Toasted Noodles with Cauliflower, Clams and Mushrooms

This is what we call a "rossejat de fideus" in Catalonia, where fideus are noodles and rossejat means to golden/toast.

I'm following some of the recipe steps to make a "rossejat" but the final dish will be different. Maybe when spring is here I can show you how a real Rossejat is cooked.
So, let's put our apron on and see if this time I can get a new one as a prize ;D... do you follow me? Nope? As easy as this... I will win an apron if I get the first place in the Royal Joust.

Do you think this dish is a winner? Then go to the LeftoverQueen Forum and vote for me :D. I'll be really happy to get that apron :D. Participating is fun! Come and join the Foodie blogroll and the Joust :D

And now let's start cooking!

Ingredients for 4 servings: 300 grs of noodles (the thinnest possible Nº 0 is what I used), 1/2 liter of vegetable stock, 4 garlic cloves, 400 grs of fresh big clams, 400 grs of cauliflower, 200 grs of dried mushrooms, olive oil, salt, black ground pepper and parsley.

• Pour 5 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauce pan and add 2 chopped garlic cloves, when fragrant add the clams (previously cleaned under tap water) and cover with the lid. Turn heat down to low and wait until clams open. When they do so add the chopped parsley and stir for 1 minute. Add some salt and black ground pepper. Reserve the clams.
• Have the mushrooms in hot water for 1/2 hour until they rehydrate. Strain and dry.
• In the same sauce pan saute the cauliflower and the mushrooms until the cauliflower is al dente. Reserve.
• Heat the vegetable stock so that we have it boiling when we need it.
• Get a paella or a stainless steel pan and pour 4 olive oil tablespoons. Peel and smash 2 garlic cloves with your fist and throw them in. Shake the paella and let the oil aromatize, when the garlic becomes golden discard.
• Now, at medium heat, throw the noodles in and stir with a wooden spoon until they get completely toasted. When they achieve this toasted golden colour quickly add what you had reserved (clams, cauliflower and mushrooms) and the boiling stock to cover the noodles. Add some salt and pepper to fit your taste. Sprinkle with some chopped fresh parsley.
• These thin noodles will be cooked in no time (follow your package instructions) maybe 4 to 5 minutes is enough. You shouldn't stir them while they get cooked. The dish will be done when they have absorbed all the stock. Enjoy!

You can use fresh mushrooms if you wish. Also if you do your own vegetable stock the dish will improve!

Are you crazy about clams or noodles? See what I recommend you here under :D
Beans and Clams... perfect for these cold days.
Noodles paella with Duck... have I heard it's Duck season?
Broccoli's hot and spicy soup... let's change the cauliflower for a broccoli here!

Cargols & Conill i Romesco - Snails & Rabbit and Romesco sauce

In my house, a casserole dish always means healthy and comfort food. It also means slow cooking food, steamy windows, and the thing I like the most: Mom, is there anything left in the casserole? The answer should always be... Yes darling, go help yourself :D
Why is this a healthy and family favourite dish?

Here you have some of the main reasons: First, we love rabbit and snails (it's a catalan tradition to have both together in the same dish). Second, rabbit is one of the most healthy meats... it's white, non greasy, and very tasty (great for diets). Third, romesco is such a wonderful sauce... think about the ingredients: garlic, tomatoes, ñoras, hazelnuts and almonds, olive oil... what on earth could be healthier than that combo?
Why am I giving you all these health tips? Well, I'm sending the dish over to Meeta from What's for lunch honey? and her Monthly Mingle. Many dishes came to my mind for her Healthy Family meals, but Snails & Rabbit and Romesco Sauce won the first place!!! So, here you have it Meeta :D. The hostess for this month's event is Michelle from What's Cooking Blog.

Wouldn't you lick these snails and suck all the sauce in them? Well, we do! Wouldn't you use your bread to clean the plate? Well, we do! Wouldn't you use your fingers to eat the rabbit and snails and leave the plate with just the bones and shells, as if Tim Burton would use it for a new movie? Well... we do!!!
Really, you don't know how good is this dish if you don't try it!!! Just buy the Rioja wine, light some candles and get your beloved in front of you, open the bottle and have it for Valentines day... help the world population grow bigger :D :D :D.
Ingredients for 4 servings: 8 rabbit pieces + the liver, 1 kilo of fresh snails, 2 medium onions, 4 garlic cloves, 4 tablespoons of romesco sauce (home made is my choice), 1 guindilla (small red chili pepper), flour, salt, black ground pepper, 2 glass water and olive oil.

To cook the snails you will need: patience, some branches of thyme, half a garlic head, water and salt.

Buy the snails alive. Have them fasting for at least a week. Clean them throughout one by one and rubbing the shells under tap water. Put in a strainer and rinse them under water for several times. Have them in cold water and those that don't come out of the shell put in a recipient with hot water. Those not coming out of the shells should be discarded.

Prepare a deep big pot with cold water, the thyme and the garlic. Put the snails inside, cover with the lid and have at low heat. When the snails feel the heat will come out of their shells (this is the way to cheat them and have the bodies out of the shells to eat them easily). Once they are dead and the water starts boiling, take the foam away and add some salt. Boil for 20 minutes, strain and reserve.

Start the dish:

• Get some olive oil in a big casserole, while it heats up, clean the rabbit, dry, add salt and pepper over it and coat in flour. Fry in the casserole's hot oil. Just at medium heat. Reserve when golden.
• If the oil didn't get too dirty from the flour, add the two chopped onions and stir at low medium heat until they get some colour, then add the chopped garlic. Stir until fragrant add the chili and finally the snails. Stir at low heat for 10 minutes. If the oil was full of burnt flour, strain it and add some new one to start with the ingredients.
• Get the rabbit back to the casserole and pour the 2 glasses of water over it. Shake the casserole and simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes.
• Use the rabbit's liver now. Chop it and add to the casserole, stir and shake for a while until the liver is cooked. Cover with the lid for another 10 or 15 minutes. Stir now and then.
• Add the romesco sauce and shake the casserole so that all ingredients mix. Have at low heat for another 5 minutes.
• This dish is better the day after or if you cook it in the morning will be perfect for dinner. Enjoy!

Do you love Rabbit and Snails? Want more recipes?

Rabbit and Noodles casserole
Snails done in Garlic and Mint
Rice with Snails and Veggies

Pork Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Saturday AM
Today the wind is so strong here that the park in front of the house looks desolate, 3 trees have been uprooted, some leaves, papers and bird's nests furiously fly in the air.

I should get dressed and go for the bread and newspaper but I'm a bit scared... should I fill my pockets with stones? What if the wind blows me away as a dishevelled Mary Poppins?

A strong wind is one of the meteorological phenomena that scares me the most! I feel like anything could beat me any time! Oh, I got it! Maybe I should go for the newspaper with my ridding helmet on :D.
The blinds beating against our windows woke me up and I couldn't go back to sleep... I hate waking up early on a Saturday morning!!!

The view of the park in front of my kitchen window. Two trees have been beaten down to the floor. The whole park has had 9 uprooted trees and some more have many branches broken.


So, to get in a good mood, here I am blogging about my Cabbage rolls, simple, easy and delicious daily cooking :D. I'm sending this over to Simona from Briciole and her Fresh Product of the Month: Cavolo - Cabbage, if you want to participate too, you are still on time! Go and check :D.

Ingredients for 4 servings: 1 cabbage, 1 big onion, minced pork meat (250 grams), 1 teaspoon of sweet ground paprika, 1 tablespoon of sugar, olive oil, salt and black ground pepper. Optional: some slices of Butifarra negra, or slices of baked potatoes and a sauce to fit your taste.

• Separate and clean the outer cabbage leaves. Prepare a big pot with boiling salty water and drop the leaves in for only 1 minute. Refresh in a bowl with water and ice cubs. Drain and reserve.
• Clean and cut the rest of the cabbage (1 cm. dices) and boil in salty water for 10 minutes aprox. Drain and reserve.
• Chop the onion and fry in a sauce pan with some olive oil at medium heat until it gets a bit golden, then add the minced meat. Stir and fry until the meat gets golden and ad the cabbage. Stir a bit more, add some salt, black ground pepper, paprika and sugar. Stir and Reserve out of the heat.
• Preheat oven at 180 ºC.
• Lay the cabbage big leaves on a clean surface and fill with 2 spoon table of the meat mixture. Roll them and place in an oven recipient (previously rubbed with some olive oil). Pour some olive oil over the rolls and place in the oven for 10 minutes.
• Present the rolls over some baked potatoes or some butifarra negra. Also you can make a sauce and pour some over.

Saturday PM

My brother and sister, whom live in a village surrounded by forests called me from their cellulars phones... the electric fluid is non existing, trees have fallen over the houses, the roads are cut, fix phones don't work, 2 men died when trying to lift and carry away from the road a fallen tree; they didn't notice another tree falling over them. One of them was a friend of my sister.

In another village nearby, 4 kids died when the ceiling and walls of the sport hall fell apart.

This was never seen here! Not only Catalonia has been affected, the north of Spain has had 14 meters high waves. The emergency help is collapsed. We are all in shock!

You can see what happened at Lavanguardia.es

A glamorous Classic: Fried egg & Chips... with Foie and Truffle!

Does this dish need a description? Wouldn't you just run for the bread? Is there any other dish as popular as Fried eggs with chips? I bet every country in the world has its version.

Raise your hand if you don't like fried egg with chips... exactly what I thought: everybody loves it! But this time, surprise your Buddie, husband, dear, cuchi, cari, honey, babe and add some glamour to the basics! Some foie and truffle will surely be a surprise here.

Want to give your affected Valentines dishes a twist? Have this breakfast ready for her/him and think what will come after... you need to burn the calories ;D.

My sister in law grows her own veggies and has her own hens and, last time she visited was so nice to bring us some eggs... see that bright orange yolk? That shows the corn hens eat :D. I'm sending my glam eggs to Grow Your Own, Andrea's Recipes Event, which calls for home made/grown products. When it's this cold, hens don't lay as many eggs as usual... so, thank you Tati for sharing them with us!

Ingredients for 4 servings: 4 eggs, 3 medium onions, 3 medium potatoes, 4 slices of foie (raw goose liver), 1 truffle, olive oil and thick sea salt.

1. Peel and cut the onion in fine strips. Caramelize in some olive oil at low heat. When it achieves a brown dark colour put in a strainer to remove the excess of oil. Reserve.


2. Peel the potatoes and use a mandolin to get the thinner possible. Fry in olive oil 0,4º. First 5 minutes the heat should be high, then low down to medium and when they get golden and crispy place over kitchen paper to leave there the excess of oil. Reserve.


3. Preheat oven at 150 ºC.


4. Fry the eggs and reserve.


5. Heat a sauce pan and when it becomes real hot add the foie slices. Just some seconds each side. Reserve.


6. Present the dishes: Prepare a bed with the potatoes, pour some salt over them, place some of the caramelized onion, the foie with some thick sea salt on top and the fried egg with some more sea salt. Place in the oven to heat it up a bit and just before serving grate the truffle over it.
   

Enjoy it!!!

Want to try other egg dishes?

Spanish Omelet
Fried Quail egg on Sobrassada toast
Spanish Deviled eggs

Red Peppers Babel's Tower

I extraneously got some inspiration from the Genesis... You all know, I'm not a religious person... but, I have read about the Babel Tower.

So, when Jai and Bee from Jugalbandi announced the new Click event for this month: RED, I immediately pictured this Red Peppers Babel Tower in my mind.

According to the biblical account, a united humanity, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, took part in the building after the Great Flood; Babel was also called the "beginning" of Nimrod's kingdom. The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens."(וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם) However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to the glory of man, with a motive of making a 'name' for the builders: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:4). God, seeing what the people were doing, confounded their languages and scattered the people throughout the earth. (Wikipedia source)

This Babel Pepper tower is dedicated to the glory of Red Peppers: a good source of selenium and vitamin C, E, and pro vitamin A. Peppers are antioxidant and beneficial to the body, the perfect ingredient in a low calorie diet, diuretic, digestive, depurative... All these peppers come from a different background and their characteristics are unique and different, but somehow they managed to understand each other and build the tower!

I wanted to go to La Boqueria and get Peppers from all over the world, but I couldn't make it last week, and these are all from the grocer's shop and the Friday's farmers market:
Still missing some Pimientos del Piquillo from Lodosa and Jalapeños from Xalapa and... you can add your own here :D
I simply grilled the fresh ones (20 to 30 minutes in the oven's grill at high temp.). Boiled some rice in salty water and drained. Heated 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and added one guindilla, after aromatizing the oil, added some cooked chickpeas and the drained rice. Stirred a bit and turned the heat off. Presented in a small bowl and added some peeled stripes of grilled red pepper. Seasoned with some extra virgin olive oil and salt.

I'm sending the previous picture to Click's Event! Come join... It's fun!!!!
And meanwhile, grab your fork and eat!

More recipes with peppers:
Escalivada and fresh anchovy
Stuffed Piquillo peppers
Stuffed Red peppers

Lobsters Kitchen Outing and 3 Sauces.

Sometimes things are not as they seem!!!

Tartare Sauce:
Ingredients for 4 servings:
250 grs. mayonnaise sauce, 25 grams. capers, 50 grams. of small pickled gherkins, 1 branch of parsley, 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Drain well and finely chop the capers and pickles.
Place mayonnaise in a bowl and add the capers and pickles, mix everything well, add chopped parsley and return to very mixed. Cover and leave the container in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Béarnaise sauce:
Ingredients for 4 servings:
500 grs of butter, 4 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped tarragon and salt.
Melt the butter in a pot and let cool down. Carefully lay the pot and pour the melted part in a bowl. Discard the butter foam.
In a new bowl, placed in a pot with hot water (baño maria) whip the egg yolks with the vinegar and the tarragon herbs.
Slowly add the butter while stirring the mixture (still in baño maria - waters' temperature should be between 60 and 70ºC).
When the sauce has emulsionated, add salt to your taste. Use the sauce on top of half lobster and gratin in the oven.

Mustard vinaigrette:
Ingredients for 4 servings:
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard (or similar), 50 cl of cider vinegar, 150 cl of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and white ground pepper.
In a small glass jar, pour the mustard, vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Cover the jar with a lid/cover and shake until all ingredients present and homogeneous look. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Pepe, Manolo and Juanito had a 8 to 10 minutes bath at the silvered jacuzzi ;D. The water was aromatized with 2 bay leaves, a small bunch of black round pepper and some salt. They were delicious... thank you guys!

My Recipe contribution to BloggerAid CookBook: Eggplant Mousse with Butifarra negra

My friends Val, Ivy and Giz at BloggerAid are such fantastic and generous people! They are assembling a Cookbook to help ease the world's hunger!!!!

In Ivy's words: we will be publishing a cookbook with 100% of the profit from sales being directed to our chosen agency. The funds we raise will be directed to specific programs of The World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations frontline agency. The needs are great and choosing a specific effort is currently being negotiated.

Who will contribute to this cookbook?
YOU!!!!

The cookbook is targeted for sale on Amazon by November/December 2009. There is a great deal of work involved in delivering this project and we will rely on you to help in any way you can. We will keep you informed every step of the way on Bloggeraid !!!!

I want to collaborate!!! Do you want to join too? Head to Ivy's blog for more info.

I chose an appetizer with basic ingredients and easy recipe instructions. This is one of the dishes I had in my table during the Christmas holidays and it was an absolute hit!!!! I cannot publish the recipe here because it can only be shown in the Cookbook, but I will tell you that it has eggplant, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, salt and butifarra negra... Mmmmm. Remember to buy the book next Nov/Dec 2009 and get all kinds of gorgeous recipes!!! I'm getting mine reserved ;D

All ingredients can be found all over the world except the Butifarra negra that is a traditional Catalan pork blood sausage, but you can substitute it for something similar typical from your country.

I hope that the Cookbook will be a great success and we will contribute in making this world a better place to live :D
On a separate note, I'm trying to make my blog look nicer, but will take me some days to get things right... please, be patient... it will hopefully be for good! Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva! New Year, New Life!

I have not been abducted by an alien ship!

Finally I can get my hands on my favourite keyboard!!!! And play my favourite blogging music!!!! These are some of the dishes you will soon see in Spanish Recipes: A melting and crunchy pigglet, an eggplant mousse, some pimiento del piquillo's pinchos, the christmas cocktail...

The very best Xmas soup, a lobsters kitchen outing comic, my kind of Sushi and Mar i Muntanya (Sea and Mountain).
More pinchos and the best Spanish Ham! The Tió and the kids and some gifts under the blanket :D.
Some of the reading I did these days, Fame... our choice for the New Years Eve and a wonderful Spa hidden in the woods... the perfect place to relax and get the best massages!!!!

It just felt so good being with the family and resting and reading and getting bored... I let the days slowly melt and suddenly the holidays were gone! I do hope your Xmas days have been as good as mine :D

Thank you all for being out there ♥ ♥ ♥
I will visit you all in short :D