Greek cooking holiday on Crete Greece

Greek cooking holiday on Crete Greece: A week’s holiday on Crete combining Cretan cooking with enjoying the nature of Crete. Workshop Cooking on Crete, cooking with olive oil, cooking lessons on Crete, outside cooking on Crete. On this page we will give a detailed description of our cooking lessons in Crete Greece. Cooking lessons on Crete: our workshop “cooking on Crete” is a complete week’s holiday, which 5 of the days will be spent cooking. During our cooking course on Crete we will take you shopping for ingredients (twice we will go to the markets; other ingredients will be bought locally). We instruct and advise while you prepare typical Greek foods yourself! The workshop will take place outside most of the time, but if the weather is not so nice, we can will move indoors. We organize about 10 to 12 workshops, “cooking on Crete”, every year.

Cooking and accommodation on Crete: you are able to make a reservation for this workshop including accommodation. Also included are breakfast, lunch, dinner and transportation. We offer you accommodation suitable for 1 to 6 persons. If you would like to join our workshop “cooking on Crete”, you are able to make a reservation individually or with a group. It is also possible to make a reservation for a group’s holiday, but for example only 1 or 2 guests will join our workshop. We offer various other excursions and activities for your friends or family, for example: hiking, cycling, jeep safaris, diving or relaxing on the beach. The reason why our cooking course lasts 5 days and not 7 days is because a lot of our guests also like to do other activities after the 5 days of cooking. You can make a reservation for our workshop “cooking on Crete” summer and winter. It is also possible to make a reservation for a two week holiday, you are then able to follow our cooking course and stay another week at the same accommodation. For more information about cooking and accommodation on Crete, please send us an e-mail: info@zorbas.nl

Our breakfast buffet is available from 9.00 AM. The breakfast buffet offers you: coffee, tea, orange juice, tomato juice, pineapple juice, apple juice, grapefruit juice, bread, crackers, cornflakes, muesli, yoghurt, honey, ham, cheese, jam, boiled eggs and fruit. You are able to enjoy from our breakfast buffet as much as you like from.

Our workshop “cooking on Crete” is also very suitable for vegetarians; we will happily adjust our menu upon your wishes. The Greek kitchen offers a large variety of vegetarian dishes.

We always try to organize our workshop for smaller groups, so that everybody receives personal attention. No more than 12 persons may attend each cooking course. Our cooking course is available in 4 different languages: English, Dutch, French and German. We like to mention that we try not to present our workshop in too many languages at the same time, typically two languages for each workshop, to avoid confusion.

Program workshop “cooking on Crete” (01) First day: Arrival and welcome meeting: because of different times of arrivals of our guests, we will wait until everybody is present before beginning the meeting. You can enjoy a nice glass of Greek wine and our Greek “meze” (a buffet full of different Greek dishes) while we welcome you to Crete and explain to you more about our workshop. If you are on holiday with family or friends, they are also invited to enjoy our Greek “meze”

(02) Second day: Breakfast at 9.00 AM. After breakfast we will go shopping for ingredients. On our first cooking day we will go to the mountains. We prepare our dishes at on a lovely location, between the olive fields looking over beautiful landscapes. In this area you can pick a lot of sage. Sage is a herb which is often used with: red meats, stuffings, sauces, sausage, cheese, tea, apple juice and large white beans. It is also used to get rid of grey hair! Many Greeks make tea from it because of the detoxing effect it has on your liver! In this area you are also able to find the herb oregano, delicious with meat and vegetables or pasta. We will start cooking around 1.00 PM. Today we will taste on location the self-made dishes, with the option of wine, fruit juices, or water. Around 4.00 PM we will return to Zorbas with our dishes packed in tupperware. Around 8.30 PM we will have dinner and enjoy our first “cooking creations”

(03) Third day cooking on Crete: Breakfast at 9.00 AM. After breakfast we will go shopping at the big gypsy market in Heraklion, leaving Zorbas around 10.00 AM. Here you will find lots of different vegetables and herbs. It is an excursion on it’s own to walk around this Greek gypsy market. After our visit to the market we continue our shopping at the harbor of Heraklion, where we will buy fresh fish. In the afternoon we will return to Gournes and start preparing our dishes. Today we will cook at your accommodation and will use our stone oven and grill. We will have lunch at our accommodation and taste our dishes upfront, to make sure our menu will be perfect for the evening dinner. This evening we will present the local guests with our self-made menu. Dinner will start around 9.00 PM. (wood ovens in Greece.)

(04) Fourth day cooking curse on Crete: Breakfast at 9.00 AM. After breakfast, around 10.30 AM, we will visit the village of Peza, to learn more about the different kinds of wine produced in Crete. You will also learn more about how olive oil is made on Crete. We will visit the museum about wine and olive making and feel free to buy some of the natural products in the gift shop. After our visit to Peza, we will return to Gournes. Today we will explain to you the many uses of olive oil. We will use olive oil together with herbs, garlic, peppers, sage, , soup, meat dishes, fish and lemon to make dressings or sauces. Our lunch will include our freshly made sauces together with pasta and toast. For our evening dinner we will grill fish served, of course, with our dressings and sauces. Dinner will be at 8.00 PM

(05) Fifth day on Crete: Today is a free day; you can enjoy your breakfast between 9.00 AM and 12.00 PM. It is always possible to eat dinner at Zorbas, but you may want to explore and visit one of the Greek taverns in the area. We offer several possibilities of how to spend your “free” day”, for example: rent a car and explore Crete by car (we can advise you on fun tours), take public transportation to Knossos , or the archeological museum, go cycling, hiking, rent a motorcycle, scooter or quad tours, jeep safaris (lots of nature and culture), diving, snorkeling, visit a pottery, take a bus tour to Lassithi, fishing, horse riding, visit a water park, visit the Crete aquarium or just take the day off to relax on the beach (within 5 minutes walking distance). Some of these excursions have to be booked upfront

(06) Sixth day on Crete: Breakfast at 9.00 AM. Around 10.00 AM, after breakfast, we will drive to the local market to do our shopping for the day. We will drive up to the olive fields where we will then prepare our lunch and dinner. At this location you are able to enjoy the beautiful scenery and landscapes. Today we will pick a lot of herbs which we will need for our dishes. We will prepare vegetable dishes in combination with olive oil and herbs. If you collect more herbs than needed, feel free to take them home! Dinner will be served at 8.30 PM. During our evening meal we will taste different Greek wines and chesses. Wine is always a personal choice; you are also able to order wines to take home with you as a souvenir

(07) Seventh day : Breakfast at 9.00 AM. After breakfast, around 10.00 AM, we will visit our local butcher and fish market to do our shopping for the day. We will start cooking when we return to our accommodation. Today everybody is invited to enjoy all our dishes we learned to prepare during your cooking course. We will also use our stone oven and grill for the specialties, using olive oil. Dinner will be at 9.00 PM. During the afternoon we will evaluate our workshop “cooking on Crete”

(08)today will be the departure day for our guests who are going home. For the ones who haven’t had enough of Crete, feel free to stay for another week! There is always plenty to do for another week’s holiday! We will bring our guests to the airport of Heraklion for their departure.

Key points of our cooking workshop “cooking on Crete”: Learning about different kinds of olive oil in Crete, Greece: cooking with olive oil, different kind of olives, what to consider when buying olive oil, oil dressings, making sauces with olive oil, baking and grilling with olive oil, olive oil in pasta, basic knowledge of olive oil, a visit to the olive factory of Peza.

Herbs on Crete, Greece: using herbs in the Greek kitchen, picking and recognizing herbs, buying herbs, herbs as medicine, herbs as ingredient in various dishes: meat, fish, pasta and soup.

Greek wines: which Greek wine suits best with different Greek dishes, Greek wine tasting, a visit to the wine factory of Peza, basic knowledge of Greek wines and retsina.

Greek fruit: while cooking in the olive fields and beautiful nature of Crete you will see a lot of different fruits. We are going to use these fruits during our cooking workshop in Crete. Each season offers you different fruit.

Fish and meat dishes from Crete, Greece, preparing, seasoning, grilling in the wood oven, visit the local meat and fish markets

Greek salad, aubergine and eggplant cookies (kolokithakia), Greek cheese pies (tiropitakia) with feta and mezitra, large white beans (gigantes), tzatziki, aubergine salad, skordalia, stuffed wine leaves (dolmadakia), spinach and feta pastry, gorta (wild mountain vegetable), marinated fish sauce, Greek shrimp sauce, souflaki seasoning and grilling, souflaki with pita, lamb’s meat with lemon from the wood oven, artichokes with olive oil sauces, kritharaki from the wood oven with pork meat, meatballs (keftedes), mousaka, souzoukakia (meatballs in tomato sauce), stuffed aubergines, stuffed eggplants, stuffed tomatoes, various fish and sea fruit dishes, okra with olive oil (bamies), Greek Easter soup, Greek snail stew, pork in wine sauce, sauces and dressing with olive oil and garlic, lemon, santo, peppers, sage, basil, mint, rosemary etc. Greek pastas, anjovis, Greek pesto, tapenade, marinated olives, tomato soup with coriander, lentil soup, stifado and Greek stews.