Tag Archives: snacks

Valenciano Snacks

09 Monday Jul 2012

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Sometimes you get really lucky, and you turn up in a city having done absolutely no research and strike holiday paydirt.  For me, that happened in Valencia. In fact, though, much of my enthusiasm can be summed up in two words: Restaurant Week.  My Friend Robert pointed out that there are lots of drawbacks to Restaurant Week, but for me it means lots of really good food pretty much every night.  We got particularly lucky the last night, when eight of us went to a place near Plaza de la Virgen (so near that I would have been skeptical, on my own).  We had two vegetarians and one man who asked for no garlic.  I mean seriously.  And even so, we had a delicious meal; the highlight was foie yogurt.  I don’t know what it was (besides some combo of foie gras and yogurt) but it tasted amazing.  It was the definition of delicious.

I had been holding out on reporting on the food because other people meticulously chronicled what we ate, and I had hoped to con them into guest blogging or, at the very least, sending me their photos (you know who you are).

So that may still happen.  But the food (and experiences relating to food) were amazing even if you discount the meals – cherries in a square behind the central market, mojitos in the shade on a sweltering afternoon, an ice cream shop where I got so many free samples I was full by the time I ordered, and lattes and campari spritzes in a leafy cafe run by two old ladies with a puppy who stood on its back legs when patrons entered, tucked into a tiny square square on the edge of the Barrio del Carmen .

The snacks were amazing.  Above: orange ice cream served in an orange skin, purchased for 60 eurocents at a grocery next to our hotel; fardons and horchata at a famous horcheteria (seriously, that’s a thing); and a sticky meringue at the central market (sadly, my photographs of the market are terrible).

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Domestic Goddess Spree, Round 2

27 Friday Jan 2012

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…I have a feeling that, until I get a job, cooking sprees might be a recurring theme in my posts.  I took some cupcakes to my neighbor yesterday, a very nice man named Jim, and he took one look at them and said “so you’re still job hunting?”  Which is maybe a compliment? That’s probably how I should take it, right?

Anyway.  Being unemployed has allowe me to make lots of delicious food.  The cupcake recipe was Thomas Keller’s, from his incredible book Ad Hoc At Home.  Below are some recipes I’ve gotten from the internet and would absolutely totally recommend making, even if you’re not a person with lots of time like I am.

1. Dessert Blueberry Pizza from Spoon Fork Bacon
2. Chocolate Meringues from Bakerella (how is that woman not morbidly obese? She makes so many delicious things) (also, these are great, but they do NOT photograph well)
3. Lamb Meatballs & Orecchiette from Design Sponge
4. Baked Macaroni & Cheese from Simply Scratch

I need to stop making cupcakes because I want to regain my girlish figure, but I have to say, learning to cook and bake new things has been a distinct pleasure of being unemployed, and learning to take pictures of cupcakes has been a bonus too (believe it or not, my food photography skills are improving, as is my command of my fancy camera.  Woot!)

Bonus Post: I Make an Awesome Cupcake

21 Saturday Jan 2012

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Usually food bloggers say that they ‘adapted’ recipes from other blogs.  I’m not a real food blogger, so I don’t adapt recipes. I just trust that if they made it onto a blog its because they tasted good. In this case, I used a recipe from JoyOfBaking.com and omitted the cream of tartar because I didn’t have any.

I topped them with chocolate buttercream (6 ounces butter, 6 ounces icing sugar, 1 ounce cocoa powder) and then put pieces of candied citrus on top, which was a good idea in theory and a sloppy-looking idea in practice.  The chocolate frosting was delicious but came out looking like poo swirls of CakeWrecks fame.  And then I put them in my cupcake carrier for its inaugural use (I insisted on registering for it when I got married.  Then I decided that was ridiculous.  Then I decided, hell with it, I want a cupcake carrier.  Then I didn’t use it for a year and a half).

Anyway, I got about ten feet from the house on my bike with the damn cupcakes before they all fell out of their little holsters and smushed all over the place, and then it didn’t matter that they hadn’t looked that good to begin with (could’ve seen that one coming).  I put them back in place, biked two miles one-handed (including up the only hill in Cambridge!) and then lied and told everyone they were beautiful before I spilled them.

I didn’t intend to post about them originally so the only thing I have to show for my efforts is the candied citrus.  I was inspired by a recent post on winter citrus from MattBites but the local grocery didn’t have blood oranges, so I used oranges, lemons and limes. I’d never had candied lime before, but its pretty amazing. Candying the pulp along with the peel makes everything a little sloppier and wetter, but also much, much faster.

The cupcakes were great, but I would note that they were utensil-intensive.  It would help to have a hand mixer and a stand mixer; an electric mixer of some sort is absolutely essential, and you go through a lot of bowls and spatulas and whatever else.

Seriously the best roasted potatoes ever

26 Monday Dec 2011

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Ok, I know that roasting potatoes is not difficult, and that there are a bazillion recipes for roasted potato fries circulating the internet.   But you have not had this recipe, which is now the best recipe for roasted potato fries circulating the internet. And I am not lying.  This recipe is adapted from one the New York Times ran last year

So its very simple. Heat the oven to 425 F or 200 C.  Then start with potatoes: you can use pretty much any potatoes although bigger ones are easier to work with.  The original recipe calls for a mix of regular potatoes and sweet potatoes, which is delicious, but you can also use a monoculture.  Cut the potatoes into 1/4 to 1/2 inch strips (usually, I cut the potatoes into eighths), dump them in a bowl, and then add liberal quantities of:

– salt
– pepper
– cinnamon

and small but crucial quantities of

– nutmeg and
– cardamom

(now would be a good time to tell you all about my two new spice racks.  They’re magnetic! How sweet is that?)

Until we have a drill, we can’t affix it to the wall.  But I’m excited about it nonetheless.

Anyway.  Put the potatoes in a bowl, add the spices, drizzle with olive oil and stir with a wooden spoon.  Spread the potatoes on a cookie sheet so that they’re not touching and put them in the oven for 20 minutes.  Then fend off your spouse when s/he tries to eat them all.