill, but how are you gonna find that in the USA?

Hey! Getting hungry reading this thread . . .

My Japanese fishmonger sets me up with tentacle (htapodi, or octopus) for the grill or marinated in red wine & olive oil. Extreme yum.

Also love kolokithefetides, which are deep fried zucchini patties, like latkes but with squash instead of potatoes. Lucious.

And, if you've got the grill going anyway, do some eggplant then puree it into melazanosalata - fab aubergine dip - mmmmm

Check out
http://www.greek-recipe.com/

Have a fun party!

I love Stifado- basically like a beef stew. Check out:

http://www.corfu-travel-guide.info/f...es/stifado.asp

My kids favorite is lamb with orzo...Giouvetsi. It is done in a tomato sauce. Pastitso is also good and easy to make...sort of like a greek lasagna. I also love the stuffed eggplant...especially if you can get the small eggplants.

This is a breakfast thing : thick greek yogurt (almost like marscapone) with honey and pistachios. Slice some fresh figs on the side for dipping and you could have a light and elegant dessert.

Oh, Mathieu, I ate that yogurt with local honey every morning on Crete. Sheer heaven!

I actually buy that yogurt and greek honey and have it as a desert in the evening. The yogurt is strained and not sweet. It is not at all like the plain yogurt in the grocery.

oh mymymy

you are all making me hungry!

last night a friend told me that her sister made something once, a block of feta cheese with honey all over it. I can't remember if there was anything else. I bet pistachios would be good on it though.

yum!

My favorite greek foods would be htipiti which is feta cheese spread, skordalia which is the garlic potato spread (really good if you add some bread in it), pastitio and spankorizo which is a spinah and rice dish which is nice with feta crumbled on top.

I agree Marilyn. Its one of my favourite 'simple foods' and the taste is unbelieveably different. I buy it whenever I can find it but it's hard to get unless you live close to a greek centre.