Coated Chicken Breast with mushrooms

Jackie from Durango (Basque Country) joins us with his last meal: Coated Chicken Breast with mushrooms (Pechuga de Pollo rebozada con Champiñones).



Nice presentation!

Thanks Jackie!

Spooky meals.... uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

And now, scary meal from Barcelona (Spain). Dani was the perfect cook at De Ramón-Horinger's House, Halloween night...

... Cut fingers... you can use knife and fork to eat them if you dare....



And If you are still alive, try these weird bloody cakes...



Thanks Dani!

Macarrones con chorizo

New picture! This time from Barcelona (Spain) and it's been sent by Inma. This meal is called Macarrones con chorizo (It's like Pasta with Sausages, tomatoe sauce and Cheese I think). Hope you like it!




Thanks Inma!

Lebanese Style Roast with Gravy - الروستو مع الصلصة

Serves a crowd!
Ingredients:
About a 3 pound roast (Lamb or beef)
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
2 carrots peeled and chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
1-2 big onions chopped
10 cloves of garlic, peeled only
1 medium potato, peeled and cut into medium cubes
1 celery stick, chopped
2 cinnamon sticks, 2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 tablespoon of allspice
1/3 cup of wine (optional)
1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

The vegetables need to be medium sized and not small or finely chopped because they need to cook with the roast and this will keep them from browning quickly and falling apart. And my technique is that I allow one minute between every ingredient, I don't like to dump everything all at once. So in a pot, add the oil, onions, potatoes, carrots, bell pepper, celery and garlic add half the amount of salt and black pepper and cook for few minutes then add the roast, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves.(I usually rub the roast with a bit of salt and black pepper and let it sit for few minutes before I cook it). Once you've added the roast you want it to brown from all sides and absorb all the flavors. Here you can add the wine. Turn the roast every now and then until the sides are browned then you add 2 to 3 cups of water. Once you've added the water, add the rest of the spices, bring to a boil then reduce to medium-low and let it cook slowly. It would probably take about 2 hours maybe more depending on the meat.
Once the roast is cooked take it out of the pot and transfer into the cutting board. Now to obtain the gravy just put everything left in the pot in the mixer for a couple of minutes. I personally leave everything in the pot, take out the cinnamon sticks and the bay leaves and use the handy mixer for few minutes until all the chunks are gone. You'll obtain a thick gravy because of the potato and vegetables so no need to thicken it. After I obtain the gravy, I let it simmer for few minutes and then serve it with the roast.

Tips on how to serve this roast:
1- You can leave it as a whole on the cutting board and when it's time to eat, cut and serve with the gravy on the side.
2- Slice and put back in the sauce or gravy and simmer for few minutes and serve (I recommend this)
3- Slice some and serve on the side as cold cuts and put the rest in the gravy for variety.
4- Serve the roast with Basmati rice and nuts as shown in the photo or serve it with mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables.

PS: Cooking the Basmati and toasting the nuts can be found in my previous recipes like the Chicken with rice recipe for example.

Getting green fingered

I’ve never been the most agriculturally minded individual. Prior to moving to the countryside, despite my best intentions to plant a veggie patch last year, the closest I had got to growing my own was planting some cress seeds in an empty egg shell at primary school. Granted, the egg shell did have a face painted on it and the cress was cut into a Mohican style hair cut after it had sprouted but as sustenance it wasn’t a great success.
It was certainly time to rectify this. One of the aspects of moving that excited us most was the prospect of becoming more self-sufficient and we wasted little time in transforming large areas of the garden into functioning vegetable patches. I had no idea how much hard work this involved and for four days afterwards my back, neck and shoulders ached with a deep-set pain and a layer of dirt resolutely refused to shift from underneath my fingernails. But it was a great feeling, made even sweeter by the knowledge that just a few short months ago I was whiling away my days in a strip lit, climate controlled office where the windows wouldn’t open and everything felt sanitised and slightly unreal. Now the sun was on my back and I was spending my days doing everything I loved and nothing I didn’t. We’d planted an ambitious selection of edible goodies into five seedling trays and the excitement when the first of the tiny green shoots popped through the lightly compacted earth was phenomenal. Within a week all of the various seeds that we had planted had begun to push their way through the surface and were rapidly outgrowing their little temporary homes, eager to be planted into the newly dug beds.


This was about four weeks ago and now, whilst we still have a considerable wait for many of the plants to bear fruit, the leafier of the plants are looking lush and ready to eat with continental salad leaves and rocket leading the charge. The pace and voracity with which they’ve started to take over their little corner of the garden has been mildly alarming but also strangely comforting. As a measure of success it appears as if we’ve come out on top and now it is possible to see the effects of the hard work that went into the beds just a few short weeks ago. It makes the whole process worthwhile and, while I’d always been attracted to the idea, only now am I truly beginning to see the benefits and attraction of slow food, there is just something that resonates with a profound satisfaction of seeing the progress of food in this way. So much so that think we need wait no longer and these vibrant little green leaves will be eaten tonight with a gently roasted piece of lamb breast and some delightfully spring like Jersey potatoes.