Braised Green Beans in Smoky Tomato Sauce —and the town of Sant Mateu
The weather has been incredibly cold and snowy this winter across much of the United States (even in Florida!). And it’s not over yet! February just ended, so there could be even some more snow and cold temperatures in store for us. In these weather conditions, there are some foods that I crave: soups, stews, and rich, filling vegetables, like this braised greens beans in smoky tomato sauce that is so idiosyncratically Spanish, it almost transports me there.
Borrull Palace, Sant Mateu
You can eat it as an accompaniment to any grilled fish, chicken or meat, but you can also have it as a hearty lunch, scooping up the delicious tomato sauce with pieces of crusty bread. Yum!
This cold winter is making me long for summer, and even though it is still a few months away (we just started the season of Lent!), I want to dream of it by writing about the beautiful town of Sant Mateu —San Mateo in Spanish, Saint Matthew in English—to accompany the recipe of braised beans with smoky tomato sauce. (more…)
In my aim to make the most of my time, I love it when I can make two different dishes out of one. Wild garlicky mushrooms with sherry that I made as a side dish for an entrée, become today one of the main ingredients in revuelto de setas, scrambled eggs with wild mushrooms.
Today’s recipe for scrambled eggs with wild mushrooms is simple, because it uses the previous post’s recipe. This is one of those comfort food, rustic dishes that are made all over Spain, but are specially popular in central Spain, in the Castiles.
This is in a way a continuation of the last post, where I talked about the centers of knowledge in the Spanish city of Salamanca, the University of Salamanca and the Pontifical University of Salamanca (you can check this post 
I never imagined when I planted two small eggplant plants in my vegetable garden that they would grow to give such generous production for our family. I get 2 to 4 eggplants every couple of weeks, just enough to supply us with produce to make some of the dishes we are familiar with, like 
I leave you with a few photos of the eggplants in the garden, used to prepare today’s recipe, fried eggplant sticks. But I wanted to add some more to this post. Today is National Teaching Spanish Day, and I couldn’t help talking about it. Why? Because 
Every time Thanksgiving comes around, I feel I have to explain myself about why I post these recipes. Because today’s recipe, fruit and pinenut stuffing, is not something I ever cooked in Spain. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Spain, therefore its cuisine and traditional dishes are something purely American.
Alcachofas, artichokes, are probably my mom‘s favorite vegetable. And if you make them using this recipe, it might become your favorite vegetable too. Bye-bye chips! For that touch of crunchiness plus an overdose of flavor, try alcachofas fritas, crispy artichokes, which could easily be called artichoke chips.
I’ve been wanting to post the recipe for salsa romesco —or rather, salsa romesco con calçots, romesco sauce with calçots—, for a while. So when I spotted some very fat green onions at the market last week, I knew I had to make a calçotada at home. And what a happy coincidence that calçots are now in season in Spain! A mostly winter or very early spring dish, it was also very appropriate to make them as we were being buried in snow, as the photos can attest. School as cancelled for the whole week!
We are starting out the year right, with lots of vegetables and lighter meals. Today’s recipe, mushrooms with leeks and peas, is so satisfying it will not leave you craving any animal protein.
I used so many of my garden vegetables for pisto that its recipe could only be posted alongside more on the progress of the vegetable garden, or Part 3.
We’re starting to see the fruits of our efforts, and with a bounty of vegetables from our garden, I‘ll be posting more recipes that use them. This post brings you a wonderful gazpacho that could be rightly called green gazpacho, a cucumber gazpacho that includes not only cucumber but also avocado and some other fruits of our garden: green pepper, jalapeño, basil and parsley. You see? A green gazpacho!
