Barcelona

We went to Barcelona for the long weekend, haven't been there for years, flights are better than Madrid at the moment, so will be back soon.

First difference I noticed, it seemed a lot less grubby and it seemed safer than before, I know they've put a huge effort into fighting the perceived pick-pocket threat and I know people who were mugged.

From a going out point of view the first difference is in Spain there are usually three beer sizes, cana, copa / tubo and jarra.  Barcelona doesn't seem to have cana (~20cl), if you ask for one, you get a copa.  They also don't have alcohol free beer on draft and I only saw one person drinking a bottle of it in 4 days.

The markets were great, food perfect, Vinitus ( Carrer del Consell de Cent) no website,  Ciutat Comtal (Ramblas), same menu, so obviously owned by the same team were both stand-outs.

and
El National was both a stunning building and great food, its a very upmarket food court, we would love to try some of the other sections, we ate in the Taperia, great fun

Great long weekend, not cheap, hotel up and down, but really enjoyed  rooftop pool and would definitely stay in Eixample again

Pickled

So,
Lidl were giving seeds away earlier this year, grew a bit of coriander (cilantro), some mixed lettuce and gherkins.  Got some really good gherkins

Chillies are starting as well and tomatoes will be bumper this year.  Pickled the gherkins, following this recipe and got this:

Really like them, will get another couple of gherkins of the plant - but need more kilner jars, especially as the toms will make a lot of sauce, chutney, relish, pickle etc

C and the baby are staying, so focusing on healthy food, doing roast veg, cauliflower cous-cous,  aubergines, peppers etc, not veggie, but lots of veggie, so concentrating on tasty sauces and dips to bring as much flavour as possible

Bread and burgers

Made a seeded brown loaf this morning

Still warm with some vintage cheddar, great breakfast.  Making bread, especially with a good KitchenAid is really rather easy, while it goes stale pretty quick, it is so nice - and I don't really like much bread

Burgers tonight

Simple green salad, potato wedges, made some roast garlic mayo, a bit of tomato chutney my Mam gave me last year / maybe year before for Christmas... still prefect, slice of good beef tomato from JCs, melted supermarket cheese

Some baking and Italian

Between contracts at the moment, but not cooking as much as I thought I might.  Plenty of other stuff to keep me busy.

Have made croissant dough from scratch, split it into four, froze three and used them up over the last month

The jam squares were better when I folded the edges in and I didn't retry the cinnamon ones, too much cinnamon and a bit grainy, but I wasn't really following a recipe....

In the next batch I put chocolate (dark was better than milk) in the croissants - very popular

I also made lovely sausage rolls, picture is rubbish though - we had some sauage meat in the freezer, probably from christmas

I made some bread, great hot, not bad toasted as well.  White below and a brown seed loaf (A had left some mixed seed from Lidl / Aldi when she was last here, sort of thing, as a veggie, she eats)

 As the weather is great, had coffee and apricots out side one day:

I had some friends over last week, started with the last of the croissants, made suppli, porcini raviolo in a butter sauce (with sage flowers), involtini, that I learned from the Italian cookery school, butternut squash risotto with rolled chicken breast in jamon (as proscuitto) stuffed with homemade pesto, will definately make this again, San really liked the leftovers we had the next day.  Followed by the crostana from the cookery school - San though the orange was too much.

As I has some left over aubergine bits from the involtini, when I was on my own I sliced, salted and griddled them, fried off red onion, peeled yellow pepper and garlic, mostly cooked some large pasta, mixed them all together with some green olives, anchovies and a small tomato sauce from the freezer. Tore up some old Cambozola from the back of the fridge on top and baked it, as below:

Really enjoyed it, I think the fact I only had a bit of sauce was a big plus, I would normally of put two or three times as much, but it would have been more about the tomato than the other ingredients, will also try less sauce with the next involtini

This, the rolled chicken breast (beaten with meat hammer between two sheets of cling film, laid on jamon / proscuittio,  with a stuffing a one end, then rolled up and baked) and the involtini will all be done again

 

Terra Madre

Planned on going to Terra Madre for a while, went yesterday, absolutely sublime, just like being in Italy, great olive oil and bread, shared the special mozzarella starter, with anchovies, pesto, sun dried tomatoes, fab cheese.  I had gnocchi with rabbit and wild mushroom ragu, San has special of (small  and the halved) beef ravioli, with plenty of extra bread to mop.  All fantastic, simple, great ingredients, although the rabbit could have been anything.  Couple of glasses of house Red (Nero) and an espresso for me.  Great staff, defo worth a visit.  Steak, salad, jacket potato tonight, chorizo and white beans for tomorrow lunch  - roasting in Dublin :)

little bit more on chapatis

So had the rest of the curry tonight and made more chapatis to make sure they worked - they did!

Don't know why the picture rotated - maybe it's a roti :)

Busy weekend

Went to L'Ecrivain on Thursday as a prelude to long weekend, as always food was great, menu suited me more than San, I loved the charred raw mackeral, she didn't.  Great bottle of "Punto Final" Renacer Malbec.  Pints in D 'n' N before and a pint on way to the bus in Doyle's

It was the son-in-law-ish's last day in Ireland after the baby was born, so he wanted steak and garlic potatoes, salmon for A, did that Good Friday, butternut squash risotto (with pork steak for us, salmon again for her) on Saturday.  Sunday was a great success.  Made curry:

Did a dal, spiced potatoes, butternut squash, spinach and courgette curry, pork, shallot and tomato curry, mushroom / cashew biryani and the winner fab chapati.  (Google spell check thinks chapati should be apathetic - how wrong could they be)

Chapati
My chapatis have always been rubbish, hard, brittle and flat.  So, as I was again making a curry, I did a bit of research and hit here - absolutely perfect chapatis

Soft, fluffy, nicely charred, tasted lovely, like rice, stir fry noodles and pizza dough in the past, that took me ages to get right, I just needed a bit of help and clear simple instructions and now am sooooo happy

Last day of long weekend, will probably just eat the left overs, but have a bit of the risotto (maybe supli) and a bit of steak left, so not sure yet.  Weather shocking, so not going anywhere

Another hiatus

So due to babies and stuff no holidays, lots of long hours at work, so missed a few weekends cooking.  With A at home I get to make a lot more veggie food, did popcorn paneer from http://hebbarskitchen.com, (v good recipes, even though I do love meat), also made fresh paneer, veg risotto, some soups, veg (and meat) curries.  A couple of takeaways, late pregnancy and then  new baby makes A housebound.

Went to Pichet in Dublin, was very good, had a couple of drinks in new bars on Fade St beforehand, have L'Ecrivan next week.  Went to J2 sushi in Swords with friends, lovely:

I got a couple of vouchers for Flavour of Italy cooking school for my birthday, used the first last week doing pizza / calzone / treccia / focaccia really enjoyed it.  Great teacher, informative and funny.  Have booked a Sicilian one in May.

Up early this morning made blaas

 Burgers, veg for A, beef and chorizo for the rest of us today, pizzas tomorrow, steak BH Monday

Will try and keep up with this

Birthday and cooking

Went to the always lovely Rasam in Glasthule and then the Saddle Room in the Shelbourne for a two day birthday:

...and a few doughnuts at work

A is home, so more a of a veggie / fish bent to the cooking

Thali sort of a do, rice paper rolls,butternut squash risotto, veg soups, 

Stephen's Day

Back in work, today 27th, finished going through freezer yesterday, only a couple of pizza chillies, one chilli and one ratatouille, 3 chicken breast and some pork medallions left from before last week.
So, stuff I made over the weekend is all December 2017, ready for the return of San at the weekend.

As expeected Christmas dinner cook by B-I-L was excellent, while I am no fan of Christmas dinner, the Irish version (with turkey and ham, no cranberry, no bread sauce) is infinitely better than the British version. good desserts, obviously took much of everything, slightly sad missing a few people, but not maudlin.

I made roast pork, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy yesterday v good, though gravy a little salty.

As I got new scales and a pasta machine for christmas from the girls, it was ravioli time.  I found a packet of  porcini in the press that I had bought in Sicily in the summer, some pancetta in the freezer.

Soaked the porcini for an hour or so, drained through a sieve to get rid of grit, reserved the liquid.  gently fried the pancetta, added the softened mushrooms, once cooked through, blended with a little cream and reserved liquid and olive oil then chilled.

Made standard pasta from Love Bites chilled, then rolled out, what I didn't used I frozen in sheets.
Softened shallots, reduce a carton of white wine, added rest of reserved liquid, reduced by half, added cream and a good bunch of parsley from the garden, going really well considering the time of year and some diced preserved (sort of) lemon that I made a few weeks ago.  Some pictures below: