Winter cabbage salad

    Loads of savoy cabbage from my vegetable box and I think I have found a very nice way to prepare it in salad, with orange and hazelnuts. On the side, leek fritters, from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi.

Salad

4 cups savoy cabbage, sliced thin
2 oranges, peel removed and cut into wedges
1/2 cup toasted chopped hazelnuts

Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil
2 TBS honey
1 TBS dijon mustard
1 TBS soy sauce
zest from 1 orange

Swedish Sunday Lunch

It's been snowing and everything becomes so quiet. Jakob and I had thought to prepare some real swedish food for friends and we did it. It felt so right in this kind of weather. Jakob made toast skogen and moose accompanied with apples, carrot, lingonberry and jerusalem artichoke puree. 

It was delicious and it's also fair to say that the moose meat was from the Småland forest, where my father in law lives. For dessert, I prepared warm apple pie pots, from this great recipe.

This year has begun with new challenges (one of them is that we have to leave the house where we've been living since we came here for a year ago...) and it was comforting to have some spare time eating with friends and walking on the snow afterwards. 

Córdoba food

    Finally, I visited Córdoba. The city that was capital of the independent Arab Muslim emirate of al - andalus, later a Caliphate itself, was one of the most advanced cities in the world. A city that has loads of history and character, a very special and magical city. A city that was the first spanish view and experience of a very young Jakob. A old city where time has stopped.

I was told the food was quite an experience but it wasn't until I tested salmorejo when I understood why. Salmorejo is absolutely delicious. As a matter of fact, I think I could survive on salmorejo, a soup made from tomatoes, bread, oil, garlic and vinegar. The rest is a incredible list of tapas: croquetas (oxtail, ham, cod, cocido...), scrambled eggs, wild mushrooms, fried aubergine, red pepper salad and so on.

I really enjoyed a couple of days walking, sitting on the terraces, eating tapas, visiting old friends and having Jakob as a top guide. He proposed to go to Bodegas Campos and I loved it. A very nice and local taverna, also full of history and charming.

Gathering in Güéjar Sierra

   
Visiting friends has been great. We stayed at Juan and Gigi's in Güéjar Sierra, where we all met. Incredible and beautiful house and views. It was great to be together. We gathered around a table and enjoyed a couple of days together. Thank you all and Happy New Year my dear friends.

Birthday cake

    Yesterday was Jakob birthday. I made a cake for my darling. Same recipe than this but I added some raw chocolate and I did some icing.  

Comfort stew

    It's cold and dark. December is a beautiful month but I had forgotten how it feels having only a few  hours of light and last Sunday I needed some comfort in my food.

Now, in the vegetable box I always have loads of roots. I love them and by the way, I have learnt new English words for roots that I'm not sure knew in Spanish...

Last Sunday I cooked some simple. Something that it's no complicated but takes time, a stew. I used very local lamb meat, from a friend of us who has own sheep, and, roots, parsnip, carrot, beet and turnip. Roots, herbs, red wine and lamb. These flavors means december to me now.

Borough Market

  After a few busy weeks, my reward came. Some days to rest and to relax. I have spent a couple days in London: a lot of walking, a glorious concert, a nice dinner and cocktails and a visit to the Borough Market on last Saturday.

It started with a breakfast at Tapas Brandisa, where Jakob and I were able to eat some very good tortilla de patatas and huevos estrellados. Better than expected. Then, we started to walk around the market.

An incredible variety of very nice products. A heaven where trying not to buy anything was a difficult task (we were spending the day in London and it would have been difficult to carry groceries all day long). However, I enjoyed the experience very much and I'm looking forward to go there another day only to go crazy buying.