Pear tart, Mama ía blog

Pear Tart, Fruit Trees, and Bougainvilleas

Pear tart, Mama ía blogA pear tree grows in the woods next to my house, and I made a pear tart (actually two!) with its fruit. This pear tree is just one of the wonderful discoveries in my garden this summer and fall. Another one, that I’ve mentioned before, was the “resurrection” of the fig tree I planted last year. And it came out in force. It’s now almost taller than me! The weather is still summer-like, we are having a beautiful, beautiful autumn, but I start to worry about how I will protect it for the winter. I think replanting it in a pot and bringing it indoors is out of the question, the tree is too big. What should I do? Do you have any suggestions? If you do, please tell me! I’d love to see the tree alive and well next spring, and I’m afraid much of it will depend on the kind of winter, less or more harsh, that we have. If there’s a special way of wrapping the tree that will protect it better, I’d love to know.

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Slow baked baby back ribs, Mama ía blog

Slow Baked Baby Back Ribs and Grilled Corn with Ñora Allioli

Slow baked baby back ribs, Mama ía blogI like ribs, but never loved them (I can hear you gasping). Of all the different pork cuts, I never found ribs to be tender enough, instead, I always found them kind of chewy, a cut of meat that was too much bone and not enough meat. In Valencia I had them mostly in rice dishes, like in hearty baked rice, arroz al horno. I love hearty baked rice, it’s one of my favorite rice dishes, but I would eat the chorizo, blood sausage, vegetables and rice before I ate the ribs (sometimes I even pushed them aside). So much so that I don’t even add pork ribs to my hearty baked rice recipe (find it here), even though they’re part of it.

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Grilled corn with ñora allioli, Mama ía blog

Grilled Corn with Ñora Allioli, on a Warm Fall Day

Grilled corn with ñora allioli, Mama ía blogThis might be the tail end of the corn season, but to go with the slow baked baby back ribs I made, I knew I had to make corn. Don’t ask me why, but I associate ribs with corn. And grilled corn with ñora allioli was the answer.

We are a divided house when it comes to corn, some of us like it grilled and some like it boiled. For this recipe I decided to grill it in its husk, and there were no complaints. The sun was shining, it was unusually warm for this time of year, and I was itching to go outside. I wonder, too, if the allioli I made to spread on the charred kernels had something to do with its success at the table. It wasn’t my regular traditional allioli (find that recipe here). The Spanish Tin had sent me a small batch of ground ñora peppers. Ñora peppers! I had never been able to find them in the US, and now I know where to go for them. Ñora is a small, round pepper that grows in the region of Murcia, just south of the Comunidad Valenciana, where I come from. It has a characteristic flavor and medium heat. To know that I can now source them through The Spanish Tin makes me very happy.

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