Making Greek-Inspired Party Foods with Jeff and Olympia Harry

Well, hello, and welcome to At Home. We’re so glad you dropped by, family. We have a really special double-barrel treat for you today. The Harry’s are here, Jeff and Olympia, two of Paul and my good friends. The thing about them, when we all get together, we talk food. Jeff and Olympia and I, and Paul too, we could just sit and talk for hours about recipes and make this. They both are very, very good cooks, and a lot of the things that they’re going to be sharing for a party, these are finger foods. So if you’re doing a party between Christmas and New Year’s or any time of the year, these are great ideas. I tell you, you’re not gonna wanna miss it. Take your paper and pencil. You wanna get these down, because there’s some plain, simple, easy ones, and then there are some with Greek flavors and tastes. Oh, the place smells so delicious today. Can’t wait for them to share them with you, and I can’t wait to share with you. I hope that you’re having a wonderful day. I hope you’re not all bogged down from the holiday season, and please, as you’re preparing for New Year’s, think very seriously about how you’ll celebrate that. You know, when I was a kid, my dad had what they called a watch night service every New Year’s Eve at 10:30, and it lasted ’til 12:30. And the first thing we did every year of the new year was we were on our knees at the altar having communion as the new year came in. Now, that meant so much to me. You know, other kids were going on parties, and I was going to church. But that was important to me, because my dad wanted us to know that we needed to put God first. I hope you’ll think about that as you’re making your plans for the new year, and as you’re making plans to celebrate and have some friends over. We’re gonna get on with the ideas and the recipes in just a minute. We’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. For different tasting meatballs, try using crushed cornflakes or cornbread instead of breadcrumbs in your recipe. Or, you can even used crushed onion-flavored potato chips. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we’d like to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Well, here we are, back in the kitchen with my good friends. Jeff, it’s so good to see you, Olympia, always.

• Nice to see you, Arlene.
• They both have been here, but individually. But we’re glad you’re both here tonight.
• Thank you.
• Thank you for having us.
• Okay, we’ve gotta move fast, ’cause you’re gonna do a lot, right?
• Right.
• Okay, what are you making?
• I’m making keftethes, which is a Greek meatball.
• Greek meatball, okay.
• And I’m not Greek.
• You’re not Greek, but you married a Greek.
• I did marry a Greek.
• Okay, why don’t you go ahead and tell us what to get started with yours?
• Okay, it’s very similar to just a regular meatball. We’re gonna first put a little bit of water into the breadcrumbs that we have, just to soften it up a little bit and let that moisten.
• [Arlene] I’ve never done that. I’ve always done it with the big breadcrumbs, you know, the big cubes.
• You know what, I like to use, I actually make my own breadcrumbs.
• Fresh, yeah.
• Fresh breadcrumbs.
• But that’ll work, right?
• Yeah, right. But then from there, all you have to do is combine all the ingredients.
• And they’re all gonna be in our newsletter, so if you’ve already subscribed, you already have this, because they’re gonna have them from the beginning of the month. But we’re just showing you how to do that. So he’s just gonna add that. And I know you’re gonna make something with phyllo, so I want you to go ahead and get started.
• Okay, we’re using phyllo dough, and you wanna get the long package of phyllo dough. There’s two different kinds.
• [Arlene] They have a short one now and the long one, huh?
• Yeah, and you want the long package. You’re gonna cut it in half.
• Wow, okay.
• And then, cut it again.
• [Arlene] I’m gonna go over here between the two of you, how’s that, just so I can see what she’s doing and see what you’re doing.
• And you’ll get about, anywhere from 75 to 80 pieces of tiropita out of a pound of phyllo dough.
• Really, wow! Do you have to keep that dry or moist or what?
• You know what, you wanna keep, actually, you have to work fast with this, because it will dry out and become like tissue paper that crumbles.
• [Arlene] Like tissue paper that crumbles, I know.
• So what I do is usually, what I’m not working with.
• You want me to do that while you go ahead and start?
• There you go.
• Go ahead, I’ll do it.
• Cover with some Saran, then take a damp towel, put the Saran on top, and then take a slightly damp towel and cover the Saran wrap, because if the dough gets wet, forget it, you can’t use it.
• No good, huh?
• It’s no good.
• There we go.
• So, just take that and cover it.
• Okay, and while you’re doing that.
• The filling.
• Make the filling, okay.
• This is about three-fourths to a pound of crumbled feta.
• [Arlene] Oh, don’t you love that feta cheese?
• [Olympia] I do, I do.
• [Arlene] Yummy, yummy.
• And then a cup of cottage cheese.
• That’s creamy cottage cheese, right?
• Yeah, this is small curd.
• [Arlene] Small curd, okay.
• And then three egg yolks. Oh, three? Okay, you want me to beat them up.
• We have three eggs, already beaten.
• What do you do with the egg white? You just save it for something else?
• The egg white? Yeah, you can, you can. And we’re gonna mix that up, and this is all that the filling takes. That’s it.
• Really, that’s it?
• That’s it.
• No spices or none of that kind of stuff in there? No greens or anything in there?
• Nope.
• [Arlene] Okay, great. So I know that you’re buttering that, and then you’re gonna.
• [Olympia] Right, we’re gonna butter each sheet and put a little bit of filling, and I’ll show you how to do that.
• Okay, while you’re mixing that, how are we doing over here?
• Pretty good.
• Oh, is that the consistency, huh?
• Yep, just almost like a meatloaf kind of consistency.
• And then do you fry them, or do you bake them?
• I usually bake them. You can fry them. If you’re gonna fry them, we roll them in a little bit of flour first.
• Just to give that outside crisp, and so they don’t fall apart.
• Right.
• And that’s about, would you say it’s about an ounce?
• But when you’re doing a lot of ’em, it’s easier just to bake ’em.
• [Arlene] Is that about one ounce, you think?
• I would say approximately, yeah.
• Like a half a dollar size, probably, that big. How many is that gonna make? A lot.
• [Jeff] I have no idea.
• You know what, two pounds makes about 50 meatballs.
• Oh, that’s good, okay. But you know, if you wanna make ’em smaller, you could, huh?
• Right. I tend to be a little heavy-handed, because I’m a big eater.
• ‘Cause you like good food, and a lot of it, right? Now, you bake at, what, three what?
• At 350, and it’ll take about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the meatballs.
• So it seems like the hardest thing about this is taking the time to roll them out.
• Taking the time to roll ’em all out.
• Get the kids involved. Get the husband involved. Get anybody that’s willing to help you roll these. That would be a good idea. All right, so we’re buttering over here.
• We’re buttering over here. And what you do is you take your sheet of phyllo dough, and then you make a little, just fold up the bottom.
• [Arlene] Oh, a little fold, okay.
• [Olympia] About a half-inch to an inch.
• [Arlene] I’m pulling that out of the way so he can get a little shot of that for us.
• Then you take about a teaspoon full of filling and put it down on the bottom where you have it doubled, just to give it a little more support.
• [Arlene] Oh, then you’re doing the flag fold, huh?
• [Olympia] Then you do the flag fold. And look, I even have a little tear here.
• [Arlene] It’s starting already, huh?
• [Olympia] It doesn’t matter though, because.
• [Arlene] It’s inside.
• You’re just going to fold right over it. But you do wanna work fast with the phyllo dough. Then you take your melted butter, and I buttered the sheet first before.
• You have to, huh? You butter each layer? How many layers is that?
• [Olympia] This is just one layer.
• One layer, okay.
• And there is our first.
• Where’s our pan? Oh, it’s back there. I’ll get it. Go ahead, just keep working, and keep rolling.
• [Olympia] There we go.
• Keep going. Now, I know this is a great tradition in the Greek household for Christmas. I know, we’ve been to their house for parties many a time, and one of the ones I remember most is when you made that eggnog cheesecake. It was the most beautiful cheesecake you ever wanted to see, and maybe we’ll get them to do that sometime. But your parties are always fun because you take a lot of time and effort, and you want everybody to enjoy. And you know, this doesn’t seem like it’s hard.
• [Jeff] No.
• This isn’t hard. This is a little bit time-consuming, but you know, if you feel threatened by phyllo, this is probably one of the easiest ways to be un-threatened, right?
• You know what, and this is a make-ahead thing.
• Can you freeze these like this?
• You can freeze these. What I do is I put ’em right on the pan like this, and as soon as I fill up a cookie sheet, I’ll throw it in the freezer for about two minutes so the butter gets hard, and then you just lift it off, and put ’em in an air-tight container, a Tupperware.
• Really?
• And freeze ’em. You can freeze ’em for months, actually.
• Now, how long do these bake? Like, if you were gonna bake ’em now, they bake how long?
• These will bake for almost a half-hour at 350 degrees.
• [Arlene] 350, okay. So you could put both of these in at the same time, right?
• [Jeff] Yep.
• Until they’re golden brown.
• You know what, why don’t I have you do something with those pretzels that we were talking about? Lemme move this out of the way, because we had like, there’s like six recipes that we wanna do. So I’m gonna just clean up while he’s cleaning up, and we’ll move along. This is fun! Don’t you just love it in the kitchen when everybody’s making different stuff? Yeah, move that on over here, and maybe Tammy could come in and she could continue rolling some of the meatballs for us, or Patty, whoever’s available. That would be great. Okay, tell me what we do now?
• These are just called a spiced pretzel. They’re very simple to do, but really just adds a lot of zip to the flavor of the pretzel.
• To the pretzel, yeah. Well, you know, pretzel’s something you always wanna have, but sometimes they are boring. Now, what’s that?
• That is just three-fourths of a cup of vegetable oil, and then we’re going to add some cayenne pepper.
• Make it a little tangy.
• A little spicy.
• [Olympia] Paul loves that.
• [Jeff] And some garlic salt.
• [Arlene] Okay, salt, not powder, that’s good.
• And then this is just a packet of ranch dressing.
• The dry ranch, now, not the dip, but the dressing, right?
• Correct.
• Not the dip mix, the dressing.
• [Olympia] Yeah, the dressing, right.
• Okay, good.
• And you’re gonna mix all of that together.
• [Arlene] It doesn’t seem like there’s very much there.
• [Jeff] Nothing to it.
• [Arlene] Huh, wow.
• [Jeff] These are so simple to do.
• [Arlene] Boy, it smells great.
• And all we have to do then, we’re gonna dump this bag of, it’s a 20-ounce bag of pretzels.
• So you use the little ones.
• We do use them.
• Could you use the big ones or whatever?
• You could, yeah. You can use whatever shape you’d like.
• [Arlene] And you just pour that over there?
• [Jeff] Just pour this over top and mix it around, and then you bake it in a 200-degree oven for two hours.
• [Arlene] For two hours. Oh, two hours, okay.
• [Jeff] Yeah, and stir them occasionally.
• Excuse me, I’ll get you a, you need one of these to get that out and kinda stir them around? Wow, that’s easy. Okay, we’re gonna take a break. When we come back, we’re gonna show you some more of finger foods for your holiday parties. We’ll be right back. Well, we’re here in the kitchen, and we’re doing party foods with Jeff and Olympia Harry. They’re my special guests today. We’ve already got a bunch that we’ve done, but we’ve still got more. Now, what are you gonna be making?
• I’m doing the chipped beef spread that we’ll be serving with the spiced pretzels that we already made.
• That we’ve already made. Okay, go ahead, tell us. Run us through what’s going on here.
• [Jeff] First thing we’re gonna do is just to whip up the cream cheese a little bit.
• [Arlene] Looks like eight ounces.
• Get that nice and fluffy. It’s an eight-ounce package of cream cheese, just to get it nice and fluffy. It doesn’t take a long time. And then, I’ll put you to work, Arlene. You wanna add that in?
• I will.
• It’s just a half-cup of sour cream.
• Just regular sour cream.
• Correct.
• Could you use low-fat if people were watching, like low-fat cream cheese and stuff? I know that when you do it, it doesn’t taste the same, but if you were restricted, you could do that, right?
• You just know I don’t usually care about stuff like that.
• I know.
• I just eat all the fat.
• And ask for more, if I remember correctly.
• We’re just gonna add that in and mix it around ’til it’s nice and smooth, and then everything else.
• – [Arlene] I bet that’s gonna be creamy, huh?
• Yes, very nice. Then we’re just gonna add some horseradish. We have about three teaspoons of horseradish here, already prepared horseradish.
• That’s in the refrigerator area, right, when you buy it?
• And then a tablespoon of minced onion.
• [Arlene] Finely minced onion, that’s good.
• And then this is dried beef, just dried beef. It comes in a jar.
• Oh, yeah. My mother used to make it, and she’d make it in a cream sauce over toast or biscuits or something.
• Right, right. Okay, we’ve just diced that up, add that in. Excuse my fingers.
• [Arlene] Sorry.
• And then you add about six to 10 drops of Tabasco sauce.
• [Arlene] It gives it some fire, huh?
• [Jeff] Depending on how spicy you like it.
• [Arlene] One, two, three, four, keep going.
• I like it hot.
• Well, yeah. Well, they will be taking a bottle to whatever this is in a minute here. That’s in there?
• And you just mix it all together.
• [Arlene] And you put it in your serving dish.
• [Jeff] And refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it.
• [Arlene] Okay, wonderful. Boy, that’s easy! That would be good on crackers, wouldn’t it?
• It is. It’s good on crackers, or with the pretzels.
• Wow, delicious. Okay, we’ll be back to you in a minute. And what are you gonna do over here?
• I’m making spinach balls. A friend of ours brought this to one of our Christmas parties one time, and they were really good. So, we’ve got two boxes of frozen chopped spinach that we defrosted and squeezed all the water out of it.
• [Arlene] You always have to squeeze the, yeah.
• And we’re gonna add four beaten eggs.
• Do you use the extra large or large?
• I usually use, at home, we use the extra large. We like things extra large.
• But you wouldn’t put an extra one in if you were using large, would you?
• Probably not. I would just probably do the four. Three-fourths of a cup of melted butter, and we’ve got half a teaspoon of garlic salt and half a teaspoon of regular salt, half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and a medium onion minced, grated, chopped. I chopped this really, really fine.
• [Arlene] Small, fine, yeah.
• ‘Cause you don’t want big chunks of onion. And then we’re gonna add two cups of the herb stuffing mix.
• Like a Pepperidge Farms or something?
• Like a Pepperidge Farms herb stuffing mix.
• [Arlene] Does that have like, flavors and stuff in it?
• [Olympia] It does, it does. It has herbs already mixed in with it.
• [Arlene] So then you don’t have to add any others, right?
• [Olympia] Uh-uh. We’re just gonna mix this all up.
• Wow, this makes a lot, too, huh? Now, the oven should be at 350, right?
• 350, and you bake these for 15 minutes. Now, before you do that, though, once you mix this up, you have to put it in the refrigerator to get a little firm.
• For it to get gelled, yeah.
• So that it’s easier to handle and they’re not gonna fall apart on you.
• [Arlene] Okay, yeah, ’cause we will swap out, thank you.
• Yeah, we’ll swap out. This one’s already been refrigerated. And what I do is just take a small, just a small bunch. You want these bite-sized, and stick ’em on your cookie sheet.
• Just like that. You don’t roll it or anything, or have to do anything special?
• Uh-uh, uh-uh.
• [Arlene] And they do, ’cause it gets cold, so that butter solidifies and the eggs.
• And it holds it, and it holds it together. So that’s all you’re doing.
• How many does it make, about? Do you know?
• Oh, I don’t know. I would say, I don’t know, probably about 50, 50 or 60 maybe, depending on how big you make the balls.
• Yeah, some people just want them bite-sized, and some people want more. But can you, once you get to that point, can you freeze them like that? Have you ever done it?
• You know what, I’ve never frozen them, no.
• Okay, so you don’t know if you could or not.
• So I don’t know.
• If you cooked them, could you freeze them then?
• [Olympia] That I don’t know either, because we just.
• Just started to make them, so you don’t know. Yeah, they probably do go too fast. Once you go to that point, you wanna cook ’em and eat ’em. All right, let’s go back and see what this guy is doing.
• I’m not doing anything. I know. Get started over here. Let’s see what you’re doing.
• This is just a fun little thing. There’s nothing to it. We call it a fruit and cheese kabob.
• Fruit and cheese kabob, okay.
• We’re using three different types of cheese that I’ve just cut into a thick piece.
• [Arlene] Like slice, okay. What is this, American?
• [Jeff] Well, it’s a mild cheddar.
• [Arlene] Or cheddar.
• [Jeff] And a Colby jack.
• [Arlene] Colby jack.
• [Jeff] And this is just Monterey jack. You can use baby Swiss.
• [Arlene] Muenster, brick, whatever.
• Yeah, whatever. You can just cube this up if you want to, or for the holidays, it’s kind of fun sometimes just to use an aspic cutter, which is just like a small cookie cutter.
• Oh, that’s neat, yeah.
• And if you just cut into this then, it leaves the shape.
• [Arlene] Of the cutter, yeah.
• Of the cutter to use on your kabob.
• Oh, how cute, I love it.
• So we can do a couple different types here.
• [Arlene] Aw, that’s nice, huh? Anything special like that just makes everything looks nicer, doesn’t it?
• [Jeff] It makes it a little more festive.
• [Arlene] I think so too, I think so.
• [Jeff] Should we do another shape? Sure, why not?
• [Arlene] Oh yeah, why not? Aw, that’s neat, very nice.
• [Jeff] If you had a little Christmas tree, it would be nice too.
• Yeah, or like, what else, a bell shape, if you could find a bell, any of those. That’s great.
• Okay, and then we just go onto the skewer.
• Okay, now you fill them clear up?
• Yeah, these are probably a little bit too long. I don’t normally go clear full. But I start with a piece of cheese. You can go then a strawberry if you want to.
• Kind of on an angle too, huh, so it doesn’t flop around?
• And we left the green on, just to add some color. Now here, we use, whoops, I did that wrong. I need a piece of cheese first.
• [Arlene] I knew there was something else in there.
• [Jeff] I’m gonna go this way.
• [Arlene] Aw, that is so festive.
• We use a grape in between the pieces of pineapple, because the pineapple obviously has the most juice.
• Juice, oh yeah.
• If it’s up against the cheese, it’s gonna get nasty.
• Yeah, it gets nasty, yeah.
• [Jeff] So we put a piece of grape, or a grape.
• [Arlene] Boy, that’s a nice, ripe pineapple, isn’t it?
• [Jeff] Yeah, it’s beautiful. We normally buy the Del Monte gold pineapple. It’s just such a nice.
• You always have a good one then, huh?
• And then another piece of cheese.
• Okay, then you do cheese, and then another strawberry?
• [Jeff] And then, if you want, you can do another strawberry. Just be creative. That’s all there is to it!
• I mean, you could do chunks of cheese with olives or anything, couldn’t you?
• [Jeff] Sure, you could.
• I mean, chunks of ham or whatever, absolutely.
• Right, this just makes it easy for people to pick up.
• Yeah, now how do you serve that, though? I mean, what do you put that on when you serve it?
• We Usually just lay it on a tray like this, on a platter.
• This is a very beautiful tray. That would be gorgeous.
• That was a gift to Olympia from a friend of hers.
• Ah, it’s so gorgeous, just gorgeous! And that just goes with that, because of the fruit and the cheese. But some people would say, and this is where my mind goes, look at all the cheese you waste! But you don’t throw that away, do you? You keep that for sauces and stuff?
• Oh, sure, for sauces or just to nibble on or whatever.
• That’s what I was thinking, because you know, that’s the old part of me that says, we can’t waste all that cheese! But if you’re keeping it and using it for something else, it’s absolutely wonderful.
• And again, if you don’t have the aspic cutter or the time, just cut it in chunks, and you’re done.
• We come back, we’re gonna be having our party in the dining room, and you’re invited. Okay, we’ll be back in just a minute. Well, look at this table. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t you love to be at our party? We’d love for you to be here with us, because it’s just full of wonderful, eye-appealing. Doesn’t everything look good?
• It’s beautiful.
• We’re gonna start down here. There’s your tiropita, tiropita.
• [Olympia] Tiropita.
• And the spiced pretzels right next to it, and that wonderful chipped beef dip that you made. Look how pretty that is on top! And then the Greek meatballs, which are?
• Keftethes.
• [Arlene] Keftethes, and then there’s the meat and cheese, I mean, cheese and fruit kabobs, and the?
• [Jeff] Spinach balls.
• Spinach balls, okay, and then we just put a vegetable platter. I just think that’s important to do in case some people are watching their weight, and we made a nice, easy punch, and then we brought out the array of the cookies that we made. Remember, now’s the time to get them out and plate them up. Then we have our Russian torte. We’ve got the pineapple tea sandwiches. We have the holiday coconut bars. I mean, it’s just almost too much to tell. Ice cream nut rolls, yummy, and bring them out. Make sure you do a little extra powdered sugar when you bring them out of the freezer so they look nice and fresh, and then our peanut butter cookie cups. Well, I hope that this season is wonderful for you. I certainly thank you, Olympia and Jeff. You guys are the best.
• It was great being here.
• You know what, we enjoyed it.
• It’s great to have friends, friends that are like family, and these two certainly are to Paul and me. We just bless you and pray that this new year is the best one you’ve ever had, and make it a Christ-centered new year. The three of us and Paul, we know what it is to serve the Lord. There’s no other way.
• Amen.
• He brings the happiness and the joy into our lives like nobody else can do. So please, in your New Year’s or the new year plans, make Christ the center, okay? Lord bless you. Thanks again. Be sure to join us next time, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. Bye-bye.
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