Cold Weather Food

for a WARM night! Well, the menus were planned last weekend so we will eat! One of our favorite winter dishes is a spicy Kale Soup with White Beans - L. loves an egg on top, I do not like eggs on things that they should not be on .... pizza, soup, etc... I have been dying to make some dishes from my French Cooking weekend so I tossed together this super yummy watercress and celery root salad. Dessert, we had some Roasted Pumpkin Ice Cream left over. I found it not as sweet as I would had liked so I made a warm caramel sauce for the top - okay, after sitting in the freezer for a day and a half the pumpkin has really combined in flavor and with the caramel sauce on top, can you say "Thanksgiving"?

The Last Supper .....

this is how it felt tonight and how sad it was. I always hate long sad good-byes and I wish there was a way to make it all better! Why, let's eat, everything feels better with food! L.'s mother made a few more of his favorites tonight, sweet peas with chorizo, salted cod fish croquettes with peppers and of course wine! I love the salted cod fish croquettes as much as L. does, a definite must learn to make for our home! ps.... was not local but we will be hitting the local trail more faithfully starting tomorrow!

Portuguese Comfort Food

L. loves this dish called "favish" - I am sure I have spelled it wrong - and can not wait until he is back home to have his mother make it for him, I make it but not like Moms! I have to admit, hers is very good - old country style. Reminds me of a dish my great grandmother, grandmother and great aunts use to make, a basque bean dish that they made using red beans. Lucky, for us both we have had it while she is visiting, got to love moms!

Salt Cod

Also, known as baccalá, bacalao, bacalhau, and morue. Cooked with potatoes and served with eggs, olives and spicy peppers. L.'s mom made this special treat for us for dinner .... as always it was Very good unfortunately, not very local though.

Our first Portguese Feast in our home

L.'s mother started cooking up a storm for us early in the day & some of the good news most of it was local and /or organic, so we were able to keep up with the challenge. As her cooking always is, it was very delicious. L. was very happy (7 chicken legs later)to have a home cooked meal that reminded him of home - having his family next to him made he even more happy - this in turn made me happy. (we are all a bunch of happies now). We started with a rice based soup which we added bits of chicken as well as a squeeze of lemon. Very light and refreshing. Reminded me of a dish my grandmother and great-grandmother made, but with rice and garlic - we usually got it when we were not feeling well. The main course was a baked chicken dish with potatoes (I love these guys) and chorizo - spiced with peppers, wine and tomato.

Chickpea Stew

Since dinner was such a wreck a couple nights ago I decided to make something with one of L.'s favorite ingredients ... the chick pea! I was inspired by a recipe in Food & Wine. I did alter it a little since I did not have bay leafs nor raisins. Regardless, it was wonderful not to mention ... very easy and quick! I wanted to spice it up so I sauteed some french Portuguese Peppers with olive oil and then sprinkled salt over them.

Sunday Night ........

We came home to find our garden flourishing ...... and fava bean glalore! In honor of the August Monthly Mingle I decided to do something with what is in our garden. First to answer the question of how we try to help the earth? Well, we do have an organic garden growing, hence this meal as well I try to shop locally and organic as much as I can and we also recycle. For dinner, I used all the favas from the garden to make a risotto. I used my basic risotto recipe; but, this time I browned the rice a little before adding the broth and wine. L. is Portuguese and loves spicy and favas so I sauted them with shallots, garlic, olive oil and a spicy red chili. I zested some Meyer Lemon (from a neighbors tree) over the top right before serving!