Unbearable people

There’s this kind of people who drives me mad…Have you ever met anybody who is always right? Who knows everything? who travelled everywhere?; who has been sicker than anybody else in the world?; who has been to the best restaurants and drunk the most delicious wines? It really annoys me this kind of attitude; I can’t stand it.
What is most infuriating is that they don’t consider anybody else but themselves. They think they are a special kind of “God” taht they are always certain and, of course, theirs is the one and only possible truth.

MY OWN “CHICKEN BREASTS WITH OPORTO’S WINE SAUSE”!

Well, well… I tried this recipe with some modifications (I’m sorry Estef), which I’m gonna tell you.

First, I changed mushrooms because I don’t like it… I wanted to put apples, but my mother stopped me just in time! In the end, I used carrots, a good choice. The second change is more important: I changed Oporto’s wine (I don’t have it at home) for a mixture between “mistela” and mellow wine… The last change (and less important) is that I’ve used chicken legs because they are tastier.

We can say that I’ve done “Catalan chicken legs”.

I tried it on Sunday night, but I didn’t do a photo because my sister and I were extremely hungry. But I need to say that it was extremely tasty.

STUFFED TOMATOES

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1 garlic
• 1 carrot
• 1 marrow
• 4-6 tomatoes (1-2 per person)
• 250g minced meat (for 4 tomatoes)
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Rosemary
• Goat cheese
• Bread
• Salad

First of all, empty the tomatoes carefully using a spoon. Pour a bit of salt inside them and, for the moment, put aside both the tomatoes and their contents.

Now chop up the onion, the garlic, the carrot and the marrow.

Warm a deep frying pan. Once the oil is hot, throw in the onion and the garlic. Wait for a few minutes and then add the carrot and the marrow. Blend the ingredients and wait until they begin to brown.

Add the minced meat to the pan. Try to separate the pieces of meat with a spatula and mix. After 5 minutes, throw in the contents of the tomatoes. Mix again and evaporate all the liquid (20-25 minutes).

Pour some salt, black pepper and rosemary to the mixture and stir. Let the meat to brown a bit.

Now stuff the tomatoes with the meat and put them into the pre-warmed oven (150 ºC). If you like, put some grated cheese on the top of the tomatoes. At the same time, you can place in the oven some goat cheese on bread toasts.

The stuffed tomatoes will be ready in 5-10 minutes.

Finally, serve the tomatoes with some salad. It’s a good idea to put some honey on the cheese.

Enjoy!

I DID IT!!!!

Here is my experiment!

I cooked the Carrot Cake following all the Mire's recipe instructions.

In miy opinion it's very tasty, but it breaks easily, which is a negative point for me, because it's difficult to serve.

Basque Style Hake
Ingredients:
-2/3 pieces of hake per person
-flour
-olive oil
-2/3 gloves of garlic
-parsley
-one tin of asparagus
-boiled egg
-clams
Preparation:
1.-salt the hake and slightly cover each piece with flour
2.-pour olive oil in a casseroleand place the hake while the oil is cold. The oil should cover the hake.
3.-ground the cloves of garlic and the pearsley together and clean the mortar with the asparagus' water. Add it to the hake.
4.-Move the casserole frequently so that the hake will not paste to the bottom of it. During 15/20 minutes it should go "chup-chup"
5.-Place the asparagus on the hake and let everything go "chup-chup" for five more minutes. Don't forget to move the casserole!
You may decorate this delicious dish with clams and pieces of boiled egg.
Hope you enjoy it!

Risotto with Mushrooms:

Ingredients:

Butter

Salt

Pepper

Garlic (3 cloves)

Onions (1)

Arborio rice (300g)

Mushrooms (200

White wine

Parmesan

Parsley

Vegetable stock

Preparation: (for four persons)

First of all, we have to decide the type of mushrooms. This decision will depend on the season, the cost and obviously the flavour. We can choose also if we want them fresh or dehydrated (if we choose them dehydrated is important to keep the water used to hydrate them and to add with the vegetable stock). In this occasion, I choose “camagrocs” which in my opinion is a delicious mushroom.

Once we decided the mushrooms we put a frying pan on the heat with one tablespoon of butter (depending on the type of mushroom we will chop it or not). When the butter is melted we cook the mushrooms over a high heat and quickly. We don’t want to cook them a lot, just brown them. Then, we keep them back. In the same frying pan we add some more butter and we sauté the minced garlic cloves and the fined sliced onion over a low heat. When the garlic and the onion are cooked we add a half glass of white wine. We increase the heat and we blend vigorously it all trying to avoid burning it. Meanwhile we heat the vegetable stock in a saucepan and keep it warm until the end. When the alcohol is evaporated we turn down the heat and we add the rice (from my own experience we can use normal rice or “bomba” but the Italians recommend Arborio or Vialone Nano). At this time starts one of the clues of the risotto, we don’t have to stop stirring until the risotto is done. We stir the rice during two minutes and then we will add the hot vegetable stock in a continuous way during the entire cook while the rice absorbs it. We taste it and we throw salt and pepper according to our taste. Normally the rice needs 17 minutes cooking time (don’t forget to keep stirring the rice all the time!). About five minutes before the rice is done we add some grated parmesan, the mushrooms and the chopped parsley. We still stirring until the rise is al dente and that’s it! We cover the risotto for two minutes.

Enjoy your meal!!

In the photo I serve the risotto with cod and a fried asparagus

Cuttlefish with meatballs

Ingredients

Some olive oil
2 Cloves of garlic
2 Onions
Salt
Pinions
Minced meat or meatballs (number depending on how big they are)
700 gr. Cuttlefish
1 or 2 Tomatoes
A glass of white or red wine
Some water
Rice
… (and whatever you have in the fridge: frozen peas, carrots…)

Preparation

Firstly, you should prepare the mince meat, but… my butcher makes some wonderful meatballs, so I usually buy them already done. So you just have to grate the tomatoes, and cut the onions in thin slices on the chopping board.

As you have already done the meatballs, fry them in a pot. Be quick turning them over because we wouldn’t like to burn them. And don’t worry, later they will make well inside with the cuttlefish. When they will be brown, retire them from the pot.

Fry the onions in slices in the same oil you have just fried the meatballs. I also like to fry, just a little bit, the pinions and the tomatoes. Meanwhile, you clean and cut the cuttlefish in cubes.

Stir the onion frequently to prevent burning with a table spoon. When the onion is getting brown, put the cuttlefish and add the glass of wine and some water. I also sprinkle some white pepper. You should be careful with the salt, because the cuttlefish could give a salty taste. You should blend often in the beginning to be sure is well distributed.

I usually serve it with white rice and, just in case you have some unexpected visitors, you can boil some eggs, cut them in four pieces and use them in the presentations of the plate. It mixes right with it and feed lot.

Note: I have no idea about times. Do whatever you think depending on tasting.

Prawns with a hint of lime

Ingredients:

12 fresh prawns

4 limes

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

half a glass of dry sherry

salt and pepper

4 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley

Preparation:

1. Grate the peel of two of the limes and put aside. Squeeze the juice from these two limes into a bowl and leave aside. Take off the heads and legs of the prawns but leave the skin on. Wash them and leave them aside.

2. Put the oil into the pan and lightly fry the garlic for 30 seconds. Add the prawns and cook them until they are pink.

3. Now add the lime peel, lime juice and sherry. Stir for a few minutes.

4. Add the fresh chopped parsley and serve on a plate with the other two limes cut into wedges.

This is quick and easy to make. Delicious and it impresses the guests who can't believe that a Scottish man can make such a dish!

SHAKE-SHAKE CAKE

SPONGE CAKE

As it turns out, this recipe is very simple to make and has many possible variations.

Here’s what you’ll need to make this version
175 grs Self -raising flour.
Alternative: 100 grs Cornflour and 75 grs Plain flour
175 grs Caster sugar
3 eggs
175 grs butter (unsalted)
200 ml. milk

Gets Started !

Set the oven to 180ºC.
Lightly butter a baking dish
Mix the eggs yolks until creamy.
Beat the eggs whites until they become frothy and slowly add the sugar. Once the mixture is nice and stiff add the egg yolks and fold them in with the rubber spatula.
Combine the flours through a colander sift into the mixture. Sifting increase the amount of air in the cake and making it lighter. Fold it all together.
Transfer the batter into the baking dish giving a few shakes to remove the air and put the cake into the oven.
After around 30 minutes, test the cake inserting a wooden skewer into the center of the cake. If the skewer is dry, it is ready. Cool before removing the cake from the pan…



I like to put a surprise buried inside.

Ingredients:

• One egg
• Two tablespoons of Guacamole (you can do guacamole by yourself, but I prefer to buy a jar of Fiesta or Old el Paso guacamole)
• Two slices of goat cheese
• One tablespoon of olive oil

Preparation:

Beat the egg in a bowl. Cut the cheese in small cubes. Heat the olive oil into a fried pan and put there the egg. When the egg is cooked in the back side, put the guacamole and the cubes of goat cheese into the semi-cooked egg and flip the omelet. Turn the omelet carefully (this is a difficult operation, sometimes you can achieve only a scramble egg with guacamole and cheese. But it tastes good too).

CANARY ISLAND CILANTRO (coriander) SOUP

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium onion, finely minced
• 1 ripe tomato, peeled and seeded, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic mashed
• 3 medium potatoes peeled and diced roughly
• 2 cup rice
• 1 bunch fresh coriander, divided
• 1 green capsicum, cut in half
• 2 bouillon cubes (use your preferred trade mark of beef)
• 1 pinch sea salt
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 glass water, enough to cover vegetables

DIRECTIONS

1. In a med-large soup pot, heat about 2 Tblsp of olive oil.
2. Sautee onion, garlic, tomato, potatoes, and paprika over fairly high heat until the onions are translucent.
3. Add bouillon, 1/2 of the green pepper (in one chunk) 2/3 of the bunch of coriander, tied with a string (the bunch), and the salt to taste.
4. Add enough water to cover vegetables completely, with about 1-2 inches above the veggies.
5. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
6. About half way through cooking time, add the rice.
7. Adjust salt, remove green pepper and bunch of coriander, and discard.
8. Chop the remaining green pepper and coriander and serve each soup plate with fresh chopped green pepper and sprinkle with cilantro.
9. Serve with "queso fresco" (green goats cheese preferably) and baguettes.

CARROT CAKE!

Ingredients for the cake:

- 300 gr carrots

- 2 eggs

- 50 gr butter

- 125 gr flour

- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (depends on your taste; actually, I put a tablespoon because I love cinnamon)

- 1 teaspoon yeast (royal if possible)

- little bit of Salt

- 175 gr sugar

- 40 gr chopped walnuts

Ingredients for the decoration:

- 100 gr philadelphia

- 100 gr butter

- ½ teaspoon sugar

- ½ teaspoon liquid vanilla

- 1 teaspoon powder sugar

Preparation for the cake:

First, blend in a bowl the flour, the cinnamon, the yeast, the salt, the sugar and the walnuts. Secondly, chop the carrots and mix them with the eggs and the butter in another bowl; whisk these ingredients all together. Then, put the content of the two bowls together and whisk till obtain a uniform mass.

The oven must be warmed up (180ºC) only in its down part, and the mold needs to have spread butter (it’s not necessary to put flour). The cake has to be in the warm oven for 25 minutes; when this time has passed, turn off the oven (don’t open it!) and leave the cake inside for 5 minutes. Then, you can take it out and wait till it’s cold.

Preparation for the decoration:
Blend all the ingredients till obtain a uniform cream (it’s important to warm up the butter) and spread it on the top of the cake.

You must know that this is a wet cake, so it won’t grow like a normal cake… the first time I’ve done it was a complete disaster, it seemed an enormous cookie. That’s why you need to follow carefully the instructions.

Also, I usually don’t do the decoration because I think it’s extremely sweet… I put some powder sugar to make it beautiful and that’s all!

(I didn’t have time to do it, so I put an internet picture)

Chicken breasts with Oporto’s wine sauce

Chicken breasts with Oporto's wine sauce for 4 people:
-4 Chicken breasts
-1 spring onion
-200 gr mushrooms
-400 cc cream
-200 cc Oporto's wine
-olive oil
-salt, pepper

Pour the olive oil on the frying pan and add the chopped spring onion and the sliced mushrooms, add a teaspoon of salt, stir, and remove when it'll be cooked. Pour another squeeze of olive oil on the frying pan to fry the chicken breasts, previously salted, until browned, then add the mushrooms and onion, previously cooked, pour the cream and the Oporto's wine, blend well, cover, and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. When it will be almost finished sprinkle a dash of pepper. It's ready to serve!

Advice: If you don't like mushrooms and/or spring onion, you can rule them out, or replace the spring onion for a leek, or an onion. Also you can use other kind of red wine (it won't be the same..... but it is a good option)

Chinese food

Hello!
Do you like chinese food?
In my opinion, a restaurant called "Out of China" serves good food. The so called dim sum is excellent...
It's located in Muntaner, 100 (between València and Mallorca) and the owner, called Chempy, speaks perfect catalan. She is very nice!
My favourite dish, besides dim sum, is noodles with cheese and shrimp. Try it! You'll love it!
It is not expensive and there's a relaxed and nice atmosphere...
You'll tell me if you've liked it.
Regards,
Reyes

UAB Level C: A new proposal: eating

UAB Level C: A new proposal: eating: "Would you like to write about places where you can have a nice meal in the city? You would like to try a new bar or restaurant in the city....."

A new proposal: eating

Would you like to write about places where you can have a nice meal in the city? You would like to try a new bar or restaurant in the city... Here it is the opportunity to share some information about these places where we enjoy eating!

I’ll start with La Plata, a small bar in 28 Mercè Street. It is between Central Post Office and Mercè Square, in the old city. They are specialist in fried anchovies. It is the perfect place to go at midday or between eight and ten at night. After working o before going to the cinema, you can eat a plate of sardine, some olives, an onions and tomatoes salad and a piece of bread with botifarra, drinking a beer or a glass of red wine... And that’s all they have!

This bar is the kind of those which are specialists in a product, like the Tomàs with the "patatas bravas" in Sarrià, have you ever been there?

Good things in summer days

In July I had travelling plans, but my feet injury recommended: “No way, it’s time to relax”. So, I spent most of the days of August in friends and family’s houses. And that was a perfect excuse to recuperate some old tasks I had had forgotten them. Like this one: do some tomatoes canned in summer!

Look at the colour, the texture… you can almost taste it! Even certainly most of you already know how to do it, I think maybe there’s somebody who has no idea. Consequently, I’m going to explain how my family usually do it. We all got up at seven in the morning, because summer time usually is very hot in Valencia. If other case, flies would be annoying all the time, flying around the tomatoes. Firstly, you have to boil the skin tomatoes. This boiling makes easier to peel them. If you don’t want to hurt your hands, you should wait some minutes to refresh them.

Secondly, you have to push them into a glass jars, and closes it. At the same time, you have a huge pot with water in the fire to boil the jars. They have to be boiling about 40 minutes. Then, you just have to wait them to cool, and take care of them until next winter!

It’s a brilliant idea, especially in a city like Barcelona, where each year is more difficult to find tasty tomatoes in a reasonable price! And finally, despite my initials reservations, I had a great time!

New York, interesting people

The first time I was in New York I had the same feelings as Marc told. A mix of surprise and dejà-vu. I was excited every time I saw peculiar people, because New York is plenty of interesting people. When you are in New York you can take pictures to a naked cowboy in the middle of the street or is possible to talk with an old man with a pink dress worried about his puppy dressed with the same clothes as him.
I took this picture in Central Park, in Strawberry Fields. This is a place really near from Dakota building, the place were John Lennon was murdered. And at this place it's site a memorial to John Lennon. When I arrived there, I was exhausted and I decided to rest a bit. Lots of people were taking a few minutes looking at the memorial, taking some pictures and leaving quickly the area, looking for more touristic places to visit. Suddenly I saw the man of the picture and I thought that he looked like The Big Lebowski. It's not only that he looks like this character, is more than this. Is his dog, the music, the flowers, his apparence or all together but suddently I thought that he was there for any important reason. I stayed there long enough and I left relaxed with the feeling that I had honored the memory of John Lennon. Some days later, when I was in Barcelona I remembered this man, I searched Strawberry fields on internet and I found that: http://wn.com/The_Mayor_of_Strawberry_Fields_Gary_has_lived_at_John_Lennon%27s_Imagine_Memorial_for_14_years

He's been living there for the last forteen years! Pfuà!

Pica d'Estats

If you are a kind of outdoor person and love mountaineering, probably you've already climbed Pica d’Estats.The most Catalonia’s emblematic mountain. Although there are several normal routes to get there, the past year a bunch of pals and me decided to avoid normal itineraries and take an alternative trail, wilder that went through forgotten tracks . We put on 15 Kg rucksack on our back and started our hike. That day, the weather wasn’t good and there was a strong wind blowing. After a hard hiking and getting lost for two times we arrived to the Shelter of Baborte .Pic.1 It took a certain amount of arranging but we managed to settle down in relative comfort and ate supper by the light of our head torchs; as music we had the strong wind.

Next day we awaked at 5 a.m. and climb up into the daylight rather into the dark, thus we put on our headlamps and went ahead. Today, the weather was changing for the better and this time we did our route whithout too much troubles. After dark, fortunately we reached the “Boarte Shelter”. pic.2
My god! What a luxurious one!. Inside, a table with benches!. From here and after hiking a little we got the summit. The end of our little expedition was one long party.

Go to the mountains off season by this kind of paths was much more adventurous, lonelier and certainly a little bit dangerours, however, for me, was enourmously satisfactory and best of all cleared my mind and soul from daily servitudes and official atmosphere.