Welcoming the New Year

Apple cake to welcome 2013! Both look promising (cake and year)!

Merry Christmas from Japan

"Daifuku": "mochi" (glutinous rice paste) stuffed with "tsubuan" (sweet red bean paste).

Brought by a friend from Japan. : )

New favourite

Saturdays lunch. Fresh salad with fennel and algae. Although it's not seasonal, I put some cucumber as well.

One of my favourite dishes out of all the ones I've made up. Sautéed artichokes (previously boiled) with onion and almonds and quinoa (boiled with the water from the artichokes). I fell in love with this dish!

Freshly made paella

Fresh green peas.

Artichokes.

Red pepper.

On the way...

Great paella with fresh ingredients. I'm slowly mastering the paellas!

Cakes in December

Pumpkin cake with dates. Mmmmmmmmmh!

I made pumpkin cake for the family's Christmas dinner.

I made also lemon and chocolate cake. Just lovely.

Friend's visit

A very good friend of mine came home and made this for me. I helped and gave some ideas.

Mushroom risotto with green peas and peppermint.

I used the mushrooms that were left for this dish. Potatoes, carrot and sweet potatoes boiled and fried mushrooms.

Cheese mistake

Wholegrain pasta with fresh tomato sauce with mushrooms, courgette, and onion. Instead of parmesan cheese I used rolled goat cheese. Amazing!

Sunday paella

Paella. This time I added broad beans as my grandma said. Delicious!

Shopping: artichokes.

Did I ever mention how much I like artichokes?

Leftovers

Boiled veggies: broccoli, onion, sweet potato and broad bean. Salad: fennel and tomato.

Big lunch for the weekend

Entrées: hummus and "pico de gallo" (onion, tomato and coriander).

Main dish: "arròs al forn" (rice in the oven with potatoes, chick peas and paprika). Dessert: pumpkin sponge cake.

Light dinner

Chestnuts, orange juice and escarole salad.

Cheeeese!

Goat cheese coated with egg and bread, shiitake and broccoli. Salad with more broccoli and fennel.

Wild dinner

Saffron milk cap and potatoes with rosemary.

Synchronizing in

It has taken a while to put together two of the things I like the most: food and photography. And it has taken another while to take the courage to create what, I hope, you will be seeing here.

My previous blog wasn't much of a success. I guess because I did it not for me, I did it for others. This time it will be all my thing. As we say in Spain: "Yo me lo guiso, yo me lo como".

The idea is to post pictures of what I cook. Although I feed myself everyday, I do not cook every single day, but I do often. But since posting recipes takes a huge load of time, I will just do the other thing I like, and I will take a picture of the so called dish, and post it.

Do not expect fancy dishes. Sometimes the food will look good, some others it won't. I hope that when it doesn't look good, you try to do some mental effort to imagine whether it is tasty or not.
Usually I cook what I have in the fridge, which is mostly season veggies. I am not a cook, I am not an expert, but I have some experience cooking. I hope it is useful for those who struggle to put three ingredients together. Since it takes a lot of time and effort, I will only write a recipe by request; there is no point in writing a recipe that no one will read.

Also, I would like this blog to be a both way discussion, so I will be glad to receive comments, advices, recipes, or if you want to ask something, just do it.

To start with, I will upload pictures of all the dishes I've made since I came to Barcelona to live, which is when I started to cook.

I hope you enjoy the blog!

Good breakfast on Sunday at home: fruits (pear, peach and fig), bread with tomato, avocado and fresh goat cheese and "salmorejo" (tomato soup similar to "gazpacho").

Fig, goat cheese and olive paste millefeuille. Fig, spinach and carrot salad.

Sautéed artichoke with  lemon peel, garlic and chilli.

Shiitake tomato sauce with wholegrain pasta. Salad with beetroot, pumpkin and lino seeds, and peppermint.

Beetroot risotto. *

Beetroot, pumpkin, potato and tomato in the oven.

Padron's bell peppers, courgette and artichoke with garlic, lemon peel and thick salt. 

Orange lentils curry with potatoes, carrot, onion and leek with naan and a mix salad.

Tomato, avocado, fennel and apple salad.