We rarely have traditional Christmas season meals at home.  However, since I am still in my Greek food groove, I made a dish for last night’s supper that was another riff on the Briami ( Greek baked vegetables) theme, using what we had available.

The ingredients were:

• potatoes
• small onions (red and white)
• carrots
• zucchine
• tomatoes
• celery
• dill
• salt, pepper, thyme, Greek oregano and sage
• lots of Greek olive oil (don’t tell Barbara)
• garlic (which I forgot)

I would have added fennel and roasted sweet pepper, if I had them, but they were not necessary, and I wanted a version different from the eggplant/zucchini/fennel version I’d made before.

The chopped ingredients all went in a big bowl, got mixed a lot by hand, and then poured into a large ceramic casserole (cazuela when I am cooking Spanish food).  Placed in a preheated 400º F. oven, it baked for about an hour or an hour and a quarter.  In the final 15 minutes, i took a small sweet potato we had cooked and saved earlier, cut 5 slides, and placed them on top of the dish.  When serving in a pasta bowl, I added some feta cheese to mine, and of course, Barbara did not with hers.

We had an open bottle of Callaghan Mourvedre, which went well with the dish.

Then for lunch today I played with some mini-mushrooms I had grown in a box I bought at Whole Foods.  They were Shiitake-like in shape and texture, but they had dried out some.  Therefore, I re-hydrated them a bit, and then cooked them with leftover mushrooms, tomato, spinach, garlic, and cooked Spanish Alubia Bianca white beans.

Not finding either of the open wine bottles to be a good match, I served a Damijan Ribolla Gialla, which complemented everything superbly.