Kirios and I embarked on another culinary adventure this past Wednesday. On this week’s edition of my big fat Greek Kosher Kitchen, we made Greek tomato patties called domatokeftedes, and an Italian recipe – pasta in carbonara sauce, with some modifications to make it kosher.

While domatokeftedes are a Greek dish, they are not from Kirios’ mother’s island, and he had never had them before. But nevertheless, he heard about them, and wanted to try, so we peeled and strained a pound of plum tomatoes, and we added scallions, mint, basil, oregano, parmesan, and breadcrumbs, and some other seasoning to form the patties. Kirios fried them up, and then we enjoyed. They were light and full of flavor. We plan to make them again in a few months when there are home-grown tomatoes from his family’s garden.

In addition to the domatokeftedes, we also made pasta with kosher carbonara sauce. The other week, I was reading a Jewish blog with a recipe for kosher carbonara, which usually includes pancetta. The recipe I read used smoke-flavored tofu instead of pancetta, which didn’t sound super appealing to me. But I did remind me that shortly after I returned from studying abroad in Rome my family friend who has previously lived (and cooked) in Italy made her own kosher version of the dish using fried (parve) bacos. I emailed her for her recipe, which she graciously shared.  In no extra time than it takes to make pasta, we were able to enjoy some with this creamy fake bacon/egg/parmesan sauce. It was so easy to make, I’m sure I’ll come back to it over and over!

Since Wednesday, I’ve been busy with lots of fun things, but unfortunately, I’ve been so busy that we haven’t had any more cooking adventures! Oh well, I’m sure there will be plenty more soon enough 🙂