Category Archives: food & drink

yikes!

03 Tuesday Apr 2007

Posted by in food & drink, home, life stuff

≈ 11 Comments

hobbes_yikes.jpg

Nog is making dinner!

Not sure what’s got into him. This is something he’s been threatening me with since I first met him – to make his special bacon ‘risotto’. Which apparently has little (nothing?) to do with real risotto – the main clue being that this dish doesn’t actually include risotto rice. Fine. It seems to contain some other nice things: bacon, garlic, mushrooms, peppers … and normal long grain rice.

So far I’ve always managed to convince him that taking me out for a tapita would be the preferable option. Except that today, being in the throws of Semana Santa, we can’t actually leave our building.

I have been banished to the livingroom with a glass of rioja to await the result . . . serious role reversal. 🙂

I mean, Nog makes great coffee and occasionally I let him make me toast. Though the last time I was sick with a cold and asked him to make some chicken soup (from a package) it would have been a disaster if I hadn’t stepped in. So I guess you can imagine why I sit here with some trepidation. Luckily there is an unopened packet of Doritos in the cupboard in case it all goes for a burton . . . 😉

andalucía day

28 Wednesday Feb 2007

Posted by in culture, food & drink, holidays, life stuff, photos, sevilla, spain, tapas

≈ 7 Comments

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A nice midweek public holiday today.

Well, except that Nog and I are busy working on that big translation job (the one that might end up paying for a lovely holiday somewhere, sometime soon). But then a couple of hours ago we decided it was too gorgeous a day to stay inside – bright & sunny and about 22º – so we went out to Casa Roman for lunch.

Here is where we were, the view from our table, what we had to eat (first 6 pics) …

~ Casa Roman ~

casa az 24-hour diner

05 Monday Feb 2007

Posted by in blogging, food & drink

≈ 9 Comments

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Now open for business.

This new blog was inspired by my recent post about pre-prepared food. I’ve been enjoying the conversations, suggestions and recipes there so much that I thought a separate more organised blog would help keep it going. Otherwise once it slips off the front page here it will probably get lost forever in the backlog.

So please feel free to drop by with comments and suggestions. 🙂

pre-prepared food

29 Monday Jan 2007

Posted by in food & drink, life stuff

≈ 32 Comments

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Why have I never thought of doing this before?

It first came to me last Monday. I thought that instead of preparing something for lunch (in Spain lunch tends to be the main meal of the day) that I would prepare four lunches instead. And within an hour or so I had made…

  • a fab spicy bolognese sauce (minced beef, bacon, courgette & mushrooms)
  • a delicious chicken & spinach biryani
  • penne with cherry tomatoes, arrugula, shallots and goat cheese
  • a very garlicky hummous

Easily enough food for the whole week, including snacks. And in the end it turned out that much less time was spent on both preparation and cleaning up than usual. Especially as a lot of the same ingredients were required (onions, garlic, peppers, etc) and so peeling and chopping up these ‘in bulk’ turned out to be much more efficient in terms of time spent.

And once everything was cooked and put into various plastic containers in the fridge it was like having a mini-buffet at our fingertips all week. I’m more of a ‘snacker’ than Nog is – he tends to prefer a ‘proper meal’. So for example, one evening this week he cooked some basmati rice and then just heated up some pre-prepared curry for it while I just had tortilla chips with hummous. Whatever.

It’s kind of liberated us from having to eat in the same way and at the same times and we both quite like this concept. It not only eliminates any feelings of guilt I might have if I don’t feel like cooking a proper meal one day, but it also means if either of us feels like a very tasty quick snack there is something really delicious just waiting in the fridge.

And as anyone who loves cooking knows … food never tastes quite as good just after you’ve spent two hours making it. So I’ve also been enjoying (for example) having a snack of bolognese sauce with freshly-grated parmesan on top two days later as it’s almost as if someone else made it.

Anyhow, Nog and I are both quite enjoying this new plan. Because, once we’ve got all the preparing/cooking/cleaning-up work over with it there’s all this lovely food that’s just there! For us to enjoy whenever we feel like it for the rest of the week. Mmmm…