Almond and cream cookies

This last Christmas I bought a lot of almond flour because I wanted to try to make some "turrón", in the end I ran out of time so now I have 1kg of almond flour for which I don't have a recipe for. Fortunately I found what may be the right substitute for  the Turron . This early morning I was surfing the Internet when I found this "Almond and Cream Cookies" in one of my favorites cuisine blogs: Gastronomía & Cía.


Ingredients:

200g of Plain flour
125g of Ground almonds
10g of Baking power
200g of Cream
150g of sugar
1 pinch of vanilla  (more if you like it)
100g of icing sugar

Mix in a bowl the flour, the almonds, the baking power and the sugar. Add the vanilla and finally the cream. Knead all the ingredients until you get a uniform dough. Cover it with a plastic film and keep it in the fridge for 1 hour.

Take it out of the fridge and make small balls of dough. Coat the dough balls in the icing sugar and place them in a baking tray with baking paper. Keep the balls of dough in the fridge again and let them settle for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven 200º C/392ºF. When it´s ready and the balls are hard, slide the tray into the oven.  Bake the cookies for 15 minutes.

These cookies are very easy to make and they are sooo delicious. They are perfect with a glass of milk or a cup of tea, coffee or chocolate.

Roasted pumpkin

 Yesterday, my sister in law brought us a big and flavorful pumpkin. I made some recipes with it, which are delightfully different. I made a pumpkin, carrots and sage´s cream together with a pumpkin sponge cake and also I made this delicious roasted pumpkin.

Ingredients:
800g of Pumpkin
Some olive oil
1 Tablespoon of thyme
1 Tablespoon of oregano
Salt and black pepper

This recipe is very easy to make.
 Just cut and peel the pumpkin and cut it in cubes. Grease a baking dish with olive oil. Place the pumpkin in the dish. Next, season it with  the salt,  the pepper, the thyme and the oregano. Sprinkle some olive oil and bake it in a preheat oven at 220ºC/428ºF for 40 minutes.

Roasted pumpkin is a delicious garnishing  for a roast beef, with some pasta, in a risotto or just with some bread may be tasty as well.

Saltimbocca. Beef steak with sage and serrano ham

Saltimbocca is an italian dish, I think it is from Roma, but I´m no sure. Its name means "jump into the mouth". It´s very tasty and very easy and quick to make.

Ingredients:

8 Beef steaks
8 Sage leaves
4 Slices of serrano ham
Butter or olive oil
1 spoon of white wine or water
Salt and pepper

Flatten the steaks and cover them with a slice of serrano ham and a sage leaf. Hold it with a toothpick.
Fry them in hot olive oil or butter. Add salt and pepper. When the ham is crispy get them out and put in a dish. Pour 1 spoon of water or white wine in the fry pan and wait until it boil. Pour this sauce over the meat and serve with white rice or pasta and a green salad.

Sorbet "La Roja"

Today is the "big" day. This evening, in a few hours, is the final football match Spain-Italy.
We have a party at home and yesterday when we were doing shopping I decided to buy some frozen fruit to make a sorbet that we can take tonight in the  dinner as a dessert, then my oldest son gave me the idea of making sorbet "La Roja" and here you are.


Ingredients:

Red sorbet:
800g of frozen strawberries
1/2 cup of orange juice
200g of sugar
1 lemon  peeled and seedless

Yellow sorbet:
800g of frozen papayas, pineapples and mangos
1/2 cup of orange juice
200g of sugar
1 lemon  peeled and seedless




In a very good food processor put the yellow ingredients and blend them until you get the sorbet. Pour it in a bowl and keep in the fridge.

Just put the red ingredients in the food processor, it needn´t clean the food processor. Blend the ingredients to get the sorbet.

Take some small  glasses of wine pour 2 spoons of red sorbet, pour 2 spoons of yellow sorbet over it and finally 2 spoons of red sorbet. The idea is making a Spanish flag with the sorbet.

¡¡Aupa La Roja!!!

Tomato salad with Jean´s salt

Some weeks ago it was my birthday and my friend Jean, that knows my passion for cuisine, gave me a wonderful birthday gift: A beautiful box with different types of salt from all over the world. I love so much this present that I began to make up an easy recipe in which we can delight the salt.

In the south of Spain there are very good tomatoes and you can eat them in a lot of ways, but the most common, quick, healthy and easy recipe is a “tomato salad” with olive oil and marine coarse salt.Therefore I made up this “Tomato salad with Jean´s salt”.

Ingredients:

1kg. of good tomatoes

1 bunch of arugula

1 can of  Spanish black olives

Spanish extra virgin olive oil

My friend Jean´s salt. I used the one from New Zealand (You can use another one)

Wash the tomatoes, cut them and put in a bowl. Add the arugula and the black olives. Sprinkle generously  with the olive oil. Add the salt just before eating it.

It´s very delicious eating juicy tomatoes with the crunchy salt

Evento Photo Blog

I´m very pleased because I have just won my second" Evento Photo Blog contest "in the styling category with this photo: My Cream of Carrot Soup.

 Thank you very much indeed.

Home made stock cubes

I work out, I have 2 children and I have to figure out how to cook a healthy supper every day for the family. I usually  cook on the weekend some of the food we´re going to eat the rest of the week.  I cook the main dish that it´s often the most complicate. Then everyday we add a good salad prepared at the moment, some bread or rice and a piece of fruit or a yogurt.

I  have some tricks that help me. My favorite is “home made stock cubes”. If you have a food procesor or blender it´s very easy, just put all the ingredients  and puree it.

Ingredients:
1kg of Vegetables (Onion, garlic, sweet pepper, tomato, parsley, coriander, celery, leek or whatever you want
300g of Sea salt

I put this puree in  jam jars and keep them in the freezer. The salt doesn´t allow the puree gets frozen and it´s very easy to take something of it when you need it.

If you have health problems with salt, you can make stock cubes without salt, just put the puree in the mold you use to make ice cubes. When they are frozen put these cubes in a jam jar or in a plastic bag and keep them in the frigde.
You can also make stock meat cubes. It´ll be needed:

  ½ kg. of vegetables
 ½ kg of lean meat
300g of sea salt
and  puree all the ingredients together.

In Spain the first we do when we begin to cook  is add some olive oil in a casserole and some chopped vegetables (Onion, garlic, tomato, sweet pepper...) This is a “sofrito” and it´s the base of a good stew or soup. The problem is that it takes a lot of time washing or peeling the vegetables and  chopping them.
When I have to make a "sofrito", I only have to add a little of olive oil into a casserole and a spoon of my "home made stock cube". That´s all :)