Fragrant

This morning I made a glass of orange juice.
I love having a special machine to make it

Perhaps people have them in the UK too but I never saw one – here there seems to be one in every house.
It makes sense – the oranges have a label saying España and it still gives me a kick to think ‘that’s where I am!’    (I know I’m  in Catalunya but….you know what I mean!)
It is orange season and we have loads in the kitchen – you buy some for eating and huge bags for juicing

The colour orange was named after the fruit, not the other way round. 
The word orange comes from Sanskrit naranga meaning fragrant.
In Catalan it is taronja and in Castellano naranja.

Marching to the beat of my own drum

We had a celebration meal yesterday and the starter was this

It’s called a Timbal but I hadn’t realised that meant drum until Pep started miming the drumsticks

Of course – shaped like a drum – how can I be so slow with this language?

Getting closer to Lent

I have decided to change my diet for Lent – for the Cuaresma.  This will definitely mean giving up cake!
(except when my guests are here –  that would be rude!!!)
So today I made a quick chocolate sponge filled with the home-made nutella from last week.

You can see I am really serious about this! I have till Wednesday to eat it – with help I hope.

Fideuà and Allioli

Here’s the recipe I made this evening

Fideuà is a Valencian dish which is now eaten all over Spain.
This is my vegetarian version with toasted tofu as the protein rather than the more usual seafood.  I don’t really like seafood so for me this is the best!

Clearly you can create this dish with the vegetables of your choice but this is what I had in the fridge this evening. I sliced because I love doing this in the new Magimix but probably it’s better to dice!

I used Fideo Number 0 but there are several sizes available and Number 2 is more traditional.

What you need
Bag of fideo No 0 or bigger
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
half courgette chopped or sliced
two carrots chopped or sliced
half a red pepper diced
slosh olive oil
slosh of tomato frigit or paste
5 cups of vegetable stock
Seasoning – I used salt, pepper and some crumbled dried chillies

In a paella pan if you have one, or a large frying pan, saute all the vegetables with seasoning in the oil, then add the tofu and after about ten minutes add the fideos. At this point you can stir but not too forcefully.
Pour in the stock so that it just covers all that is in the pan. Let this cook for about 20 minutes. Don’t stir but you can open it up a little with a wooden spoon. When the fluid is no longer obvious put the whole thing under the grill (this is where a paella pan comes in handy) and leave it until the tails of the fideos are turning upwards towards the sky. Put a lid on and serve soon with allioli on the side.

Allioli


 I used about 8 garlic cloves and smashed them in this beautiful mortar which belonged to my partners grandmother. Adding olive oil a few drops at a time you keep smashing and stirring with vigour until it is creamy and completely smooth. Traditionally menstruating women shouldn’t make allioli as the oil will not blend with the garlic. I think I proved this wrong tonight 🙂
Here is the little spoon holder that sits by the cooker and makes me smile when I see it

it roughly translates as – Keep smiling when times are hard. But today I was enjoying the kitchen and the music on iCat fm too much to need the reminder. Hope you too had a good Saturday!

Monday and new beginnings

My friend Tiffany said last week how she likes to start the week well and I feel I managed it today.
We went for a long run/walk first thing then got the supermarket shopping out of the way before lunch. For once we had all the reusable bags we needed to put everything in and managed to pack them up before the cashier started to serve the next person (a pet hate of mine here where no matter how much you have spent in the shop they still see you as a nuisance if you don’t get out of the way to allow the next person through)
In the afternoon I went to a new drawing class with our friend Dolores. There were eight of us, all women, sitting around a large table and listening to UB40. The teacher Jordi taught us about the proportions of the human body and face and then after practising this, we read a short story and drew from our imagination some of the images from the tale
It is also my first day of trying to eat less. I stopped smoking (yes again!) a month ago and it has led to the inevitable. My plan wasn’t very radical – just to stop when I’m full. So I had only two slices of toast, I left the last raviolis in the dish and I only had one digestive biscuit with my tea. The challenge will come on Wednesday when I meet Tiffany in town.

Is it possible to meet for coffee and not eat a cake?