AAEA Food Safety and Nutrition Section in Portland, OR, July 30 to Aug 1

The American Agricultural Economics Association meets in Portland, OR, from Sunday through Wednesday. My term is just ending as chair of the association's Food Safety and Nutrition Section. Here (.doc) is information about the business meeting and the track of sessions we organized this year. If you are attending the conference, do accept a warm invitation to come to these events and meet some scholars who care both about economics and about the practical policy problems of nutrition and food safety.

House vote

The Kind-Flake amendment was defeated, of course, and the Farm Bill passed the House. This Farm Bill has been a great education in the cynical economist's view of public policy decision-making. The bill's supporters perfectly gauged how much funding for nutrition, conservation, and fruits and vegetables it would take to split the advocacy coalition that would otherwise have demanded reform to the traditional row-crop subsidies.

The House Agriculture Committee had to make some adjustments to conservation programs and agricultural insurance programs that will anger some Senators who support those programs. Still, it is hard to imagine this bill failing or even changing much at this point.

Perhaps in five years, under the influence of this bill, rich farmers will be even richer, small family farms will be even fewer, and farmers in developing countries will be even poorer. Look on the bright side. We can all hope for reform in Farm Bill 2012.

Foie Toast with Iberian Acorn Ham

This extraordinary and Special Ham deserves its own space. The Iberian Acorn Ham it's exclusive from Spain. Iberian hogs are born, fed and raised in the south and northwest of Spain (See it on the map section - Recipes and Restaurants) These facts, among others, like the environmental and the acorn diet, make these hogs breed so special, their ham so tasteful and the recipes so exquisite!

Since I first tried it, many years ago, I'm addicted to eat/it!!!

If you ever come to Spain and want to buy some in a specialised shop or buy it through internet you should ask for the advise of an expertise or go to a recommended grocer's/gourmet shop because you might dissagree in the quality/price you pay.
It should be eaten at room temperature, never cold. Open a bottle of good wine, relax and enjoy its flavours!

Ingredients: 1/2Kg. onions, 8 olive oil spoons, 1 sugar spoon, 1 glass of dry white wine, 4-8 big toast, 4-8 duck foie filette, 4-8 Iberian acorn Ham, kitchen salt.

Get the PowerPoint recipe

Get the WebAlbum pictures

Slice the onions and put in a pot with the olive oil and sugar. Cook at low fire for 1 hour (microwave 15 minutes). Cover the pot.

Add the wine and cook for another hour without the cover at low fire (if you do this part the day before, flavours will stand out).

Toast the bread and spread the mixture on it. Lay one slice of Iberian Acorn Ham on top.

Prepare a pan at high fire and when it's very hot cook only for 30 seconds each side of the duck foie. Lay it on top of the Iberian acorn ham and pour some kitchen salt on it.

You've never tried anything like this!!!!

At the climax of the Farm Bill debate ...

In ordinary times, public interest groups have a fairly free hand to advocate for all good things. A better environment. Less government waste. More nutrition. Lower taxes, perhaps.

At crunch time, by contrast, they must make difficult decisions. The priorities of public interest groups as the Farm Bill finally reaches the floor of the House of Representatives are telling. Let's take a look at their websites today.

A wide range of public interest groups oppose the bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee, saying it does not reflect reform. Several of these are pressing hard for adoption of the bi-partisan Kind-Flake "Fairness" amendment, which would limit payments to wealthy farmers and re-allocate a fraction of current row-crop subsidies toward environmental and nutrition priorities, while also reducing the federal deficit. The faith-based anti-hunger group Bread for the World goes all out, with suggestions for letters to legislators and a personal video appeal by the group's president David Beckmann. Oxfam America likewise puts support for this amendment on the front page. The Environmental Working Group and Environmental Defense support the Kind-Flake amendment.

Others, including the Food Research and Action Center, the leading national advocate for nutrition assistance programs, support passage of the Farm Bill without mentioning support for this amendment (that I could find). The front-page alert on FRAC's website points out that House Rules Committee member Jim McGovern (D-MA) has apparently won some funding successes for food assistance programs late in the process, and now supports the House Agriculture Committee's bill. Changes to the rules for debate are described as threats, because the amendments permitted for consideration under the rules recommended by the Rules Committee do not threaten the nutrition programs. FRAC encourages supporters to write legislators and ask them to resist amendments that would harm the prospects of the nutrition program funding, without listing particular amendments to oppose.

Although it might seem perhaps a parochial concern, in a Farm Bill costing many tens of billions of dollars, the Community Food Security Coalition website has a top-of-the-front-page appeal to make sure that $5 million in community food project funding is mandatory rather than discretionary.

As of 5:30 pm, Farm Bill debate on CSPAN is just starting.

Spinachs omelette

Ingredients: 300grs. of Spinachs leaves, 50grs. bacon, 25grs. pine nuts, 4 big-size eggs, olive oil and salt.





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•Boil some water in a pot.
•When the water boils add some salt and the cleaned spinach leaves. Let it boil for 5 to 8 minutes.

•Strain the spinach and make sure they take all water away. Push down with a spoon to dry them.
•Put some olive oil in a pan (if it’s not a new one the omelette can stick to its bottom).

•Add the bacon. Stir for 2 minutes.
•Add the pine nuts. Turn fire low and when pine nuts change their colour…

•They get golden…
•Add the spinach. Keep on stirring and in 3-5 minutes it will be done. Turn off the fire.

•Beat the eggs in a bowl.
•Add the spinach mixture to the eggs bowl.

•Clean the pan and pour some olive oil again. When it’s getting hot, add the mixture. The fire should be medium. Let it cook for 5-7 minutes. Move the pan to see that the omelette doesn’t stick to the bottom.
•Turn the omelette upside down and let it cook 5-7 minutes more. To see if it’s done insert a fork in it and if it comes out clean, it’s done!

•Turn fire off and put omelette in a plate.
•Great to eat hot and super to eat at room temperature!

The Fairness Amendment

An independent analysis by leading agricultural economists this month shows that the commodity provisions of a Farm Bill reform proposal rejected by the House Agriculture Committee, called "Farm 21," would save $21 billion in government spending over five years.

See the report (.pdf) from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI).

The commodity provisions of "Farm 21" would reduce net farm revenue by $19 billion over five years, but the farmers would make some of this money back in reduced rent to non-farmer landowners. Farmers would also benefit from other provisions of the proposal that were not counted in this estimate, including improvements to nutrition and conservation programs.

The "Farm 21" proposal makes sense to strong proponents of Farm Bill reform, but even with the rental savings, increased demand through nutrition programs, and conservation payments, it is easy to see why it has been a hard sell in farm communities. As a consequence, the proposal's long-time sponsor, Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), has recently been working with other legislators on a more "politically practicable" amendment to the largely non-reformist bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee last week.

Early reports suggest the new "Fairness Amendment" preserves some of the strong reform elements, gives ground on others, and incorporates some administration reform themes for bipartisan appeal (see FarmPolicy and the Ruminant). Keep an eye on the Fairness Amendment as the Farm Bill approaches an unusual struggle on the floor of the House.

Steamed about lamb

Right. Okay. We'll take her off the list for free lamb.

Farm Bill links in brief

Dan Owens at the Blog for Rural America traces some misleading talking points as they wind their way through the conventional wisdom, and slams "The 'Reform' that Wasn't." Dan Morgan, writing at FarmPolicy.com, points out that the U.S. business community, outside of the big farm lobby, wants real subsidy reform.

The Washington Post covers a GAO report showing that $1.1 billion in USDA subsidies over the past seven years went to the estates and families of deceased farmers. In a letter, USDA responded that these payments did not necessarily indicate fraud or abuse. According to the Post, "The department's field offices defended the practice of routinely paying dead farmers' estates without fully investigating the claims, citing staff shortages and competing priorities." See the Post's full series of articles, Harvesting Cash.

House Farm Bill is not reform

The Farm Bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday is not reform. It includes some new subsidies for fruits and vegetables, but still tiny compared to the many billions for traditional row crops such as soybeans and corn, which are mainly used as animal feed for meat and dairy production. It includes an effort to cap subsidy payments to some millionaires (!), but there is less to that cap than it appears. There are loopholes, and the proposed bill steps backward on subsidy reform in other respects.

The New York Times reports:

The measure, acted on by a voice vote, stops well short of the wide-scale changes called for by critics of current policies.

A key question is whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will support Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson's (D-MN) bill. Early reports had Pelosi describing the bill as "reform."

See the reports from the Blog for Rural America, the Jew and the Carrot (where our own contributor Aliza Wasserman writes), and FarmPolicy. I liked this image from Mulch, which illuminates the dynamics between Pelosi and Peterson using a Google Maps graphic, which shows the approximate location of subsidy recipients whose address is in San Francisco.

Gazpacho

•Ingredients: 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 onion, 1 or two garlic cloves (depending on how hot you want it) 1 cucumber, 1 Kg. of tomatoes.
•Half glass of olive oil
•¼ of a glass of vinegar
•1 glass of cold water and some salt
•Some dry bread from 4 days ago (more or less).

Get the PowerPoint recipe
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•Cut the peppers, cucumber, garlic and onion in small pieces. Reserve one fourth of each in a recipient apart.
•Cut all tomatoes in small pieces.
•Take a big bowl and put all ingredients inside, toguether with the olive oil, vinegar, salt, water and bread. Cover with plastic film and put in the fridge. Leave it for one day.

If you don’t want to wait for one day, you can make it the same day but it won’t be as flavoured. Take all ingredients and convert them into a sauce.
•This is a typical summer sauce/soup that originally comes from the South of Spain (Andalucía). Very tasty, healthy and full of vitamins.
•Once you serve it, throw some small pieces of peppers, onion and cucumber that we reserved at the beginning of the recipe.
•Perfect for summer heat!

Codfish Gratiné with Allioli

•Ingredients: 4 pieces of codfish, olive oil, flour and allioli.






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•First of all you have to make allioli. See my recipe.
•Take the codfish which you have previously desalated and rinse it.

•Dry the codfish with some kitchen paper.
•Pour some oil in a pan and wait until it gets hot.
•Coat in flour and
•Fry in the oil.

•Fry it both sides, maximum 3 minutes per side.
•Take outside the pan and put in a receptacle than can go into the oven.
•Have the oven ready for gratin (only the upper heat at maximum).

•Cover every piece of codfish with allioli.
•Have it in the oven and gratin for 3 to 4 minutes.

•It’s ready to eat!

Paella

•Ingredients: 200grs pork sausage, 200grs rabbit (could be chicken if you don’t like rabbit). 4 red shrimps, 4 prawns, 200grs. Clams, 1 cuttlefish. Half red pepper, half green pepper, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves, 4 tomatoes, 150grs. Green beans (optional).
•1Kg. Mussels
•400grs. Rice, olive oil, salt, some parsley

•Ingredients for the fish soup: 300grs. Bone fish (any fish is ok), 1 tomatoe, 1 onion, 1 garlic clove and a third part of a monkfish head. Optional. You can use water instead or mussels water instead or a mix of fish soup and mussels water.

Get the PowerPoint recipe
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•First of all, don’t panic! It’s a bit complicated to perform a paella but if you are tidy and patient, you will make it!!!

•Put the mussels inside a pot with 2 fingers of watter in its bottom, cover the pot and when the mussels open take it away from the fire. The fire should be low all the time. Mussels that don’t get opened should be thrown away.
Leave the mussels apart and don’t throw away the watter inside the pot. We will need it for Paella.

•Use a big pan (teflon if possible) and pour some olive oil (see the picture) put the rabbit or chicken and the pork sausage in it. Salt it. The fire should be medium to high. Keep on stirring and turning the pieces so that they get done the same one side and the other.
When they get this colour, take them out of the pan and leave the meat in a plate.

•Proceed the same way with the shrimps and prawns. Salt them and have in the pan maximum 5 minutes. They taste better if they are not too done. Take them away from the pan and put them in a plate.
•Take the cuttlefish and wash it under the tap.Cut it in small pieces. Before you fry it, dry it with kitchen paper (it can jump out of the pan). Stir it for 15 minutes aprox until it takes out the water and changes its colour.

•Add the peppers and onion. Mix it all and stir the ingredients for 8 minutes aprox until the onion changes the colour and gets transparent.

•Here starts what we call sofrito the translation could be "Culin chopped onion and garlic fried in oil with tomatoe sauce". It’s the most important part of the paella! If the sofrito comes out good, then the rest should also be good!!
•Throw the tomatoe sauce and the garlics in small pieces into the pan.
•Keep on stirring with a wooden spoon. Be patient. Don’t run. The fire should be medium all the time.
You will see that the tomatoe sauce seems to disappear in the pan. It gets oily and it gets darker. This is the signal that the sofrito is ready!

•Take the clams that have been all the time in water and salt to leave away the sand. Wash them and put them in the pan.
•In 5 minutes, more or less, the clams will be opened if you put the cover on the pan. After that take out the cover and stir the clams with the sofrito.

•When you have the clams the same way you see in the picture…
•Add the meat and stir up.

•Pour 100grs of rice per person. 4 persons are 400grs or 2 watter glasses. The fire should be medium/high.
•Mix all ingredients in the pan for 3-4 minutes with the wooden spoon.

•Add the fish soup to the pan. (8 glasses, same glass used for rice)
•The fish soup should be boiling when you add it to the pan.
•You should start with the fish soup in a different pot while you start the paella. If you do so, you will have both things ready when you need them. It’s very easy: take a big pot and put the tomatoe, onion, garlic, monkfish head and fish bones inside. Cover it all with water, let’s say, 3 or 4 liters. When it starts boiling take the foam away and count 20 to 30 minutes. The soup will be done then. Add the mussels watter in the soup pot. Keep the fire low so that its boiling when you need it.

•10 minutes after you added the fish soup to the pan, add the shrimps and prawns and some mussels.

•Leave it for 5 minutes and see if it needs more fish soup. If so, add a bit more. After that put the cover on the pan and leave for another 5 minutes.
•The paella is finished!! Don’t wait too long, if you do, the rice could be too soft. If you eat it too soon then it could be too hard. The timing it’s important! 20 minutes total since you throw the rice!

Allioli

•Ingredients: Olive oil, 1 yolk, 1 or two garlic cloves (depending on how hot/strong you want it to be) and salt.




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•Put some salt in the bottom of the recipient so that when you smash the garlic it doesn’t jump out of the recipient.
•Smash the garlic.
•Add the yolk to the recipient and start stirring the the mixture always same direction until you get an homogeneous texture.
•It should look this way.
•Start adding olive oil, little by little. Use one hand to stir and the other to add the oil. Stop with the oil for a little while and keep on stirring always same direction. You will see that it gets more consistent.
•Keep on stirring and adding olive oil.
•The sauce is getting thicker. See the picture. Keep on stirring and adding olive oil.
•The sauce will get so thick that the wooden tool stands alone.
•The more olive oil you add the more sauce you will get. Stop when you think you have enough.
•This is a typical catalan sauce, from the northeast of Spain. Originaly it was made only with garlic (all) and oil (oli) this is where the name comes from.
•It’s very important to use a good olive oil, if possible extra or virgin olive oil. Also if you take the egg out of the fridge a while before starting the sauce it’s better.
•Never use the sauce two days after you made it. You could get salmonelossis.

Trix indeed

General Mills and other major cereal makers will follow the lead of Kellogg and limit advertising of breakfast cereals on children's TV shows, unless the cereals meet certain nutrition criteria (see Brooks Barnes in the New York Times today).

One loophole -- which the news reports noticed -- is that the manufacturers will continue to advertise sugary cereals on family shows, such as American Idol, which actually have a larger audience of young children than the so-called children's shows do.

Another loophole -- which the news reports did not notice -- is that the manufacturers are using tricky numbers. They declared that they would not advertise products with more than 12g of sugar per serving on the children's shows. But, they use smaller serving sizes for some high-sugar cereals, such as Cocoa Puffs, so that these cereals appear to meet the standard.

Here is the lead of the New York Times article:

Trix are no longer for kids — at least not on children’s television shows. But Cocoa Puffs are another matter.

Trying to persuade critics the industry does not need government regulation, 11 big food companies, including McDonald’s, Campbell Soup and PepsiCo, have agreed to stop advertising to children under 12 products that do not meet certain nutritional standards. Some of the companies, like Coca-Cola, have already withdrawn all such commercials or are in the process of doing so. Others, like General Mills, said they would withdraw them over the next year or so, while a handful agreed to expand their self-imposed bans to radio, print and Internet advertising.

Still, the agreements will probably amount to a ripple rather than a sea change in terms of what foods children see pitched on their favorite television shows and Web sites. For example, while General Mills will no longer be advertising Trix to the 12-and-under crowd, it will continue to peddle Cocoa Puffs, which have one less gram of sugar per serving.

On the General Mills website, Cocoa Puffs appear to have 12g of sugar, which would barely meet the standard (click for larger image).


Meanwhile, Trix appears to have 13g of sugar, which would exceed the standard (click for larger image).

But watch out. General Mills' Cocoa Puffs label uses a serving size of 27g, while the company's Trix label uses a larger serving size of 32g. Using the government's customary serving size of 30g for Cocoa Puffs and Trix, both cereals exceed 12g per serving. See these links to labels for Cocoa Puffs (14g sugar) and Trix (13g sugar) on the NutritionData website.

By using a smaller serving size, General Mills made the amount of sugar in Cocoa Puffs look smaller. Really, Cocoa Puffs have more sugar than Trix.

What does it say about the voluntary guidelines that Cocoa Puffs will still be peddled to your kids on children's television?

BEEF, VEAL, LAMB AND PORK

The main source of proteins: Meat! Sorry vegetarians, you better skip this section... Meat lovers, this is your place... grilled, stewed, in a soup, in vinaigrette, in carpaccio, smoked, marinated... there's so many ways to cook it, and even better... to eat it :D

Get a dip in my stews and a bite of my meats... you won't be deceived!!!

Christmas Meatball

Meat stew with potatoes

Meatballs with Squid

Pinchos Morunos

Jerez Kidneys

Pork cheeks with garlic and thyme

Pork feet with Snails

Pork loin in Salt and herbs

Tripe Madrid Style - Callos

Veal's Tongue in vinaigrette sauce

Fricandó

Cassoleta with eggplant and pork butifarra

Veal's Tongue in its Sauce

Pork stuffed Potatoes with Allioli gratin

Steak Tartare

Roasted and Stuffed Pork loin

Lamb Skewers

DRINKS & DESSERTS

Infusions, fruit juices, desserts and sweets. Have a splash into fresh cocktails and refresh your summer nights with love potions.

Know the power of the herbs in infusion and ease your pains with antique recipes. Get your palate delected by these cakes and pies ;D

Love potion nº 10

Chamomile infusion

Tricolored dessert

Chocolaty and Lemony Muffins

Chocolate and Nuts Stave

Strawberry Mousse

Walnut Cake

Muffins (banana & chocolate)

Panellets

Pears Aftereight

Rosquillas

Coffee & Chocolate cup

Sara Pie - La Mona

PASTA & PIZZAS

The kid's favourites! The grown up's favourites! The energy supplier! Please hand me a Pasta dish :D. Don't think our pasta dishes are like the Italians, of course there's some similarities but you will see many differences also... see how many noodles recipes I have hereunder... If you try one... you'll be under a spell and will have to try another one soon ;-)

Fideuá

Noodles casserole (with veggies)

Noodles paella with Duck

Pasta Nest with Quail eggs

Rabbit Noodles casserole

Seafood Noodles

Spaghetti with Shrimps

Warm black Tagliatelle Salad

Carnival Macaroni

Stuffed Purple Eggplant with pasta

Empanada de Chorizo

Cherry tomatoes pasta salad

Pizza with butifarra and eggplant

Pumkin and Orange aromatized cous cous

Mushroom and Spinach canneloni with a boletus bechamel

Coca de recapte or the Pizza's Catalan ancestor

Farm Bill in the House Agriculture Committee

See FarmPolicy and Ethicurean for coverage of today's hearing in the House Agriculture Committee, or listen to the streaming audio yourself.

Meanwhile, I am fascinated by efforts to crunch the numbers and fashion a Farm Bill reform proposal that benefits a majority of Congressional districts that are represented on the House Agriculture Committee. You can see the appeal of this question. Of course, urban and suburban districts would benefit from reform, but their legislators do not care enough to spend political capital on this issue and they do not sit on the House Agriculture Committee. The clever question is to ask what combination of fruit and vegetable subsidies, conservation payments, rural development projects, and community food programs should win the votes of a majority of legislators on the committee.

See this post from the Blog for Rural America and this post from the Ruminant.

EGGS & OMELETS

How many times do we get to the kitchen without knowing what will we cook for dinner and our answer is an omelet? How many times do we ask our kids or husbands what would they like to have and the answer is a fried egg, please?

Here you will find the typical Spanish omelets... a bit different of the rest... but the most juicy and flavourful... what did you expect me to say ;-)

Butifarra's omelet

Oven's veggies' omelet

Spanish Deviled eggs

Spanish Omelet (with potatoes and onion)

Green Peas with Egg and bacon

Spinach's omelet

Fried quail egg on sobrassada toast

Potatoes Spanish omelet and Chorizo

Codfish Omelet

Rice flan with fried Egg on top

CHICKEN, DUCK AND RABBIT

Please rise your hands the ones that wouldn't eat this croquettes.... MMmmmmm such a delish! Crunchy outside and soft and tender inside. C'mon try to cook them yourself and you will be pleased with the result! Your kids will love them!!!

The red meat should only be eaten once a week (always depending on circumstances, if you have anemia, then you can have it more frequently) but the white meat such as rabbit and chicken, and also duck can be eaten three times a week or so. The fat of this animals can easily be discarded because they have it all by the skin and then it becomes healthier than the red meat. This is what we love at home and you will find lots of recipes hereunder... enjoy!

Chicken croquettes

Chicken done with Cider

Chicken Jerez Style

Ducks' wings' Rice

Duck's breast with Pears

Ducks' breast in Nuts

Nut coated Chicken

Rabbit with Rosemary

Rabbit with noodles

Rabbit, prawns and chocolate

Drunken Chicken and its croquettes

Hen in Pepitoria

Baked Cornish Hens and Parsley tattooed potatoes

Calories on fast food menu boards

New York City's rule requiring calorie counts on fast food menu boards may turn out to be more important than the city's new ban on most trans fats in restaurants, which originally received more media coverage (see earlier post).

Currently, the restaurant industry is battling to convince the courts that calorie counts on menu boards are infeasible. To the rest of the industry's embarrassment, Subway's proposed menu board showed that the calorie column is feasible and unobjectionable, from the perspective of a fast food restaurant with little to hide.


Dunkin Donuts tried to show that the calorie label would require unreasonably small print,...


... which prompted New York City's Health Department to have its own artist show how easily Dunkin Donuts could have succeeded if it had wanted.


For the latest news, see the posts on the Consumerist (1) (2) and the brief filed yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), with signatures from some of the most prestigious health policy organizations and scientists in the country.

Spanish omelette - Tortilla de patatas

•Ingredients:
•4 potatoes medium size
•1 onion
•4 eggs (big size)
•Olive oil
•Salt

•Kitchen tools:
•Brand new pan
•Wooden spoon
•Big plate to turn the omelette upside down

Get the PowerPoint recipe
Get the WebAlbum pictures

Peal the potatoes and put them under tap water, then cut them into small pieces. Take the onion and peal it, then cut it in slices and put it toguether with the potatoes.
Take a new pan or one that is only used for omelettes and pour some olieve oil in it (see the picture). Turn the fire into medium. When the oil starts getting hot put the potatoes and onion in the pan.

Take a wooden spoon and keep on moving it. After 5-8 minutes pour some salt and drop the fire to minimum. Then put a cover on the pan (if it has holes is better)
Keep on stirring every 3-5 minutes. If the mixture gets stick to the pan, something has gone wrong… the onions and potatoes should slide inside the pan.

Depending on the potatoes (each kind needs different time for cooking) it will take between half an hour to 45 minutes to have it ready. When you see the texture soft and breaky turn the fire off.

Scramble 4-5 eggs (depending on size) inside a bowl.

Take the onion/potatoes from the pan into the bowl caring that the oil stays in the pan. Use tool with holes to do that. Stir it all up.
Put the oil of the pan inside a recipient. Clean the pan and pour back 3 spoons of this oil, making sure it gets all over the pan and borders.

Drop the mixture into the pan when it’s starting to get hot. The fire should be medium-high. Spread the mixture all over the pan and keep on moving the pan to see that it doesn’t get stick to borders and bottom. Turn the fire into low intensity.

After 5 minutes aprox. Turn the omelette upside down. Leave the omelette out of fire and pour 3 oil spoons. Put back into the pan and cook the other side. Keep the fire low. After 5 minutes aprox. it will be finished!

SPANISH CHARCUTURIE

Charcuteries are specialized shops that sell all kind of pork products, but not just raw meat... these products are marinated, cured, smoked, dried. They go through one or some of these processes and end up in these shops that are also called Tiendas de embutidos. Here you can also find all kinds of Spanish Cheeses and other clasical products such as Pimientos del piquillo, chorizos, foie... This picture is taken at the shop I go and buy my Iberian acorn ham. Manuel, the owner is a profesional that's been working in this business for many years now. If you happen to be in Barcelona please go and check the shop, you'll get a special treatment if you say that Nuria from Spanish Recipes has sent you over. Click here to see the conditions. If you want to buy through internet, please mention my name and blog name too and see what he can offer.

For those of you in the States, Canada and puerto Rico La Tienda's people will be really pleased to help you find all the Spanish products you are craving for!

Pa amb tomaquet i pernil

Melón con jamón

Garbanzos con Chorizo

Figs and Iberian Acorn ham

Callos Madrid-Style

Foie toast with Iberian Acorn ham

Potatoes Rioja-Style

Fabada Asturiana

Cold Carrot's puree with Iberian Acorn Ham

Spanish potatoes omelet with Chorizo

Empanada de Chorizo

Ham wrapped asparagus with Romesco sauce

Stuffed Potatoes with butifarra negra and allioli gratin

SALADS

Light, healthy, fresh and so many ingredients to play with! Salads are perfect for the summer but surely we can eat them during the rest of the year too. Here there's a bunch of them for you to choose. Enjoy!

Summer Salad with Duck's Ham

Aphrodisiac Salad

Figs' Carpaccio

Lobster & Veggies Salad

Russian Salad

Warm Black Tagliatelle Salad

Mediterranean Potatoe Salad

Cherry tomatoes pasta Salad

Stuffed Red Tomatoes

Autumn Salad

Orange Carpaccio in a Salad

SEAFOOD AND FISH

Seafood is soooooo healthy and here by the Mediterranean it becomes a daily dish! It can be expensive if you buy it fresh but there's always the season fishes and seafood for you to choose a cheaper menu. I like to buy it all fresh and just the portion we need on a daily basis. Even though there's some fishes and seafood that accept well being frozen, there's others that completely loose their texture and natural flavour. So my advise is: buy fresh and if you cannot do that daily then do it just once or twice a week.

Trout Navarra Style

Tiny Octopuses in Red wine reduction

Seafood in a coconut

School Shark Sailor-style

Salmon in aromatic pickle

Piquillo peppers stuffed with Codfish

Octopus Galician-style

Monkfish with Romesco

Meatballs with Squid

Marmitako

Marinated Sardines

Ham flavoured Sardines in a red strawberry sea

Locos - Abalone

Lobster veggies salad

Steamed Cider Mussels

Hake Galician-style

Fideuá

Cuttlefish with potatoes

Codfish Pil Pil style

Codfish gratine with allioli

Codfish with potatoes

Changurro

Clams' Rice

Beans and Clams

Anchovies in vinegar

Seafood Paella

Stuffed Squids in Ink sauce

Sweet and Sour Swordfish

Citric's Marinated Tuna

Fresh Salmon with Melon

Locos with Allioli

Octopus in a Stew

Red Mullet stuffed with mushrooms on a bed of potatoes and romesco sauce

Sardines in a Pickle

Fried Frog legs

Squid in its ink or Chipirones en su tinta

Bouillabaisse Soup

Boiled Artichokes with Shrimps & green sauce

Codfish Omelet

Piquillos stuffed with Cod Brandade over parsley sauce

Seafood Skewers

SNAILS

Ahhhh Snails... Mmmmm so yummy! I can understand that you think: Awwggghhh I'm not having that near my mouth... no way!

You are mistaken! I tell you, this little ones are so good, they just combine perfectly well with many things as for example rice or pork or pasta or by themselves. There's only one moment I completely dislike about snails: cleaning them. But after they are cleaned, it's so worth the job :D.

Snails with garlic and mint

Rice Snails with veggies

Licked Snails

Pork feet with snails

SAUCES & DRESSINGS

What is a meat without a good sauce? What's a salad without a flavourful dressing? See how you can improve your dishes just by adding some extra sauces.

Allioli

Guacamole

Romesco Sauce

Rouille Sauce (French)

Parsley sauce

Tiny Octopuses in Red Wine

Ingredients: 1kg of tiny octopuses, half glass of red wine (spanish wines are the best!), 4 onions, 5 tomatoes, 3 garlic cloves, 1 glass of water, olive oil, salt and parsley.



Get the Power Point recipe
Get the WebAlbum pictures

Clean the octopuses. Slice the onions and have them cooking for 1 hour in a covered pot with some olive oil (10 spoons). Very low fire and stir now and then. The onions will become transparent, then add the sauce of the tomatoes and the garlic cloves in small pieces. Cook for half an hour. Add half glass of red wine and stir for 10 minutes. When the alcohol has evaporated, add the octopuses, stir, add some salt and let cook for 5 minutes, after that pour 1 glass of water and cook uncovered for 45 minutes at low fire. Five minutes before it's finished, add some parsley in small pieces.

And it's ready to eat! Enjoy it!
Click on the picture to have a power point presentation. Click on title to go to webalbum with pictures.

VEGETABLES AND FRUITS

Who says that veggies are boring? See them in full swing hereunder: Flavourful, tasteful and in different shapes and textures.

Vegetables and fruits provide us with: vitamins, minerals, water, fiber and antioxidants, therefore, this kind of food should always have a place in our fridge, pantry and table. It's recommended to have 5 pieces per day. What are you waiting for?

Artichokes Greek Style

Artichokes doughnuts

Spinach's' Empanadillas

Escalivada and fresh Anchovie

Figs and Iberian Acorn Ham

Figs' Carpaccio

Gazpacho

Melón con Jamón

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers

Potatoes Rioja Style

Russian Salad

Season Veggies with 3 sauces

Stuffed avocados with Prawns

Stuffed Red Peppers

Trinxat: potatoes + cabbage + bacon

Tomatoe Soup

Figs and Foie

Cold Carrot's puree with Iberian Acorn Ham

Green Gazpacho

Stuffed Purple Eggplant

Leeks & Potatoes Puree with steamed Cider Mussels

Melon and Salmon

Ajo Blanco

Cassoleta with Eggplant and pork butifarra

Red Stuffed Tomatoes

Strawberry Mousse

Ham Wrapped Asparagus with Romesco Sauce

Bicoloured puree with caramelized Orange

Stuffed potatoes with Allioli gratin

Mushrooms and Leeks sandwich

Mushroom and spinach canneloni with boletus bechamel

Broccoli's Hot and Spicy soup

Coca de recapte or Catalan pizza ancestor

Mr. Potato

Boiled Artichokes with Shrimps & green sauce

Avocado's Gazpacho

Piquillos stuffed with Cod Brandade over parsley sauce

Vichyssoise with Ham

Orange Carpaccio in a Salad

About myself

Hola everyone! I'm a spanish housewife (nowadays, old fashioned occupation-job)... I take care of the "house", kids, dog, garden, shoping, clothes and COOKING, among other things. Also I know a bit of English (you will notice that soon) so I thought I could share my knowledge on cooking traditional Spanish dishes with all of you! This blog pretends to be the place where you find good and genuine spanish recipes. Every recipe has its own photo webalbum and also a power point presentation just in case you want to print it. Everything is home made: recipes, pictures, power points... with Patience (first and most important ingredient), Love (basic in kitchen and life) and... Hunger, of course!

All recipes are very typical in Spain, but since this is a multicolored country, recipes performed in the north could be unknown in the south. I will try to show a wide picture of the whole cooking tradition. Differences make us richer!

Every recipe is thought for 4 persons. Measures are in Kilos and grams (sorry about that).

I hope you find what you look for. Any comments are welcome!

Enjoy cooking and enjoy eating it!

SOUPS AND PUREES

I can't imagine a winter day without my soup during dinner.... Mmmmmm. Makes me feel so good! Here you will find all kind of soups and broths for winter but also fresh ones for summer hot days. Veggies and Legumes' Purees to get in full shape and to charge our batteries when feeling low down.

Enjoy!

Zucchini's puree

Tomatoe Soup with Shrimps

Snowwhite, the 7 dwarfs and the Blue Prince

Meat Broth

Fish Stock

Leeks & Potatoes Puree with Steamed Cider Mussels

Gazpacho

Catalan Spinachs cream

Caldo Gallego

Artichockes' Soup with bacon

Aromatic Lentils puree

Ajo Blanco

Green Gazpacho

Bicoloured Puree with caramelized Orange

Broccoli's Hot and spicy soup

Bouillabaisse Soup

Avocado's Gazpacho

Vichyssoise with Iberian acorn ham

Gazpacho aromatized with Basil

LEGUMES

Legumes are always in my pantry and very often on my table. Love them anyway: in stews, just boiled and fresh in a salad, with bacon and ham and some other pork deliciousness, with veggies, in creams and purees... they are basic in my diet!

Even peanuts are a legume, did you know that?

Beans & Clams

Caldo Gallego with Gigantes

Fabada Asturiana

Garbanzos con Chorizo

Pork cheeks with white beans

Stew lentils

Green Peas with eggs and bacon

Hummus

Beans in a stew with Rice and Hot green Peppers

TAPAS AND MONTADITOS

Tapas are such a delish!!! A tapa could be anything... it's just a small portion of a dish, but there's some dishes that make this philosophy easier... for example here you have chicken or ham croquettes and I bet you can not eat only one!!! Tapas is something so Spanish. When walking through the streets of any Spanish town, city or village you will always find a bar with their tapas ready to be eaten together with "un chato de vino" that's a small glass of wine or a fresh beer!

In this blog you will find a few... but be careful... I'm feeding "the monster" :D

Variate tapas

Anchovies in vinegar

Chicken croquettes

Fried egg quail on sobrassada toast

Locos - Abalones

Octopus Galician-Style

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers

Codfish Omelet

Piquillos Stuffed with Cod Brandade version2

RICE

One of the cereals I love the most is.... how could you guess? Rice! It's so versatile, you can cook so many recipes with it! All cuisines have special dishes with rice... it's such a basic and important cereal. There's different kinds of rice, with different qualities but the one I use the most is Bahia and Bomba... these are great for the dishes I like to cook: Paella or rice with (whatever I have) in a casserole.

Hope you enjoy these recipes!

Paella (the traditional one)

Rice with Snails and Veggies

Black Rice with Cuttlefish

Rice Mint Balls with Shrimps and Pistacchios

Lobster Rice

Duck's wings' Rice

Clam's Rice

Black Rice

Seafood Paella: a tutorial

Arros al Forn - Oven's Rice - Arroz al Horno

and yet... another Black Rice... my best try!

Rice flan with fried Egg on top

The internet and food policy advocacy

In yesterday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Bob Condor offered U.S. Food Policy's coverage of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) as an example of using the internet to organize communities in support of public interest food policy positions. Condor's jumping off point was a description of the Chicago-based public interest marketing organization Sustain, which supports family and organic farming in the Midwest:

There are many perspectives about whether the Internet is dividing us or uniting people and communities.

Food activists tend to fall on the side of communitybuilding.

"It used to take days or even weeks to get the word out about an issue or rally," one organic food activist told me several years ago. "Our new weapon is e-mail. We can mobilize people in hours now. It's powerful -- and, believe me, we need it."

That activist, Chicagobased Jim Slama, and his green public relations and marketing firm, Sustain (sustainusa.org), were central figures in convincing U.S. consumers to send more than 275,000 e-mails and postings to the Department of Agriculture in 2000 to take exception to the proposed National Organic Standards.

Before then, organic certification was more in the hands of food activists who wanted to discourage the use of pesticides and other chemicals in plants. The private National Organic Standards Board was adamant that the proposed rules would allow irradiated and/or genetically engineered foods to qualify as organic, plus sewage sludge would be acceptable for watering any "organic"-label food.

Yuck.

But those 275,000 comments worked, thanks in large part to Slama and other activists spreading the word about an extended public comment period. The USDA couldn't neglect the number of comments (and prospective voters) no matter how many lobbyists might be knocking on their doors. By 2001, the final organic rule was passed after reinstating prohibitions on irradiation, genetically modified seed and that nasty sewage sludge.

Sustain's project on family farming, FamilyFarmed.org, was recently chosen at the NetSquared conference as one of 21 public interest projects for future funding and mentoring from leading social networking experts in Silicon Valley.