03 Tuesday Nov 2020
Posted in casa azahar, cooking
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It’s been close to three weeks since THE MANDOLINA INCIDENT and although I removed the steri-strips the other day since they were mostly falling off on one side, I kept a bandage on the still-healing thumb. Until now! The severed flap of skin has totally reattached itself and although it is still quite pink and the area still feels quite tender, it feels great to be able to use my thumb again. Amazing how you don’t miss something until it’s gone.
01 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in casa azahar, cooking, home
What can I say? It’s dangerous going to El Corte Inglés after getting a nice tip on a Sevilla Tapas Tour. Because all of a sudden I needed to buy a sandwich maker! Justifications: 1) I’ve never had one before and 2) it was on sale! Also, there was that crazy good sounding savoury waffle recipe I saw on Twitter a couple of months ago that left me wishing I had a waffle iron (and dammit, if I’d had one then I would’ve actually saved that recipe). Another cool thing is that until I looked online for photos of this bad boy I didn’t realise it was designed to store upright – bonus!
To be honest, I probably won’t use this a lot, and when I do it will likely just be for grilled cheese toasties, but it’s been awhile since I bought myself a kitchen gadget (the mandolina back in 2017 that has yet to leave its box) so what the heck. What was the last frivolous thing you bought for yourself?
12 Wednesday Jun 2019
Posted in azahars kitchen, casa azahar, food & drink
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Some of you may know that one of my (too many?) websites is azahar’s kitchen, a recipe blog that I started back in 2009. It’s “moved house” a couple of times over the years, from WP.com to my own hosted sites.
Some of you may also be aware of a recent flutter of activity on that blog, which started after I published a new recipe (requested by my friend Ann when she saw a pic of my albóndigas al oloroso on social media). Then I found a bunch of photos that I had filed away for “later”, so I have added text to those and put them up too. There are still a couple to go.
This is totally a “hobby blog” just because I enjoy cooking, and also sharing the recipes I come up with (sometimes on my own, more usually a combination of several recipes I’ve found online or in books, which then get edited into one I prefer. So drop by and have a look. You can also subscribe to be notified when new recipes go up. 🙂
26 Thursday Jul 2018
Posted in casa azahar, cooking, home, homecooking
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I have new knives! Kind of a “starter set”, which probably sounds silly for someone who cooks (and loves to cook) as much as I do, and has been doing so for about 45 years. You’d think by now that proper knives would be first and foremost in my kitchen. But it’s confession time.
When I first left home and first discovered the delights of fresh food and homecooking, I was a broke teenager putting herself through highschool. I’m sure there were a few crappy knives in my various kitchens back then, but I always made sure I had one good one. This turned out to be a Henkel paring knife, which was all I could afford. Why Henkel? Because this was the brand I always trusted for scissors (I was still keen on a career in the fashion biz back then). So my one Henkel paring knife served for everything. And I guess I just got used to that, and developed ways of using that one small knife while filleting meat and fish, chopping onions, smashing garlic, and even occasionally peeling vegetables.
But lately I’ve been thinking about this, now that I have a small but serviceable kitchen, with my own oven installed and a new induction cooker. How much easier, better, whatever, it would be to have a proper set of knives? I wanted to find out. But what to buy?
Thankfully my friends (and professional cooks) Anna & Jorge @GuitianMayer served as my advisors, in terms of what types of knives to get and what price range to look at. First off I was thrilled that they also recommended Zwilling-Henkel (I had made the right choice all those years ago!) but I still had to work out what I needed. In the end I went to El Corte Inglés as all the Z-H knives are 20% off right now. But you know, they could actually train people there – the woman I spoke to clearly knew nothing about knives. And so, after several whats-apps, sending questions and photos to Anna & Jorge, I made my choice.
With these four new knives I suddenly feel inspired to try making things that actually require more than a paring knife. I know I am going to have to adjust my technique, but that’s kind of exciting. Feeling a bit like Christmas here today.
16 Tuesday Jun 2015
Posted in blogging, cooking, food & drink
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I can’t believe it’s been A WHOLE YEAR since I posted anything on azahar’s kitchen. I only noticed after receiving the recipes from my fab cooking class at Taller Andaluz de Cocina and checking back to see how their spinach con garbanzos recipe varied from mine. And it kind of made me sad because I love cooking and sharing my recipes, but somehow there are always too many other things I need to catch up with online. Anyhow, I’ve just added a “subscription” widget to the sidebar (something that went missing – along with 265 subscribers – after moving the original WP kitchen blog over to my newest self-hosted site last summer). You know, in case you want to be notified by email if and when I start posting recipes again. It might even motivate me! 🙂
