Cooking is supposed to be fun

I’ve always thought cooking was fun and something that I was alright at.  It’s something I even considered as a possible career while growing up.   As a child my parents owned a restaurant which meant long hours for them and my sister and I being on our own for dinner.  My dad would drop off food from the restaurant many times, but we quickly became tired of Chinese food after awhile.  This was when I started experimenting with cooking.  I’m sure if I could taste what I had cooked back then now, it wouldn’t be very good but as a kid I was really proud of all my culinary experiments.  I remember one of my first fancy meals that I cooked for my family were lamb chops.  I think I had watched some show on PBS… maybe it was Julia Child or Jacques Pepin or was it Martha (I used to wake up at 6am every Sunday so that I could catch Martha’s show)?  Well whoever it was I was inspired and determine to make those darn lamb chops.  Recently I was surprised to hear that my sister actually remembered that meal… I must have been 13 at the time.

Cooking has always been fun… until last night.  I’ve been attempting to cut meat from our diet and been trying to find vegetarian and seafood recipes to try for dinner.  Last night I decide that I was going to make fish for dinner so after work I head to the grocery store and while on my way to the fish counter I seen a swarm of people around the fresh whole fish.  I’m thinking what’s going on here?  Something must be good over here.  I was planning on getting fish that was already filleted, but nobody was in that section so I decide to do something smart and get a whole fish… I mean it must be good if everyone else is getting it as well?  wrong wrong wrong…  This is where the embarrassment and frustration comes.  cue sad dramatic music…

I get home and start filleting the fish and realize that I have no idea what I’m doing!  I get my first fillet done and it looks horrible… really horrible.  While trying to get the second piece out I puncture my finger with one of the fins.  Just great.  Maybe I can blame my knife for not being as sharp as I need it?  Next came the cooking.  I decided to pan fry it in a bit of oil and guess what?  The fish sticks to the pan!  I used a non stick pan, but our pan has seen better days.  Can this dinner get any better?  While this is all happening I’m screaming from the kitchen and Matt comes in and tells me fish is not my forte.  Thanks for the encouragement babe.  In the end I was able to scrape the fish off the pan and cover it with a cilantro, green onion, ginger sauce that I made in the food processor.

Here is the end result… addition of baby bok choy with garlic and rice with the same sauce on the fish.  I LOVE this sauce… though Matt is getting tired of it already.  I think I could eat it everyday.

Lesson learned – just get the darn fillet… it’ll make life easier, cooking is all about trial and error and the errors shouldn’t deter me from trying new things, it will only improve me more… one last thing – sharpen my darn knives already.

Days 8 & 9: Hello Madrid! or I mean Hola!

This is the last stop in our European vacation.  While I’m sad we’ll be leaving soon, I’m happy that we had the opportunity to finally go to Europe and with such wonderful friends to share the experience with!

Madrid airport

Not a great place for someone who is sensitive to cigarette smoke.  They have these giant cubes that people are able to go into and smoke but there are no doors in these rooms.  They supposedly have vents to suck out the bad air but it sure doesn’t work.

Madrid airport

We stayed at Vincci Capitol. Cheapest rates of all the places we stayed at while in Europe. Centrally located to everything.

for the longest time we couldn't find the door to the bathroom. it was camouflaged against this wall

still not sure what the one on the left does

seems like constant construction in this city

the best hot chocolate and churros!

more like chocolate sauce... look at that sucker holding up the churro

horchata - not the same we're used to... didn't really like it much

yummy!

the view from our hotel room. you could seriously open the window out all the way... not used to that.

went to check out a lunch spot and found this place

He was frying up some chips so we decided it was snack time!  We decided on chips basically b/c that was the only thing we recognized from all the bags of goodies.  not very adventurous of us but those chips were delicious.

crunch crunch

bag of chips

Prado Museum

Time for lunch!  The place we originally were planning on going to was closed down.  Now by this time it’s about 100 degrees with no wind and barely any shade.  We have four (and a half) hungry people and this was the first place we find because there is basically nothing around where we were.  All I remember was that it looked like they had AC inside!  Not the most affordable place to have lunch but it works.

Let me talk about water for a second.  I’m used to getting good old tap water for free so this was an adjustment paying almost $10 for water.  In Paris we were lucky to have gone to some restaurants where they offered tap, but in Spain I don’t think we found any restaurants that did.  We’re at the end of our trip by the time we’re in Madrid and by this point I didn’t want to pay $8-10 for a bottle of water unless I was dying of thirst.  Thank goodness for convenience stores where we were able to stock up on big bottles of water!  The bad part was that because it was so hot, the water in our bags would be pretty warm by the time we took a sip from it.  Ok back to our lunch…

sandwich with jamon (ham)

pizza

when I read potatoes on the menu I didn't think it would be potato chips

hanging out at the grocery store... look what M found!

Lots of Haribos around! We thought of Jenny.

"I miss home"... and yes that's a kit kat in that cone! talk about genius.

While at Plaza Mayor we had a super hero sighting.

Spiderman! I think he's let himself go just a tad.

Plaza Mayor

one of the many entrances into the plaza

Mercado de San Miguel

delicious jamon!

inside the market

beans

chocolate

the way to my heart... cheese.

poultry

love the buildings!

tavern lined street

Almudena Cathedral

can't leave Madrid w/o one more jumping shot!

Day 7: Barcelona – Sagrada Familia

Wow has it really been over a month since I’ve blogged?  very bad of me… Well I hope you’re ready for the rest of Europe… oh yes you have been ready, I’m the one who has been lagging.  This will be the express version of it.  It’s been five months since our trip but seems like much longer than that.  I’m not sure if my memory is as clear.

This is our last full day in Barcelona!  We tried to wake up early but being on vacation it’s sometimes hard.  We didn’t make it out to Sagrada Familia as early as we wanted to but it was OK.  It was a short walk from our apartment and when we arrived we were happily greeted by a long line to get inside.  The line moved pretty fast… not as long of a wait as Notre Dame in Paris!

I’ll let the images and amazing architecture speak for themselves.

No I'm not on vacation by myself, but when I look back on photos it might appear that way

baking in the sun

still under construction

look at the detail of the ceiling!

Took the elevator ride up…

not enough phallic symbols? well here's one more for you

elevator up, now we must walk down

at this point getting dizzy and claustrophobic... boy is it a narrow staircase

we made it down alive! Ok it wasn't that bad.

what a beautiful street!

Next stop is more Gaudi at Casa Batllo and La Padrera.

Casa Batllo

La Padrera

inside one of the apartments at La Padrera. people still live in the other apartments in this building

trying to escape the heat

roof of La Padrera

If you haven’t gotten enough food photos let me give you more…

Our morning snack before leaving for the airport.  This cafe was right by Sagrada Familia and our apartment.  Who doesn’t like fried dough for breakfast?  nobody here.

xurros or as we're used to... churros

nothing like a cup of coffee to dunk xurros in

what do we have here? cream filled xurros. yes they have these.

this is what you get when xurros play twister

like we didn't have enough fried goodness here's one more

now it’s off to the airport!  Luckily there were plenty of taxis near the cafe.  Madrid here we come!

Day 6: More Barcelona

Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog.  We got a new computer and the whole process of transferring all our files really zapped the blogging energy from me.

Barcelona Cathedral. This is the area where we almost got pick pocketed by gypsies.

Palau de la Musica Catalana

Palau de la Musica Catalana

Photography is not allowed inside the Palau de la Musica Catalana.  It’s too bad because it’s beautiful inside as well.

bikes that you can rent out

Instead of taking a tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalana, we decide to head over to the Piscasso Museum.

outside Piscasso Museum

enjoying the warm sun as we end our tour of Picasso's work

snack time!

nothing like an ice cold Estrella beer

delicious Iberian ham

everything tastes better w/ pa amb tomàquet (tomato bread)

chorizo

After our snack we decide to wander the alleyways and as we walk we start to hear music.  Then we see these giant puppet like things (I know great description right?) and Matt and I take off to try to capture them on camera.  Yes we left a pregnant woman behind but she was in good hands.

Perhaps some sort of celebration, festival?  We’re not really sure but all of these giants looked like royalty.

I believe this is near Port Vell

$10 for a meal!

dessert at Granja La Pallaresa

Our first experience with this famous chocolate drink called Suis.  Can you say thick?  This is a chocoholic’s dream.  While I was trying to finish my cup that I was sharing (which I barely drank and mostly used for dunking), I looked around to see how all the other customers were doing with their cups and most of them were finishing theirs!

suis - xocolates topped with large caps of freshly whipped cream

xurros which we used to dunk into the suis... yes there are lots of x's

forgot the name of this pastry, but they ran out of the cream filled one =(

After some shopping and a lot of walking, guess what we do again? EAT!!  We go on vacations so we can eat and try new foods!  At this point we haven’t eaten a lot of tapas but by the end of our trip I don’t think I even wanted to hear the word tapas.  That’s funny b/c not too long after our trip we had a tapas dinner with some friends.

taller de tapas (comtal location which we thought was way better than that one on Carrer de l'Argenteria, different menus too)

russian salad - we thought it would be a salad with lettuce. oops

shrimp with garlic

croquette with bacalao

ham croquette

crema catalana (like creme brulee) - theirs was not good

Zuni Cafe

Tonight we finally visited Zuni Cafe for the famous roasted chicken with bread salad!  For the longest time we’ve been wanting to come here.

We started with two appetizers and an order of shoestring potatoes.

piccolo fritto: okra, peppers, onions... the peppers taste just like the ones we had in Spain

mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes, lettuce and toast

shoestring potatoes

Chicken for two roasted in the brick oven; warm bread salad with red mustard greens, currants, and pine nuts

The menu says it takes 1 hour for the roasted chicken and it literally took that long.  It was worth the wait!  I don’t know what I liked more… the chicken or the bread salad!  Both were so delicious and two of my favorite ingredients were included, currants and pine nuts.

We ordered two of the chicken because we had 5 people total and brought home two boxes of leftovers.  If we didn’t have any appetizers we might have been able to finish it… might.

Looking forward to coming back soon!  Make reservations in advance unless you like to eat really early or really late.

Granola

I love granola especially the homemade kind because I get to put whatever I want and it’s my special mix.  I have been using one recipe from Barefoot Contessa and have adjusted it to our household preferences.  I found a new recipe from Jeannette Ordas of Everybody likes Sandwiches and wanted to give it a try.  It’s pretty much the same except for a new ingredients like the apple sauce, spices and add ons.  Matt couldn’t find any wheat germ at TJ’s so we left that out and it was fine… yes I send him to the supermarket and he’s awesome about getting all the items right!  What a wonderful fiance.  I decided to add dried cranberries and apricots… these I just added at the end of cooking time so that it wouldn’t burn.  It turned out delicious!!  I usually don’t like coconut flakes but it bakes into the whole thing and you don’t get a strong coconut flavor.  It adds a hint of nutty aroma and flavor to the granola.  Non-fat plain yogurt and granola equals awesome breakfast for the whole week!  Must remember to drinks lots of water also as this has tons of fiber. =D

I apologize for the horrible picture taken from my iphone, but I’m feeling lazy and didn’t want to take out the camera.

Changes I made:

• addition of dried cranberries and apricots
• didn’t have any wheat germ so I left that out
• didn’t have any whole flax seeds so I just added a bit more ground flax seed
• addition of maple syrup (we like it a bit more sweet)
• didn’t have cardamom, nutmeg or ginger but did have pumpkin pie seasoning that worked out great
• baked it longer than the recipe indicated.  after 30 mins continued baking in 10 min increments until golden and toasty.

Everyday Granola
3 1/2 c organic large-flake rolled oats
1/2 c wheat germ
1/4 c flax seed
3 T ground flax seed
1 1/2 c dried shredded coconut
1 c walnuts, roughly chopped
1 c almonds, roughly chopped
1/4 c sunflower seeds
2 T cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
large pinch each of cardamom and nutmeg
1/2 t of kosher salt
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c apple sauce
1/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c honey
1 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300ºF. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. In another bowl, stir the oil, applesauce, brown sugar, honey and vanilla together until it emulsifies somewhat. Pour the wet over the dry ingredients and stir well so that everything gets evenly coated.

Spread mixture on a baking sheet or large glass baking pan and toast in a 325 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, checking on it and stirring it occasionally until mixture is dry. When cool, store in a tightly lidded container.

Day 6: La Boqueria

Today is our first full day in Barcelona and we decide to start our day with a visit to La Boqueria which is a famous market off La Rambla.  What an awesome place!! Sensory overload!  So much great produce, fish, meat and spots to eat.  I wish we had something like this in the bay area… yes we have the ferry building but it’s just not the same.  Usually all I can afford is one piece of fruit b/c it’s so darn expensive… although I will pay for great cheese at Cowgirl Creamery.  Cheese… my one weakness.  One thing I noticed about Europe that is different from the US is the way they display their produce.  Talk about gorgeous!  They are serious about presentation and every piece of fruit looks so perfect.

this is the first thing we see when we enter. pure puree fruit and delicious!

these fruit drinks are the best!

gorgeous fruit

gorgeous presentation

candy store

fresh fish

meats

variety of produce

chili peppers

poor lil piggy

aromatic coffee

While in La Boqueria I really wanted to eat at Pinotxo Bar because I read a lot of great things about this place and it definitely did not disappoint.  One of the best tapas we had in Barcelona.  We were able to snag a seat right outside the bar and our server was super nice and provided us with great recommendations as no menu was provided… all in his head.

my first glass of cava (their version of sparkling wine)

fresh and simple mussels

ham croquettes

the greatest peppers! surprisingly not spicy

who knew chickpeas could be so delicious

some sort of stew... didn't understand what the meat was

our awesome server

Day 5: Hola Barcelona!

We’re in Barcelona and boy is it hot!! humid hot I might add… even in the early evening.  We take a taxi to our apartment in L’Eixample.  My first time riding in a Prius… 4 of us, driver and our luggage all fit into that surprisingly roomy car.  This apartment we’re staying at I found on VRBO.com.  We’re blocks away from Sagrada Familia and the Monumental metro station.  It’s a quiet neighborhood and seemed pretty safe.  Now thinking back on it I should have gone with the original apartment in El Borne… it’s a much livelier area and all the great food spots are down there.  We ended up going there to eat most of the trip.  Oh wells… it’s always what if with me.

View from our apartment back windows.  We forgot to take pics of the inside but I included the ones from the website and they look pretty much the same… but just imagine it being furnished by IKEA.

entryway

living room

kitchen which we barely used. has a washer which we did make use of.

bedroom 1

bedroom 2

bathroom 1

bathroom 2

We settle into our apartment and realize that their “AC” is one unit in the living room… so as you can imagine the two bedrooms are pretty warm.  Our property manager Jorge tells us to not leave the AC on all day b/c it will start to make loud sounds… blah blah blah… we left it on all the time!!  You know what?  No loud noises.  Shame on you for tricking us and trying to save a few bucks while we roast in this apartment.

Tonight we decide to go out and have our first taste of tapas!  We head to the El Borne area and arrive at tapa place #1… not #1 as the best #1 b/c I think this was probably one of the lowest rated of all the places we went to.  Hey it was late, we didn’t know where we were going and we were hungry.

calamari

Pa amb tomàquet

patatas bravas

tortilla (spanish omelet)

frois gras

this can of coke looks much shorter than US version

worst paella EVER! rice was so dry and salty and the seafood was also horribly overcooked. they should be ashamed...

Someone knew I was coming and decided to personalize a bike just for me.  awww… how sweet!

A Day With the Sisters

images from my contax… I do love film. =D  I know I’ve been lagging on the Europe updates, but I’ll get those images out soon!

Day 5: Leaving Paris

We’re leaving Paris today!  We have a late afternoon flight to Barcelona, so we have some time to squeeze in one more shopping trip that both Jo and I have been waiting for.

Lunch at Le Bouquet before heading to the airport.  located just down the street from our hotel. Prob the best lunch we’ve had while in Paris.

salad

salad w/ chicken

steak