It was normal to have a small snack or tapa in most bars in Spain, from a small plate of crisps, salty peanuts or fried almonds to some seafood. Even buying a 1kg sack of almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts wasnt that expensive.
Now, when I go to Portugal or Spain, I try to buy some small bag of fried almonds. But now I wanted to do it myself because I had the gut feeling that it couldnt be that difficult. I found this video and I used it as reference.
Ingredients:
200gr almonds (with skin)
pinch of salt
olive oil for frying
Process:
Put the almonds in a sauce pan with boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes.
Remove the almonds from the water, let it cool down for 1 minute and then remove the skin. It should be quite easy. Recommended to push with your fingers from the side of the almond, not the tips.
Dry them in kitchen paper.
Put a frying pan at medium heat with the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the almonds and kit stirring.
Once the almonds get golden, remove the pan from the heat and take the almonds for the oil, trying to drain as much oil as you can. Then put again in kitchen paper to soak up more oil.
While warm, add salt to the taste of the almonds.
Once they are cool down you can store them in a glass jar.
For some time I wanted to read “War and Peace“. It has taken me just over a month although initially I had my doubts about the book. I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it. Why did I read it? Apart from recommendation from the few people I follow/read in the Internet, it is because I think reading this type of books will make me wiser, smarter, find the solutions to the mysteries of the universe and life (it is not 42), etc etc. It never happens. But at least, I try to learn something new, soaks up new experiences, conversations, etc.
I liked the intro about the book and Tolstoy life. A highlight of that is he tried to remove copyrights of his novels, he belonged to old nobility family and fought in the Crimean war.
The book is focused in the Napaleonic Wars in Russia. I was surprised how strong was the French influence in Russia. The nobility was mainly French educated and there are parts of the book where some characters mention how bad is their Russian.
It is a long book, thought was going to be boring but was engaging. I guess it is an stereotopic: Russian things are boring, grey, dull. It is luck of knowledge of Eastern countries (real) culture. It felt like a “Pillar of the Earth” + a soup-opera. But it wasn’t cheesy at all. So see how deep and different is each character. How they evolve. There is some (life) philosophy (mainly from Pierre during his spell in the front) that really got me. It is something that I really believe in: simple life. And there are a lot pages about (the complexity / meaning) of love.
But mainly the book is about History. I have learnt history mainly based in big characters and actions. But Tolstoy’s point is History is not really that, is not that rational/causistic as we try to believe (and write). He focus several times in Napoleon. How he was a genius in some battles but then how he failed in Russia campaign. Tolstoy argues that is not just Napoleon’s action that produce those outcomes. It was everything around. But we try to focus and justify outcomes in just one fact.
The novel doesnt really have an end. It just ends. It is not made in Holiwood. So it is nice.
Since I had to reinstall my laptop, I have had to tune missing things. One of them was when updating Debian I was constantly having errors with two repositories so I couldn’t get the packages from there. I have been lazy because it wasn’t stopping me for doing anything but I decided to fix that. I have seen this before so it is not totally new but I was surprised as I couldn’t “fix” the key for the Debian Tor repository.
The error for getting the key for “www.deb-multimedia.org” was fixed following this post:
I tried similar approach for “deb.torproject.org” but it failed. I checked the official way to use that repo here. It was a bit different as I do currently as I use the “sources.list” and the post recommends to create a dedicated file. I didn’t pay much attention to it and tried to follow those instructions but using my current config setup. It was still failing. I checked the repo was real. I tried to use a public keyring (based on this) but same result. But at the end I found the solution here:
##### 3rd Party Binary Repos
###Debian Multimedia
deb [arch=amd64] http://www.deb-multimedia.org testing main non-free
#deb [arch=amd64,i386] http://www.deb-multimedia.org buster main non-free
###TOR
deb [arch=amd64] http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org testing main
#deb-src [arch=amd64] http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org testing main
So I wasn’t doing the same as I thought.
And somehow I forgot how to scroll using the keyboard with Terminator….and I was sure it worked before. I checked the keysetting and couldnt find anything. I thought something was misconfigured. Then I searched and found this. So as each laptop has a different keyboard setup, I noticed the “shift + PageUp” was actually in my keyboard “shift + Fn + PageUp”.
And after sooooo many years, I decided to add spell check for Spanish in GC.
“Tortas de Mosto” is a typical sweet from “La Mancha” region in Spain. And it is one of my favourite sweets from my hometown. When I was there last December, taking a look at the process of baking “tortas” was one of my (many) goals. I didnt get the recipe but noticed ingredients that I wasnt aware like using bread starter.
Another thing, in my hometown, didnt use Mosto, I think they do it only in Summer. So they used good orange juice instead.
Although I could remember nearly all ingredients, I wasn’t very confident, so I searched for some video without many expectations but lucky me I found this! Thanks to Cristina!
To be honest, I have tried twice. The first attempt wasnt really good. I over fermented the dough…. and I forgot to add sugar!!!! Somehow I didnt notice that “step”. It makes sense, mosto is very sweet and orange juice is not that sweet.
Ingredients Bread Starter
100ml water
150g plain flour
7gr dry yeast
(need to try to add 1 tsp of sugar next time)
Process Bread Starter
In a small bowl, mix the yeast with water, then add the flour.
Be sure everything is well incorporated, make a ball with the dough. You dont have to knead it.
If you are going to make “tortas” next day, cover it and put it in the fridge. If using during the day, let it rest for 2h or until it doubles up in volume
Tortas Ingredients (8-9 tortas)
Bread Starter
250ml good orange juice
250ml good virgin olive oil
7gr dry yeat
150gr sugar
zest of one lemon
1 shot of anís / sambuca
2 egg
600gr plain flour (maybe strong flour next time) – You dont have to use all flour.
Finish touch: 1 mixed egg + sugar
Tortas Process:
In a bowl, mix the orange juice, olive oil and sugar. Then add the yeast. Combine everything well. Add bread starter and mix again. It doesnt have to disolve.
Add half of the flour or so, mix a bit. Add the egg and lemon zest (and anise). Mix and keep adding more flour. Try not to use all flour.
Pour the dough into the table and knead for 15-20 minutes or so until the dough is smooth and doesnt break when trying to make a window. Add a bit of flour if need but it shouldn’t stick much as the dough has olive oil.
Leave the dough to rest for 1 hour or so until it doubles up in size.
Knock off the air of the dough, make a ball again.
Prepare to baking trays. You can spread a bit of flour or use baking paper on them.
Pre-heat oven at 175C
Now make small balls of 170g each (using an scale) from the main dough. So you have similar size tortas. I managed to put four balls per tray. Leave as much space as possible between them.
Once you have all balls in the tray, you need to flat them using your fingers going by the sides of the ball. Until you have a kind of big disc.
Cover the trays and leave them to rest again around 30-40 minutes. They should raise again.
Whisk one egg, wash the top of the tortas that are going to go to the oven now (just one tray). Then add plenty of sugar on top of each torta. Be sure the egg doesn’t get to the bottom so it doesnt stick!
Bake for 25 minutes or so. They need to be dark golden! Let it cool down and repeat the process with the second tray.
Before baking
After baking
To be honest, they were great compared with my first attempt. They are not like the ones from my hometown but they are really good enough. I enjoyed a warm torta for dinner last night, heaven!
I think I can improve it like adding a bit more sugar or another egg, etc.
Let’s see for the next attempt!
This is my last attempt: 231118
I have updated the recipe. I added two eggs, 1 shot of sambuca, and didnt flat the tortas. They raised (not as much as the real ones) but they cracked. The texture is better but still no that spongy. As well, not sweet enough. I added 100g sugar, next time 150g. The kneading was a long one but I think it was good at the end.
After watching this video, I decided to make my own tahini as I used it for Baba Ganoush and Humus. So I bought a 1kg bag of sesame seeds and got with it. To be honest I made a couple of mistake. Firstly my blender is not very powerful so I should have used less sesame seeds and secondly, I got confused and I added water too. At the end I improvised a bit, adding water, olive oil and a bit of tumeric. I didnt get the super liquid tahini from the video but still my paste was eatable. I used for baba ganush and it was tasty!
And…. is better my homemade tahini than the store one? To be honest, they are so different, yeah, flavour is similar, maybe more “sesamy” in the homemade. I am not a tahini expert at the end of day but I prefer the homemade, I just know it has two ingredients.
Ingredients:
1 cup (or less) of sesame seeds
olive oil
optional: 1 tsp tumeric
Process:
Toast the sesame seeds in a pan for 4-5 minutes, until the start to sweat and get a bit brown.
Put the hot sesame seeds in the blender and start to mix until it forms a paste and the blender can’t do anything else. Add olive oil bit by bit. In my case, I had to add much more liquid and I added spoons of water too to get to a creamy state. Optionally, add the tumeric.
Pour the tahini into a clean (with boiling water) crystal jar.
Add some olive oil on top to avoid oxidation. Keep it in the fridge.
Second attempt. Much better! Don’t add water!!!! Tumeric is still quite optional.
For NYE dinner, I planned a vegan menu for a couple of friends. I found this video about vegan chicken based on wheat gluten or seitan. I didnt know that product but checking online it was esay to find. I liked the recipe because it was quite complete with the mushroom sauce and creamy potatoes. All the efforts go to the author in the videos.
Vegan Sausage Ingredients:
1 cup of soy milk
1/2 cup of mixed dry mushrooms
2 tsp dried onion
2 gloves of garlic minced
1/2 cup vegetable stock
150g firm tofu
3 tbsp white miso paste
2 tbsp maple syrup (+ 2tbsp for frying)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp tahini
2 tsp dried sage (*I am not keen of dry thyme)
300g wheat gluten / seitan.
Vegan Sausage Process:
In a blender mix all ingredients but the seitan.
Then add the liquid mix to the seitan.
Knead for 15 minutes. I was surprised how spongy was the dough! It wasnt very sticky so it was ok to deal with.
Make a roll from the dough, like a big sausage, then cut in three pieces, or more depending how big is your pans.
Wrap each piece with oven-proof baking paper, like a sweet. Then wrap it again with foil.
Depending on your pan, put two or three pieces, cover well with water the sausages, heat up the water and let it simmer for 90 minutes.
Let is cool down. Remove the foil. At this point, you can keep them in the fridge. For using a different day or carry on.
In a hot saucepan, put 2 tbsp of maple syrup and fried a couple of sausages until the surface is caramelized.
Then put in a pre-heat oven at 220C for 10-15 minutes.
Remove from oven, let it cool down a bit and ready to eat!
Mushroom Sauce Ingredients
250g sliced chesnut mushtooms
2 red onion
Splash of red wine
Salt + pepper
120ml soy cream
Mushroom Sauce process:
In a hot saucepan, add a bit of olive oil, mushrooms and onion. Add salt and pepper.
Once the mushrooms start taking a golden color, add the alcohol. Wait a little bit until it vaporizes.
Add the soy cream. Mix clean for a couple of minutes.
Remove from the heat and serve with the sausages.
Creamy Potatoes Ingredients:
1 can of coconut milk
1 cup of soy milk (use the coconut can)
2 red onions chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp mustard
2 tsp say sauce (or nutritional yeast)
salt + pepper
5 potatoes
Creamy Potatoes process:
Put all ingredients apart from the potatoes in a pan, heat up at medium heat. Let it simmer.
Pre-heat oven at 180C
Slice the potatoes as much thin as possible.
Add the potatoes to the sauce. The sauce should cover all potatoes.
Let it cook them for 5 minutes or more so the sauce starts to thick a bit.
Pour the potatoes mix in a ovenproof dish. Cover with a bit of baking paper. Put in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Then remove the paper and let the top to caramelize (I had to change the oven setting to grill).
Remove from oven and sever with your mushroom sauce and sausage!
Although the picture doesnt look great, I have to say the sausage was tasty (it didnt taste like chicken) and the potatoes very creamy. I didnt like much the mushroom sauce because the thyme (so I have removed it from the ingredients 🙂
I received as a gift this book for Christmas and I was told his torta de laranja was very famous in Portugal. I have never cooked this cake before so for NYE dessert I changed my mind and decided to try this cake. I have tasted it in Portugal before, and to be honest it was never my favourite. I prefer the “algarroba” (carob), almonds, etc cakes. But, I wanted to see if all the hype was worth it.
One of the things that strike the most is how simple is the recipe in the book, few ingredients and steps. Still I didn’t feel confident and tried to find a video. This one was longer but made me doubt as it was using a bit of butter. As well, I wasn’t clear about how to do bain marie in the oven. This video was shorter and could see some other details regarding the bain marie (I was overthinking it) and spreading some sugar after taking out the cake from the oven.
Ingredients:
500g sugar
50g plain flour
15g dry yeast
2 big good oranges (zest and juice)
12 eggs
Knob of melted butter
Process:
Pre-heat oven at 220C
Use a bit of butter and spread in the baking tray. This helps the baking paper to keep flat. Then add oven-proof baking paper. Spread a bit of butter on top of the baking paper. This avoids the cake to get stuck to the paper and it easier to remove after baking.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl: sugar, flour and yeast.
Add orange zest and juice, mix
Add the 12 eggs. Mix well.
Add the rest of melted butter. Mix well.
Poor the mix into a baking tray.
In another tray, add water and get the tray in the bottom of the oven. This will make the bain marie.
Put the cake tray above the water tray in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Till the top is golden.
Remove the cake from the oven. Spread some sugar on top while hot.
Get another piece of baking-proof paper. Turn the cake into that piece of paper.
Remove carefully the paper from the cake.
The cake is very hot, and in theory you should try to roll it now using the baking paper you have. Like in the videos, bend one side, and roll.
Cut a slice from each side to make look nice. Then let it cool down.
Enjoy!
Mine was a bit too long in the oven and cracked in the middle. And as well, when rolling, it was superhot and a bit too thick and broke it even more during the process.
As well, I have always heard that orange and chocolate mix very well. So as I had a bit of home made chocolate spread, I decided to cover half of the torta with it. Maybe this is heresy 😛
And to be honest, my friends like it!
It is a very calorific cake: 500g of sugar! But was nice. Another thing, I had issues with the oranges. I couldn’t find proper oranges so I used “good” orange pressed juice with one orange I brought from Portugal. Still tasted good.
I finished yesterday the second book of the Foundation series. It was a short book but quite engaging. I am really impress how Asimov can create so different characters in the book. And really nice twist in the story line. Looking forwards for the next one.
This is not another cooking recipe. This is a book a finished this week. Initially I was a bit worried that it was going to be a pain. As usual, I dont remember where I got the recommendation for the book. But after starting reading it, I didnt regret it. It hit me. The concept of feeding your demons it based on the teachings of Machig Labdron. She was a Buddhist master that developed a new way of meditation. She faces problems with a different approach, instead of fighting them (very western style) tries to connect, understand, nurture and merge with them.
I remember while doing my headspace meditation some time ago, one week exercise was to focus in somebody you hated and wish then the best. It was hard but I felt at peace after that. This is the “Chod” method in a very simple way. I liked the example of Hercules fighting the Hydra. Whenever he cut a head, another grew and there was an immortal head. So that’s how we normally deal with our problems (internal or external) fighting them, trying to defeat them. But unfortunately, our mental/philosophical/live issues always come back alive like the hydra. So we need a different approach.
The book give you plenty of examples where you can use the Chod method. And explain the different types of demons, finishing with the main one, the ego. At the end of the day, that’s the source of all our problems. And this is something that reminds me too to Stoicism.
From my point of view, my main demon is relationships/feelings. My excuse is I dont want to lose my autonomy/independency. I dont want to get hurt. I dont want to show my weakness. It is fear to be loved and love.
It is something I still need to work on, not fight.
I take this as a new and important skill in my mental toolbox. And I need to practice it. Theory is not enough.
Once a month I buy two big containers of olives: blacks (small) and greens (big). Just with stone. I found them with much more flavor that anything you buy without stone. It is like sunflower seeds… the ones you have to peel feel tastier!
Yesterday I noticed the green olives were getting moulds…. They were not the typical ones I buy, they had some kind of cut sideways… that makes the meat to be in contact with the air… and get spoiled much faster…. The black olives were fine. So I decided to clean the olives, remove the stones, put them in a container with water and next day cook something with them.
So I remember some kind of paste you could do with olives and that is tapenade. So I found this super quick recipe and gave it a go.
Ingredients
300gr olives without stone
1/2 lemon juice (or less)
1/2 glass olive oil ( or less)
4-5 garlic cloves
bunch of fresh basil leaves
4-5 slices of sundried tomatoes.
Process
In a blender, add all ingredients and blitz for a couple of seconds and give it a test. more lemon? more olive oil?
Transfer to a clean crystal jar and keep in the fridge.
In my case, I made a mistake of putting too much lemon (full lemon juice) and I had to add more olive oil and olives to compensate. Will learn for the next time. I hope It last for a bit in the fridge. It will be very nice with a toast…
