BOO!!

Happy Halloween!

...ouch!!!

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España- segunda parte

While selecting the pictures for this entry, I realized how much I love the food culture in Spain, but then again..  maybe because that's the part we explored the most while there. We arrived around 8pm to Sevilla and after freshening up at the hotel we went out trying to find a place for dinner. The hotel we stayed at was in the older side of town, where the streets are narrow, so narrow that the cabbie couldn't drop us off at the front door of the hotel because the car would just not fit.

Oh... Good times!

I had ice cream every night while we went for a walk to walk off dinner, somehow i always managed to have a little more room for ice cream. I found some really interesting flavors. Like Smurf  and Cloud. 

...and the Kinder one took me right back to 5th grade.

When we got to Barcelona, I couldn't wait to check out Boqueria. Acording to our guide book, we could get hot churros and good coffee for breakfast. We never found the churros stand, and the only coffee we could find was Dunkin' Donuts. There is nothing wrong with Dunkin' coffee, but it wasn't the local experience I had anticipated. Either way, it was really cool, and we decided to leave when i had too much eye candy and needed some real food.

Chewy, colorful and so many shapes of colored sugar.

And everything you can imagine covered in chocolate.

De pez a pescado

Mm... juicy!

Signs both in Spanish and Catalan.

We found a restaurant attached to a market (not boqueria) where all the ingredients came from that market. This is the menu.

A chart with foods on one side and cooking method on the other.

Hands down the best thing we ate at the market: Roasted peppers, a little salty a little spicy all delicious.

The clams with pancetta and artichokes wasn't bad either.

Picture of the restaurant, exposed storage + communal dining 

Wall of herbs. Urban gardening at it's best

If you have the chance to visit Spain, do so. And eat your heart out. You won't regret the extra pounds of Jamon Iberico you'll come back with.

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Cake pop intermission

Before I post the second and maybe third part of Spain, i figured i could put some cake pop pics that i've made lately.

Red Velvet pops for a private event at the Sky Room, NYC.

I made these for my sister- in- law's bridal shower.

Congrats Katie & Kevin!

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Sweet as honey. 1era Parte

It's a while since my last post. A month to be more exact. A lot happened during this past month; I got married, family came and went, and we went on our honeymoon to Portugal and Spain.

Picture of our cake topper - bobble head version of us

The trip was great, the weather was unbelievable in every place we visited and the food was out of this world - and that's what i'll talk about. I definitely came back with a little more junk in my trunk, but whatever, i'm married!

We landed in Lisbon and ate our way through Sevilla, Granada and Barcelona. In Lisbon, we had amazing seafood, unfortunately, we we're busy eating and forgot to take pictures. That seems to happen to me a lot, I love food, then comes blogging. In Sevilla, we started taking pics of food.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go, I'm giving you over ten thousand mouth watering words. Enjoy. 

Oh yea, the "device" to cut the jamon iberico is called Jamotec.

So simple yet so delicious. Pan con tomate y anchoas

Gambas al ajillo.

More jamon iberico.

Plump aceitunas

Fried Cod

Pollo al ajillo

Stacked roasted veggies, held up by melted cheese. YUM

Fideos con tinta

Amazing Ox tail stew

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Hoot, hoot!!

Someone once told me a silly owl joke. It goes...

-Knock, knock

-Who's there?

-Owl

-Owl who?

-Owl be seeing you!

I couldn't stop giggling while making them

Too cute for words.

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Chimichurri casero,

One of my favorite restaurants in the city is Izakaya Ten; is a small Japanese drinking and tapas place. Given that I have the Asian glow, whenever I drink, I get beet red and I can't drink much- but that's because I'm just a light weight, nothing to do with race. This place has re-introduced me to sake and it must be the fact that it's a rice wine that I can enjoy it more than other spirits. For last new year's eve, they had a 6 jar sampler tasting special.

These were so cute and we had such a great time that we decided to bring the jars home, and we would find a crafty thing to do with them. 

So what better container to put the fresh herbs that my good friend Kevo brought us from his community garden in Philly?

This is the closest thing to a garden i'll ever have in our fifth floor walk up apartment.

We were trying to think how to get the most out of it, so I decided to make some home made chimichurri.

I used:
-Chopped parsley
-Chopped oregano
-Chopped cilantro
-Red pepper flakes
-Chili powder
-Cayenne pepper powder
-Veggie oil
-Vinegar
-Salt and pepper

I used my very scientific method of eyeballing and tasting to come out with the right consistency and flavor.

I used the mini food processor which was key to making it in less than 30 minutes.

The packaging process. I used a skewer to push the herbs down the baby funnel.

... And the final product. I read up online and it suggested to let it sit outside for about a week. I can't wait to pour some of this on a good piece of meat. Argh argh!!

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Maine and grilled pizza

My previous entry was about all the goodies we ate in Maine and one of the best meals was a grilled pizza. I took too many pictures to only have to pick one, so I wanted to make a separate entry for this heavenly delight.

I am pretty much obsessed with the show Good Eats with Alton Brown. I'm always amazed at how much he knows about food, history of food and his props for explaining all this. A couple of weeks before the trip, I watched an episode about grilled pizza and it instantly made it into my "Things I have to cook in Maine" list. During the show, he also mentioned an alternative option for those who live in NYC in fifth floor walk-ups (which is my exact location) but that one wasn't as much fun as the one on the grill.

As far as the recipe goes, I modified his version a bit, making a whole wheat dough and a spelt dough, but having seen the technique was really helpful. Unfortunately this year's house did not come with an electric mixer, so  I made the dough the good old fashioned way - con el sudor en la frente!

This is the dough that I had to knead for about 30 minutes by hand and then let sit for a total of an hour and 45 minutes. Perfect for kayaking.

For the toppings, we pretty much sauteed veggies we had in the fridge - and also the chorizo we got at the farmer's market.

The total dough was enough for 3 whole wheat pizzas and 2 spelt pizzas. The spelt one was definitely harder to roll out. This one was pizza #1 with grilled tomatos, chorizo and cheese. Yum.

Pizza #2. Whole wheat dough with kale, mushrooms and goat cheese. 

Pizza #3- Spelt dough with broccoli, kale, walnuts and cheese.

Pizza #4- Chorizo part deux... and remembered we had fresh basil! 

Unfortunately, one of the spelt doughs fell apart, we were able to save it, but it wasn't pretty and we were busy feasting. It's hard to take pictures when your hands are a bit greasy.

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