My wife wips up a lot of nice pasta dishes. She is all about mise en place. Hah, you didn’t know that I speak the language of the kitchen, did you? Well, that means basically that she sets all of her ingredients and flatware on the counter in a nice organized fashion before she starts the creation.
Pictured above are the makings of her pasta with chicken, veggies, and Mizithra cheese sauce. It’s a think of beauty, her mise en place. Notice the organized placement of everything. Let’s start with the broccoli in the upper left and go clockwise. After the broccoli you have some olive oil, mushrooms, milk, pasta, Mizithra cheese, flower and butter, roasted red peppers, shredded chicken, and leeks. She makes the pasta, makes the sauce, then combines it all in a large skillet. Great stuff.
I have some Greek blood so I appreciate the efforts to use ingredients, like Mizithra cheese, that bring me in touch with my roots. Heck, my grandfather Sfaelos’ nickname was “The Greek.” That could explain why I love baklava and Zorba the Greek. But then again, maybe baklava is more Turkish than Greek. Kinda kills my view of my ethnicity, or lack thereof.