Seville, Spain – Day 6
Oh what a magnificent city! It’s sophisticated, romantic, passionate, modern, and ancient at the same time, and all these things seem to fit together perfectly. Though I’ve visited this city (does one day count as “visiting”?), it’s still on my list to visit again, and definitely spend more time here. This is the city where Flamenco reigns supreme, history goes back more than two thousand years, and architecture never fails to take your breath away. And since this is a food blog, I have to mention the oranges. You’ve heard of Seville oranges, right? No? Then let me tell you about them. They’re bitter. That’s it. ...
Stay tuned for the rest from Seville!
Puff Pastry with Honey and Nuts – Pseudo Baklava
I love this dessert. It’s easy, quick, and most importantly, delicious. This dessert has enjoyed a successful introduction to my family, co-workers, and a CSA pot luck. There are several things that make this recipe extra easy. One, is that I use store-bought puff pastry. As you know, I have no room for working with dough (see my kitchen), so these shortcuts become more of a necessity. But I don’t mind, it makes my life easier, and that’s a much welcomed thing. (However, if you’d like to try your hand at home-made puff pastry, check out Sofya’s version.) I wish everything was as easily simplified as puff pastry dough. But...
Read MoreCodroba, Seville, Spain – Day 5
Well, it’s been a while since my last post about Spain, so I thought it’s time to get back to that. (Otherwise, at this rate, I’ll finish up Spain after my next vacation, which isn’t even anywhere on the horizon.) Puerto Lapice Today, we had an early wake-up call. We typically have an early wake-up call, so it wasn’t anything new. Our first stop was in a tiny little village called Puerto Lapice. If you’ve read Cervantes, you’d recognize this location as he tended to use real places. This is where the fictional Don Quixote was knighted by the innkeeper. Today, this is a good roadway stop where we used the lavatories and...
Read MoreTea, Uzbek Style
All great tea cultures have their own traditions for brewing and serving tea. Uzbekistan has quite a long history of tea consumption, and as such, has specific ways of brewing and serving tea. Though Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union, don’t confuse Uzbek tea culture with that of Russia as they’re distinct enough. When I was growing up in Uzbekistan, I remember drinking tea just about every time we drank anything; I don’t remember drinking milk with dinner as is common here in America, and I don’t remember drinking a lot of water, though I’m sure I did. But the memories of tea, at each and every occasion, are what stick out in my...
Read MoreChickpea and Tomato Salad
I was completely struck by the simplicity and deliciousness of this salad when I saw it at an event about a month or so ago. Of course, it was also one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments. I mean, it’s tomatoes and chickpeas, both of which I love. But perhaps my experimenting with food stopped the moment it started when I decided to put salt in my tea when I in kindergarten. Quite traumatized by that still. LOL. Anyway, this salad is incredibly easy, especially if you use cherry tomatoes, which is how this salad was made when I first saw it. But I didn’t have cherry tomatoes and I didn’t see anything wrong with...
Read MoreDamlyama-inspired chicken and vegetable stew
I mentioned in some of my previous post that I joined a CSA this year and all the benefits associated with it. The “downside” is having a ton of veggies and finding creative ways to use them up. This time, I turned to one of my recipes and totally re-did it. Well, as much as one can re-make a meat and veggie dish. The original, Damlyama, is a traditional Uzbek dish, using lamb and a pretty specific set of veggies and a specific method. For this dish, I took the basic elements of Damlyama, meat and veggies, and built a new recipe based on that. I sorta think of this as a deconstructed chicken damlyama. But don’t think of this as a...
Read MoreHighcross Farm
If you don’t know what this is, what would you think it is (without looking at the caption)? When I first got this item in my CSA box a few weeks ago (it was a smaller specimen), I really wasn’t sure what it is. I looked at it, and smelled it, and thumped it, and decided it was somehow related to squash. And then I cut into it, like I would with a summer squash, into rounds. LOL! Boy was I wrong! But I’m so happy to have been wrong. I saw seeds and membranes, like the ones you see in melons and it was awesome to discover that this is a melon. This is an extremely delicately flavored melon with an extremely pale flesh, almost white. To...
Read MoreTomatoes: Canned Sauce
I’ve been just about knee deep in tomatoes last few weeks and made a ton of “easy sauce“. I’ve also made quite a few jars of diced tomatoes, but more on that later. Because this is my first year canning anything ever, I thought I’d take it a little easy (though my dad would disagree) and try only a few things. But as great as my family food tradition is, we don’t really have a good recipe for tomato sauce. Lamb, oh yeah, you’ve come to the right place, but I don’t even tomato sauce on the menu as I was growing up…. So google to the rescue. I found this recipe for DiAgostino’s Red Gravy. It met all my...
Read MoreThe best leftovers: ice cream and raspberry sauce
I always seem to end up with a few bits leftover after making jam and I’m always trying to figure out how to use them up. On this particular day, the few tablespoons of raspberry jam became the most delicious topping for home made vanilla ice cream (recipes coming later). How do you typically use up the little remnants of meals or cooking process? Share this:
Read MoreTomatoes: Freezing Sauce
As you have probably gathered from reading this blog and statements like “tomatoes are my favorite food” that tomatoes are my favorite food. It seems like everything I cook in winter has some sort of a tomato presence, be it stew, chilli, soup, or something roasted. So I decided to make my own tomato bases this year, something I can pull out and use in multiple ways. Having ten tons of tomatoes on hand and absolutely no time to do anything “exciting”, I was looking for something very easy, very quick, and requiring little cleanup. And as luck would have it, Sofya had a great way of processing these tomatoes. Seeing her beautiful...
