The Mind of a Chef

So here's a confession: I watch too much TV. Whenever I'm home alone and need some background noise, I switch on the TV. Whenever I have a block of time where I can potentially pick up a book, I pick up the remote instead. I actually confessed to my sister a few weeks ago that I fear that I'm in danger of becoming an illiterate. I haven't read a book from cover to cover since this year began. And this from someone who used to read a book a month! (By the way I do read a fair bit just not books. I read mostly news articles, op-eds, and blogs. The books I do read, thanks to my son, mostly tend to be about a hippo who has no friends or about a bunch of escaped zoo animals that sneak into the zookeeper's house but, improbably enough, not for the purpose of eating him).

The thing is that when you have a part time job and a two year old, you just don't have that much time or energy to read. When I do have a few hours of free time, normally during that blissful block between when the little one goes down for the night and I pass out on the couch with my glasses on, I prefer to watch something light and short on TV. It's relaxing to sit and let your mind just go blank and also to share that experience with someone else. After all, reading is not exactly a social activity or something you can share with someone unless you're reading aloud or your partner is reading the same book as you and you discuss it with each other afterwards. So, instead, the Professor and I bond by watching TV.

BUT first we have to decide what to watch which gets a little tricky. First of all, it has to be relatively short. Long gone are the days when we can devote 2 solid hours to a movie without falling asleep in the middle of it. Nowadays, we need something that's 30-45 minutes long (and no commercials please!). I also don't want to watch something dark, depressing or deep just before bed so nothing with zombies, serial killers, or zombie serial killers. Then, of course, we have to both be equally interested in whatever we're watching. Tricky indeed.

Recently, we've discovered a show that meets all of our criteria, so I thought I'd share it with you guys. The Professor and I share a love of cooking and learning about food and we're equally fond of chef Anthony Bourdain. I've read one of his books and the Professor and I have seen every episode of No Reservations and his newer show, Parts Unknown. A few weeks ago, I discovered that one of his new endeavors is a show on PBS which features different chefs from around the world and tries to learn a bit about what inspires them and how they come up with new dishes. The show is called, 'The Mind of a Chef' and it's available on Netflix. We've found it both educational and entertaining. The best thing about the show is that it inspires you to get creative and daring in the kitchen which is great if you've been in a cooking rut like I have.

So check it out if you like and then come back and let me know what you thought of it. And if you have a recommendation for something we should add to our Netflix queue, please share!

P.S. I also really enjoyed reading this recent interview with Anthony Bourdain. I'd love to be his dining companion one day!

(Photos of Momofuku, restaurant of chef David Chang who is featured in Season 1)

Scenes from our weekend

As you may know, this past Sunday was Mother's Day in the U.S. (a belated Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!), but you may not know that the week before was Mother's Day here in Spain. We skipped celebrating the Spanish Mother's Day mostly for mundane reasons: the Professor had a basketball game and the little one's nap ran too long. But we actually discovered that Spanish Mother's Day is not that big a deal here anyway. When I asked most of my Spanish friends what they planned to do last weekend on their special day, most of them gave a shrug and said probably nothing. Now, I don't expect a lot on this day either but it's nice to have a little bit of acknowledgement and maybe a nice little surprise. In my case, the surprise was flowers, a framed photo of me and my baby and a finger painting by the little one. What more could I want?

Here are some scenes from our weekend:

For lunch on Sunday, we headed out to Kibuka, a Japanese restaurant in Gracia. The Professor and I are suckers for sushi but I'm also the kind of person who can never resist a steaming bowl of soup. This magical udon dish definitely hit the spot. 

On Saturday, we happened upon a street fair a few blocks away and along with the usual street foods (olives, cheese, beer, an assortment of hams), many Spanish street fairs have some fried fish or seafood. This plate of cuttlefish (called sepia in Spanish) was so tender and tasty not at all like the greasy, rubbery stuff you sometimes get in restaurants.

I've written before about the Catalan tradition of forming human pyramids, called castellers. We've seen them often enough now that it's not that big a deal anymore but I remember the first time we saw one, we were a bit taken aback. It's impressive, sure. But it's also a bit terrifying especially as the highest tiers normally have small children. Sometimes the whole thing starts swaying slightly and you can see the bottom tiers wobbling a bit and it seems like everyone in the crowd is holding their breath. But then the little girl gets to the top, everyone cheers and then she quickly scrambles down. 

At the street fair, we found this vintage foosball table that had players dressed in FC Barcelona kits playing against their longtime rivals, Real Madrid. The Professor would love to own this table especially since Barcelona's had a disappointing season so far and at least in foosball you could get the players to do what you want. 

Finally, a shot of me and my little monkey clowning around. You know what's so sweet? Roman's just learning now how to kiss and how to hug. If you asked him for a kiss before, he would just kind of bring his cheek to your mouth so you could kiss him. But now he purses his lips together and makes a smacking sound on your face which is close enough. And when you ask him for a hug, he'll wrap his arms around you and lay his head inside the crook of your neck.It's the most heart melting thing in the world. I guess he figured out how to do it just in time for Mother's Day. :) 

So that's what we've been up to lately. What about you guys?

P.S. Here's what we did last weekend in case you missed it. 

Sopaipillas (again!)

At this time of year you can probably still find butternut squash at the markets (or at least we can here in Spain), so I thought I'd repost the recipe for sopaipillas that I wrote a few years ago. I also recently realized that this recipe has gotten a ton of repins on pinterest so I suppose that there's quite a few people out there looking for something to do with squash besides the usual butternut squash soup and butternut squash risotto. So here goes! (For more pictures of the cooking process, here's the original post).

You will need:

• 1 butternut squash 
• 1/4 cup of melted butter 
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 6 cups of flour + more for rolling
• vegetable, corn, or canola oil for frying
• confectioner's sugar, cinnamon, or your favorite jam to serve

Instructions:
1.  Peel the butternut squash and chop it into small cubes. Remember that the smaller you chop them, the faster they will cook. 

2.  Put the cubed squash into a pan and add just enough water to cover them.  Cook the squash until you can pierce it easily with a fork. Then drain and allow to cool.
3.  Once the squash has cooled slightly, mash with a potato masher. 

4.  Add melted butter, salt, baking powder and flour.  DO NOT dump all the flour in. Add the flour in cup by cup. If you see that your dough is so wet that you can not roll it, add more flour.  You may need less than six cups, you may need more. Use your judgement.
5.  Once you feel the dough is ready, turn it out onto a flat surface and roll it out into about 1/2 inch thickness. Then use a cup to cut out little discs and pierce the discs a few times with a fork.

6.  Heat the oil on medium high heat. Once the oil is hot CAREFULLY place the discs inside the oil. Have a plate with a paper towel waiting nearby.  When you see the edges of the sopaipilla get a little golden, flip and fry the other side.  Once both sides are golden, place the hot sopaipilla on the paper towel to absorb any excess oil.
7.  While the sopaipillas are on the paper towel, dust them with as much confectioners sugar as you like. It is important to do this right away so that the sugar can stick to them.
8.  Serve with an extra dusting of sugar, cinnamon, or your favorite jam and a cup of coffee.

Enjoy! 

King for a Day

On Sunday, the Spanish celebrated El Dia de los Reyes Magos, or the Day of the Three Kings. For those of you who may not be familiar with this holiday, it is a day that celebrates the three wise men who visited the baby Jesus on January 6th, bringing gifts to honor his birth. In Spain, the three kings, not Santa Claus, bring children presents and these gifts are opened on January 6th not on December 25th. On this day, there are also parades in every neighborhood to greet the three kings.

My favorite part of the Three Kings festivities, however, is the special cake that is eaten on this day, called roscon de reyes. It is actually not so much a cake as it is a sweet and eggy bread formed into a circular shape like a doughnut. The bread is normally filled with cream, chocolate, or some other sugary filling and the top is decorated with crystallized fruit. It is a very tasty treat but that's not why I like it. I like it because hidden in the filling is both a bean and a tiny figurine of a king. When the cake is sliced and served, whoever receives the slice with the bean hidden in it has to pay for the cake and whoever receives the slice with the figurine gets to be king for the day. The cakes even come with a paper crown! This year I got the slice with the bean but I'm looking forward to next year when I will have my sweet revenge.

Feliz año nuevo a todos!

Brunch & Cake

 
 

Normally, I'm the worst person to ask for a restaurant recommendation.  That's because I rarely eat out and when I do, I tend to frequent the same places over and over again instead of exploring somewhere new.  (I also tend to order the same dishes over and over again instead of trying other things on the menu! What can I say? I'm a creature of habit).  But on Sunday, in honor of Father's Day, I decided to take the Professor to a place I'd read about in this awesome guide to Barcelona blog. 

If you ever find yourself in Barcelona and feeling the need to indulge, I strongly recommend you visit Brunch & Cake, an adorable little place in l'Antiga Esquerra de Eixample that not only serves breakfast all day (french toast, pancakes, omelettes), but also salads, soups and sandwiches.  To top it all off, Brunch & Cake serves a variety of delectable desserts provided by their parent restaurant down the street, Cup & Cake.

The Professor and I were absolutely thrilled to discover this place.  If you can believe it,  neither of us have had pancakes since moving to Barcelona and we've never seen either pancakes or french toast on a menu here.  That's because the typical breakfast in Spain is rather small and light and simple--a cafe con leche with a croissant or a cafe con leche and a ham and cheese sandwich.  Nothing fancy and certainly nothing that is savored over for a few hours on a lazy weekend morning.  So this weekend, the Professor and I took a few hours to sit outside on the terrace and savor our yummy and indulgent breakfast.  I even convinced the Professor that we should sample the cupcakes for dessert--all in the name of research for my blog!  I tried the carrot cake cupcake (excellent!) and the Professor had the mojito cupcake (non-alcoholic, minty, lime-flavored deliciousness).  I could go on but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, shall I?

Back!

Sorry for the long absence! I took a bit of a break from blogging last week because my sister came to visit us for a week and then I got sick (which is super fun when you're seven months pregnant and can't take any medication!).  But I'm back now and ready to fill you guys in on everything the Professor and I have been up to.

First of all, while my sister was visiting us last week, we decided to take a mini road trip to the Basque country, a few hours north of Barcelona.  The pictures above are from one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited, San Sebastian.  I'm a sucker for mountains and lush green landscapes and in addition to having these things in spades, San Sebastian also has a very scenic beach with colorful old houses dotting the coast. I wish these pictures did it justice but unfortunately I'm still sporting a point and shoot camera :/.

If you plan to visit San Sebastian, I have a few recommendations for you.  The Monte Urgull is definitely worth a visit.  You have to hike up quite a ways to get to the top but the views of the city from that high up are definitely worth it.  I would advise you to bring a lunch because while there are cafes and bars on the mountain where you can grab a quick snack, the food is not great and is overpriced.  Plus if you bring a lunch, you can have a wonderful picnic on the grass looking out over the city.  I would also definitely visit the  Parte Vieja of the city.  Not only is it worth it to walk down these old streets and pop into different small shops, there is also some really good eating to be done here.

San Sebastian is famous for its pintxos (pronounced pin-chos), which are tiny tapas with a toothpick stuck in the middle.  They can be of anything: meat, fish, seafood, egg dishes, vegetables, etc.  When you walk into a pintxos bar, you will see an assortment of pintxos running the length of the countertop.  There is normally no seating at a pintxos bar so don't expect to be waited on.  To order, go up to the counter, point to a variety of different pintxos that look good to you (if you're big eaters, I would say order 15-20 different ones for a group of 4 people), and the chef will heat them up, dress them up fancy, and you'll pick them up from the counter when they're done.  Once you have your food, order your beer or wine (or in my case fruit juice :)  and make your way to a "table".  I'm using the word table here pretty loosely.  Sometimes, you will find an actual table at bar height with no bar stools.  You're meant to just eat standing up and walk back and forth between your table and the counter to order more things.  Other times, your "table" will be a wine barrel that you'll have to hover over, again not sitting down.  There are two pintxos bars I would recommend in particular: Astelana and La Vina.  At La Vina, definitely order the cheesecake.  It's not American styled cheesecake but it's light, smooth, creamy and not overly sweet.  Plus, you'll see that cheesecake flying out of the oven and onto plates more than any other dish La Vina serves--it's that popular.  Below are some pics of our favorite pintxos at Astelana.

Not too shabby, eh?  :)

Fancy cooking in a teeny kitchen

Hello all! I wasn´t going to check in until later this week when I had some apartment pictures to show you guys, but I saw this adorable video on theKitchn and had to repost it.  The video, a clip from an upcoming TV series, The Little Paris Kitchen on the BBC, shows British chef and Paris resident, Rachel Khoo, cooking a typical French meal in her teeny, tiny kitchen.  Notice that her kitchen has practically no work space, an EZ bake oven sized-oven, and a two-burner stove.

As she mentions in the video, almost all Parisian kitchens look like this and  that´s also true of most kitchens in Barcelona.  I remember when the Professor and I were apartment hunting, I told him that one of my deal breakers was that we couldn´t live in an apartment that had no oven and the stove had to have four burners.   While our current apartment does indeed meet these requirements, the kitchen is still pretty small (you can see a picture of our kitchen here) and we´ve definitely had to make a few adjustments.  For one thing, we don´t have a microwave which I´m sure will shock most of my American readers.  We really don´t miss having it to be honest and even though we have the space for it, I don´t want to sacrifice what little prep space I have.  Also microwaves are bulky and ugly.  Our pantry is also pretty small but we deal with that by just not buying in bulk (as you can imagine there are no Sam´s Club or Costco´s over here) and shopping frequently.  I´m happy to say that our current set-up has not led us to sacrifice in how often we cook or how fancy a dish we make.  As the lovely Rachel says in the video, ¨you do what you have to do to make your kitchen work.¨

For more information on this upcoming series, check out the BBC´s webpage for The Little Paris Kitchen.

Enjoy!

Sweet couscous

First of all, thank you again to everyone who commented on yesterday's post. The Professor and I feel so lucky to be embarking on this newest adventure with such a supportive network of family, friends, and online friends!

Today I wanted to share with you guys a recipe for a dish I thought I invented in a moment when I desperately craved something sweet and carbohydrate-rich which I could make fast and without needing to go to the store.  The result, sweet couscous, was so delicious and ridiculously easy that I thought I had invented the perfect breakfast or mid-day snack. But alas! I found similar recipes for sweet couscous online like this one.

Before getting into the recipe, I must first say that couscous has been a staple in my pantry ever since I discovered it in college.  It's easier to make than pasta or rice and takes much less time to cook.  If you can boil water and have five minutes to spare, you can make couscous.  Prior to "inventing" this dish, I had always used couscous as a side dish, normally tossed with veggies and some kind of bean.  But one day last week, about to make my usual couscous, cucumber and garbanzo bean salad, I had a brainwave.  Why not put a little sugar in the boiling water along with a cinnamon stick? And how about adding raisins and dried apricots?    And just like that, sweet couscous with golden raisins and cinnamon was born!

Recipe (makes two servings)

You will need:
1 cup of plain, unseasoned couscous
1 cup of water
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup raisins, dried fruit or nuts (or all three!)
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup milk (optional)
1 pinch of salt


Directions:
1.  In a small saucepan, bring the water to boil.
2.  Once the water boils, add a pinch of salt, the cinnamon stick and the sugar. Stir to dissolve.
3.  Add the couscous, dried fruit and nuts, and stir.
4.  Remove saucepan from heat.
5.  If you prefer your couscous to be a little creamy, add the milk now.
6. After five to ten minutes, fluff couscous with a fork and remove the cinnamon stick.
7.  Optional:  Sprinkle some extra cinnamon and sugar on top!

As you can see this dish is very easy and remarkably flexible. You can play around with ingredients like adding cardamom pods or cloves along with the cinnamon stick or adding fresh fruit or even heavy cream to the finished product. The possibilities are endless!

Hope you guys enjoy! Buen provecho!

Spanish food 101: Calçots

The title of this post is a little misleading as the tradition of eating calçots is not really Spanish, so much as it is Catalan and, as some of you may know, there is a great difference between the two!  However, for the purposes of this post, I am going to put aside long-standing cultural and political differences and delve right into a description of this very tasty, very fun to eat, Catalan food.   

Calçots are green onions (or scallions) that have been charred over a grill until almost black on the outside.  As  calçots are plentiful during the late winter months, friends and family usually gather together at this time of year to barbecue them as well as a variety of meats (normally chicken, beef and sausages) and spend a few leisurely hours drinking red wine or beer, eating some grilled meats, and devouring countless charred green onions.  This gastronomical event is called the Calçotada.

This past weekend, the Professor and I were invited to a Calçotada by some of his colleagues from the university. Although Calçotadas are typically held outside in the countryside (given that they normally produce a lot of mess and given that open land for grilling is not easy to come by in a metropolis like Barcelona), we decided to cheat a bit and have a restaurant do the grilling for us.

We quickly learned that there is some skill required in eating a calçot.  First, a heaping pile of rather unappetizing looking burned and wilted green onions are served to you in a clay roof tile.  The restaurant also thoughtfully provides you with bibs, gloves, and wet naps.  Each person grabs a handful of calçots and peels the burned outer layer off revealing a white bulb.  You then dip this long bulb into romesco sauce (a sauce made of tomato, garlic, olive oil and nuts) and then tilt your head back and slowly lower the long, dripping, bulb into your mouth.  You can now see the point of wearing a bib, right?

After you've stuffed yourself with these charred green onions, you are normally served a platter of grilled meats, bread with tomato and garlic, a variety of ham and sliced sausages, and plenty of red wine and local beer.  You can easily spend the entire day eating which as a matter of fact, we did!  All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a Sunday.

If you want to see a short video clip of a Calçotada, click on this link to see Anthony Bourdain's experience.

(Top photo: Barcelona Photoblog. All other photos: Kiana @ The Barcelona Story)

Homesickness and food

On Saturday night, the Professor treated us to dinner at the ONLY Persian restaurant in Barcelona.  Before we moved here, knowing what an international city Barcelona is and knowing how many Middle Eastern immigrants have ended up here over the years, I expected to have no problems finding Persian food or ingredients to make Persian food here. Before I left Miami, I even eschewed all of my father's efforts to stuff my luggage with some dried goods "just in case."  Imagine my surprise then when after a month here, I've discovered a gillion Syrian and Lebanese restaurants (sometimes five or six on the same block) and a bunch of small markets run by Pakistanis, Chinese, Korean, and Indian people and NOT A SINGLE PERSIAN PERSON/STORE in sight!

I was starting to get desperate. I missed, or actually CRAVED, the food I grew up with.  I was tired of making pasta dishes, couscous dishes and tortillas.  I wanted some thick stew served over some steaming basmati rice. I wanted some strong, dark and aromatic tea not the Spanish version of Lipton tea bags.  I missed my dad's fresh, thick, homemade yogurt.  I was on the verge of calling one of my sisters or my best friend and asking them to make a run to our local Middle Eastern market in Miami and stocking up on the basics to ship to me. 

Fortunately, I didn't have to wait three weeks for a box of food to arrive at my door. Instead, the Professor took pity on me and prowled the internet looking for a Persian grocery store or a Persian restaurant.  He found a restaurant called, El Rincon Persa (the Persian Corner) read the reviews, mapped out directions on his iPhone and called and made a reservation.   I was initially delighted that he found a restaurant but I was also really nervous about going to eat there. I was worried that it wouldn't be authentic and that the food would suck. That it would be one of those places that called itself "Persian" but then served things like hummus or cheesecake on the menu. Don't get me wrong--I love hummus and I love cheesecake. But neither of these things are Persian.  I guess I was hoping less for a restaurant experience and more of a dining-in-a- Persian-persons'-home experience. 

So on Saturday night, I sucked up my courage and decided to give it a shot.  When we walked into the restaurant, I knew it would be everything I hoped it would be.  We could smell grilled meats, saffron, cardamom and herbs.  The walls were covered with Persian artwork, pottery and miniatures. The music was traditional as well.  We had an amazing dinner of cucumber-yogurt dip with fresh, homemade bread, the Professor ordered grilled, saffron chicken with berry flavored rice, and I had an amazing stew of green herbs, dried limes and beans served over basmati rice (both pictured above). We finished the meal with two cups of steaming, Persian tea.

It's weird how homesickness works.  How something as simple as food (or in our case the lack of it) can make you want nothing more than to buy a plane ticket home.  How putting a spoonful of food into your mouth can evoke such memories and pleasures.  I felt this way on Saturday night and so did the Professor who is not Persian and did not grow up eating anything resembling Persian food.  I can't explain how overcome with love I was to see my Cuban/Ecuadorean husband put the first forkful of food in his mouth on Saturday night, close his eyes, and smile.  After all, we've known each other for eight years now and he's been eating this food for just as long.  We were so giddy with happiness that night.

To top off our evening, we were delighted to discover that in addition to a restaurant, El Rincon Persa also sells a variety of imported Persian ingredients.  I stocked up on a box of Persian tea, dried limes, dried herbs, rock candy, sour fruit roll ups, and rice.  I had to restrain myself (okay actually the Professor had to restrain me) from buying more. Below is a picture of all the things I bought (minus one sour fruit roll up which I ate on the metro on the way home from dinner. I swear I'm addicted to those things!)

Have you ever felt this way about the food you grew up with? What was it? What did you miss and where were you that you couldn't get it? 

Spanish food 101: Enxaimades

For this week's lesson on Spanish food, I thought I'd share something that has become a personal favorite since arriving here.  These delicious, yeasty rolls are called, enxaimades (pronounced en-shy-mad-as) and are actually from Majorca originally but you can find them in different sizes and different varieties in any bakery you visit (at least in Barcelona).  Enxaimades have very few ingredients: water, eggs, sugar, yeast, flour and  butter (or lard) and even though these are ingredients that everybody has in their pantries most of the time, I wouldn't really advise you to try baking these at home unless you have a lot of time and are an accomplished baker.  However, if you really want to give it a go, here is a good recipe (it's in Spanish, sorry!).

Apart from their varying sizes, enxaimades are normally sold either plain or stuffed.  I've seen enxaimades stuffed with cream, chocolate, apple puree, or cabello de angel.  Cabello de angel is not what you're thinking.  It doesn't refer to the angel hair pasta that most of us would think of when we hear this term. Cabello de angel is instead made of sugar and fruit pulp and the name comes from the golden color of the finished product.

Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I think the plain version is best. It is dense and eggy and not too sweet so I can still get away with calling it breakfast :)  For those of you in the United States who are perhaps salivating on your keyboard, I have good news.  Starbucks sells a version of this treat that they call, "Mallorca sweet bread."  It's not quite the same thing, just like getting a croissant from Starbucks is not the same as getting a croissant from a proper boulangerie in France, but we make do with what we can, no?

Enjoy!

P.S. If you missed last week's Spanish food 101, you can find it here.

(Photo: Madrid tiene miga)

Spanish food 101: Patatas bravas

Hello all! I've decided to do something hitherto never done on The Barcelona Story: attempt to write a post about a specific subject on a semi-consistent basis.  Most blogs I read are ever so organized about their blogging, devoting Monday to one topic, Tuesday to another, etc.  I, on the other hand,  prefer to ramble on and on about whatever thoughts I happen to be thinking at a particular moment.  Now, I can't promise you that I'll actually stick with this given that I'm a very spontaneous (and rather flaky) person, but I'll do my best!

Our new semi-consistent blog topic will revolve around Spanish food.  Since we arrived three weeks ago, we've been eating out most days of the week. This is not due to slack on our part! Mostly it's just because we didn't have electricity for a long time and we didn't want to resort to cooking over tealight candles (with one hilarious exception that I'll get to in another post!).  Because we've been eating out so much, we feel we've got a pretty good handle on some basic Spanish bar, cafe and restaurant foods so I thought I'd share a bit about these foods for your viewing pleasure.

In the photo above is one of the most ubiquitous Spanish foods, patatas bravas.  This translates loosely as "spicy, fried potatoes" and that's pretty much what it is.  The potatoes are normally cut into wedges or into these little cubes that look a bit like hash browns.  What makes them special is the sauce. They are normally served with a garlicky mayonnaise sauce (that's just the European thing--mayonnaise on french fries) or a spicy, red sauce or both.  I've seen them served with both sauces on the side, or both sauces zig-zagged across the plate, or both sauces whipped together to create a pale orange sauce that is then smothered over the potatoes (like in the photo above).  When done correctly, patatas bravas are a delicious appetizer.  When done incorrectly, they're basically sub-par french fries.  We've had them both ways :)  I would tell you where to get them but honestly you won't have any trouble finding them next time you come to Spain.  And, by the way, when will that be? :)

(Photo: The Road Forks)  

Arroz con leche

It occurred to me this morning that I haven't posted a recipe in a while.  How very remiss of me!  I've decided to make it up to you guys by posting one of my favorite (and one of the easiest!) recipes ever. If you're not familiar with Spanish, arroz con leche translates to rice pudding (or literally rice with milk).  One of things I love about rice pudding, apart from the fact that it's so delicious AND low-maintenance, is that the dish is universal.  Every culture has some variation of this dish.  In Iran, they make this dish with saffron, rose water, and cardamom.  I've seen American versions made with raisins and rum. My sister does a Thai version of this dish with papaya chunks, ginger and peanuts. This means that you can play around with the ingredients a little and feel free to dress it up as suits your taste!

Here is the recipe for the Latin version of this dish, adapted from Ingrid Hoffman.

You will need:
1 cup of white rice (I like jasmine rice because of the flavor and aroma).
3 whole cinnamon sticks
3-4 whole cloves
4 cups of water
3 cups of whole milk
1 can of 14 oz sweetened, condensed milk
1 egg beaten
1 vanilla bean (split the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds. Keep the pod!)

Directions:
1. Wash the rice three of four times until water runs clear.
2.  In a medium sauce pan, put the cleaned rice in four cups of water.  Add your aromatics: the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and vanilla pod (Note:  You will use the vanilla seeds that you scraped out later in the recipe. For now, just add the empty vanilla pod for aroma and flavor).
3.  Let water, rice, and aromatics soak for 1 hour.
4.  After an hour, bring the water to boil on medium-high heat, uncovered. When it boils, lower the heat to medium and let it cook until the water has mostly evaporated.
5.  Add the milk, condensed milk and the beaten egg.
6.  At this point, add in the vanilla bean seeds.
7. Stir until mixture thickens, around 20 minutes.
8.  Fish out the cinnamon sticks, vanilla bean pod, and cloves.
9.  Remove from heat and transfer to serving bowl.*

* I like to serve arroz con leche in individual glass cups. This way, everyone can add extra cinnamon as they wish and you can dress it up with a cinnamon stick for decoration as I did in the photo above.

Happy cooking! Hope you enjoy!

Inspired by candy....

You've heard me say before that while I am a total chocoholic, I'm really just not that into candy, even chocolate candy.  There could be a huge bowl of candy right in front of me and I would not feel the slightest bit tempted to reach in and purloin a few.   Now if there were a plate of chocolate cookies or chocolate muffins or chocolate cupcakes in front of me, you might have to restrain me just a little.

So how do you get a non-candy lover into the Halloween spirit?  Easy! Just sneak some candy into a beautiful looking dessert!  Here is my roundup of the yummiest (and prettiest) Halloween candy desserts on the web.  Hope you enjoy! (And don't drool on the keyboard please!)

Candy Corn Whoopie Pies:

Reese's Peanut Butter Cupcakes:

Bloody Hershey's Kisses Cookies:

Halloween Candy Bark (a la Jackson Pollock, perhaps?):

Have an indulgent weekend!

Buen fin de semana!

(Photos: Candy Corn, Reese's, Hershey's, Bark)

Calling all chocolate lovers

It's my birthday this weekend and I'm super excited. Not about the gifts so much. Or the singing. More about the fact that I get to spend the whole day with my family and friends.  Before the Professor and I moved to Miami in August, we'd lived far away from home for six years and only saw my family on the holidays. When we move to Spain, it'll be increasingly unlikely that we can travel back to Miami every first weekend of October to celebrate my birthday with our loved ones. That's why this weekend is so extra special to me. 

So, what's on the agenda? Not much actually. I think we'll just do a quiet dinner and then cake and presents.  In my family, we have a little tradition where we always celebrate birthdays by eating the favorite dessert of whoever's birthday it is.   Everyone in my family has a different favorite dessert and sometimes it's not even a cake. For instance, my dad loves key lime pie and my sister loves tiramisu (in case you couldn't tell, my favorite dessert is anything involving chocolate).  I never realized that this practice was specific to my family until I met my husband.  His family buys the same white cake from the same Cuban bakery no matter whose birthday it is or what kind of cake they like. Weird, eh?  I also know people who always make birthday cakes for their loved ones from scratch.  In my family, birthday treats were always store-bought, perhaps because neither of my parents were much in the baking department. I personally think this last tradition is super sweet and I'd want to do this for my future children. 

What about you guys? Any special birthday traditions? And what are your favorite birthday treats?

(Photos: I am Baker, Call Me Cupcake)

Sopaipillas: Chilean for delicious!

Upon seeing this image you may be asking yourself a few questions:  What is that? How do you pronounce it? And where can I get it? Here are your answers in the same order. These clouds of deliciousness are Chilean styled sopaipillas which are kind of like fried doughnuts made from squash or pumpkin (this may sound odd, but trust me the combination is genius!). It is pronounced so-pie-pee-as.  And you can get them from your own kitchen, if you follow my recipe below.

I made these yesterday in honor of Chilean Independence Day which is this Sunday, September 18th.  Sopaipillas are a pretty traditional Chilean dish normally prepared on cold or rainy days and certainly whenever pumpkins are in season (so a perfect fall dish in other words).  Before you make this recipe, be forewarned: sopaipillas are not figure friendly.  Do not try to convince  yourself that because there's a vegetable in it, that these are in some way good for you.  Furthermore, you will be tempted to eat around 30 of these before they make it to the table.

On to the recipe!

You will need:

• 1 butternut squash (in Chile they use a squash called zapallo but that's pretty hard to find in the U.S. You can also use pumpkin for this but NOT the pumpkin that comes in a can!)
• 1/4 cup of melted butter 
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 6 cups of flour + more for rolling
• vegetable, corn, or canola oil for frying
• confectioner's sugar, cinnamon, or your favorite jam to serve

Instructions:
1.  Peel the butternut squash and chop it into small cubes. Remember that the smaller you chop them, the faster they will cook. Your squash should look like this:

 

2.  Put the cubed squash into a pan and add just enough water to cover them.  Cook the squash until you can pierce it easily with a fork.
3.  Drain the cooked squash in a colander and allow it to cool for a few minutes.
4.  In the meantime, melt the butter and set aside.
5.  Once the squash has cooled slightly, mash with a potato masher. It will look like this:

6.  Add melted butter, salt, baking powder and flour.  DO NOT dump all the flour in. Add the flour in cup by cup. If you see that your dough is so wet that you can not roll it, add more flour.  You may need less than six cups, you may need more. Use your judgement.
7.  Once you feel the dough is ready, turn it out onto a flat surface and roll it out into about 1/2 inch thickness.
8.  Once the dough is rolled out, use a cup to cut out little discs and pierce the discs a few times with a fork.  It will look like this:

9.  Heat the vegetable, corn, or canola oil on medium high heat. Once the oil is hot CAREFULLY place the discs inside the oil. Don't crowd the pan. If there are too many, not only will they stick to each other, but the temperature of the oil will drop and your sopaipillas will just end up soaking up more oil.  Have a plate with a paper towel waiting nearby.  These babies fry really quickly.  When you see the edges of the sopaipilla get a little golden, flip and fry the other side.  Once both sides are golden yellow, place the hot sopaipilla on the paper towel to absorb any excess oil.
10.  While the sopaipillas are on the paper towel, dust them with as much confectioners sugar as you like. It is important to do this right away so that the sugar can stick to them.
11.  Serve with an extra dusting of sugar, cinnamon, or your favorite jam and a cup of coffee.

Buen provecho y feliz dia de independencia!

(Photos: Kiana @ The Barcelona Story)

It's not too late to read!

Summer is over.  Most people are pretty bummed about this, but I am thrilled.  Summer in Miami is like whipped cream on a doughnut---overkill!  I am looking forward to the shorter days and longer nights and temperatures in the high 80s as opposed to the high 90s.  

The one thing that I will miss about the summer is that suddenly you’re not encouraged to read lighthearted books anymore.  From May through August, every magazine, radio show, and blog is inundating you with a list of great summer reading---usually books about romance, travel, food, or anything else not expected to make you think deeply or furrow your brow while you sip a Mojito and roast yourself under a plastic umbrella at the beach.

But I say, let’s not deprive ourselves of cheap thrills, useless knowledge and belly laughs over the fall and winter.  Towards that end, here is my recommendation for a great read any day of the year.  I recently finished the book, Lunch in Paris: a Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard.  As the title would suggest, this book is primarily a memoir of an American who moved to Paris where she fell in love, got married, had a child, and did a lot of eating.  At the end of every chapter, she provides a recipe for a dish that in some way relates to the contents of the chapter.  The book is very much an exploration of the differences between French and American culture and what happens when these two worlds collide but the moral of the story is that despite our differences, love conquers all. Especially when there’s a soufflé involved.

Anyway, if you’re interested, check out the book at your local Anthropologie or Amazon.  Hmm. I was going to end this post with the word, “Enjoy!” but under the circumstances I think that “Bon appétit” might be more appropriate. N’est-ce pas?

You do the math

It’s a good thing this blog is semi-anonymous because I’m about to reveal to you one of my biggest sources of embarrassment.   Are you leaning closer?  Okay, here it is:  I suck at math.  Majorly.  It normally takes me around a good ten minutes to calculate a 15% tip at a restaurant, I normally guess wrong when I try to calculate how much I would pay for a blouse that is 25% off, and if a train leaves Miami at 3pm traveling at 60 miles an hour, I have no idea how long it would take to get to Atlanta.

Why does the fact that I suck at math matter?  After all, as we asked our teachers in grade school, when will I really use this stuff? Well apparently you need to use it if you’re moving to a continent where everything from what time it is to how far away something is to what size pants you wear requires math to figure out!

 I don’t want to be another dumb American who complains about the metric system, but I’m about to do just that.  In case you didn’t know, Americans have a different way of measuring everything compared to every other industrialized country in the world.  Outside the U.S., if you ask someone how tall they are, they would answer you in centimeters.   If you ask someone how far away they live, they would answer you in kilometers.   If you asked someone how much three potatoes weigh, they would answer you in kilograms.  The math comes into the equation when you try to convert measurements from the U.S. customary system into the metric system.  So to say that you live 20 miles away from something, you would need to remember that 1 mile= 1. 609 kilometers so 20 miles would be…..(long pause) 32.18 kilometers  (Okay, so I used an online calculator for that one.  Big deal!)

Lately, the Professor and I have been trying to make friends with the metric system as well as the international standard notation of time and degrees Celsius.   Our efforts thus far have been rather fruitless.  Take these conversations as an example:

Me: What time is it?

Professor:  It is (checks iPhone) 21:15.

Me:  (Pause.  Subtract 12 from 21)…..So….9:15, right?

                                      

Professor:  Is it hot out today?

Me:  Um… according to my computer, it is currently 30 degrees Celsius.

Professor:  So….is it hot out today?

Me: I don’t know. Go outside and check.

I recently became aware of exactly how difficult it is for me to convert to the metric system when I discovered and fell in love with an Australian culinary magazine eponymously called Donna Hay.  Unfortunately, the lovely Donna lists all of her ingredients in the metric system.  So to make the dessert in the photo above, you need 75 grams of white sugar, 250 grams of mascarpone cheese, 250 grams of strawberries, 120 grams of raspberries, and 80 milliliters of water. (Complete recipe here). 

So what should you do if you find yourself in need of converting measurements?  Well if you’re like me, you try to convince your husband that you need a proper kitchen scale like this one.  Even though my über modern husband would prefer one like this (which in my opinion has all the charm of a medical examining table).  A cheaper option would be to invest in this dishtowel cheat sheet that I found. Cute, eh?  If all else fails,  I guess you need to take your computer with you to the kitchen and just hope you don’t get flour on it (lest the hubby throw a hissy fit).   Wish me luck!

(Photos: Donna Hay Magazine)

From Spain with Love

Last week while watching TV at a friend’s house, I found another reason to curse myself for cancelling my DirecTV.  Now on the Cooking Channel you can find a wonderful show called, “From Spain with Love,” which seems to be less of an instructional cooking show and more of a culinary tour around the country.  Check it out (click here) and then come report back! Love it? Hate it? Or just meh about it?

Buen fin de semana!

(Photo: Cooking Channel)

You CAN take it with you....or you can try anyway

It's the first week of August and our belongings are neatly packed in boxes awaiting further instructions.  As our visa application drags on, the Professor and I have begun researching how to get our belongings from Point A to Point B(arcelona).  As I mentioned in a previous post, we're planning on shipping our stuff over by boat but we haven't decided which shipping company we will use as of yet (if you guys have any suggestions, I'm all ears).  

Even though almost all of our things are already packed, there are a few things which carry much too much sentimental value to be bubble-wrapped and squeezed into a box alongside our gravy boat.  I have decided that my tea pot and photo albums are so precious that they must travel with us in our suitcases (preferably our carry on) because I just can't trust some shippers (is that what they call themselves?) to treat them with the care they deserve.  

I'm sure you guys understand why the photo albums are sentimental, but the tea pot? Seriously? YES! I am serious about my tea. I'm half Persian and Persian tea runs in my veins. I easily drink about ten cups a day (the cups are pretty teeny, but still).  Nothing makes me feel more at home then sipping a warm, aromatic cup of tea.  For that reason, I know that when we get to Barcelona and we're in our new apartment looking at blank walls and boxes of unpacked stuff, I will be needing that cup of tea. 

For those of you who have never experienced the delight of Persian tea, just stop by our apartment (address forthcoming). Or in the meantime, make a cup yourselves.

You will need:

1)  A tea pot

2)  A tea kettle (electric or stove-top)

3)  Loose leaf tea. Two parts Darjeeling, one part Earl Grey (no tea bags please!)

4)  A few cardamom pods 

Instructions:

1)  Bring a full pot of water to boil in your electric or stove-top tea kettle.

2)  Spoon 2 teaspoons of Darjeeling and 1 teaspoon of Earl Grey tea into your tea pot.

3)  Crack your cardamom pods and place into your tea pot.

4)  When the water has boiled, pour the water over the tea in your tea pot.

5)  If using a stove-top tea kettle, place your tea pot on top of the kettle to steep the tea, like so.  If you are not using a stove-top kettle, you may place your tea pot on a samovar (which is the traditional way), on a hot plate, or on a stove burner set to warm (you don't want to burn the tea!)

6)  After five minutes or so of brewing, pour the tea into a small, clear, glass cup.  It is very important that the glass be transparent so you can judge the strength of the tea by its color. Good Persian tea is an amber color. 

7) Fill the glass cup half way with tea from the tea pot, then fill up the remainder of the cup with hot water from your tea kettle. 

8)  Enjoy with a cube of sugar.

So there you have it! My cure for homesickness!  What's yours?  What symbol of home would you take with you?

(Photos: Kiana @ The Barcelona Story)