Food Bloggers Unplugged

I was very excited the other day when I found out that Anne of Anne´s Kitchen had tagged me for Food Bloggers Unplugged- I´ve never been tagged before!!! It is an event created by Susan from on a A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate in order to get to know other food bloggers. The aim is to answer 10 questions about yourself and than tag 5 other bloggers to participate if they want to.

So here goes:
What, or who, inspired you to write a blog?
I started reading blogs such as Anne´s Kitchen and Gourmet Traveller, which I really admired and as I had time on my hands at that moment in time and I was getting more and more into cooking and baking, thought it would be a good idea to start my own blog as a way of pushing myself and honing my skills to become a better cook!

Who is your foodie inspiration?
My wonderful Gran as she was an excellent cook and made the most delicious cakes-she was always baking and cooking and I used to help her with the easy stuff and then licked the bowl clean!! So she was the one who probably sparked my interest in baking and cooking more! Her homemade apricot jam was to die for too!!

Your greasiest, batter-splattered food/drink book is?

Oh, a difficult one as I´m always flicking through all my cookbooks but it definitely has to be a toss-up between Delia Smith´s Complete Cookery Course and Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book, which I bought the first time I stayed in the USA, as all the recipes from it are yummy and usually turn out really well!

Tell us about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

Another difficult one!! It´s really hard to narrow it down and remember!! I´m going to cheat and say a couple of things as I find it impossible to narrow it down to just one! Roast duck a l´orange in a Portuguese restaurant or roast suckling pig in Spain (particularly good in Segovia!), Eggs Benedict in the buffet breakfast in Niagra Falls (see Discovering Niagra post) and sweet things either the blueberry hotcake at Pamela´s Diner in the Strip District in Pittsburgh or cherry pie in the USA.

Another food bloggers table you´d like to eat at is?

I love Asian food so I´d probably pick something from either Gourmet Traveller´s or Sunflower´s Food Galore table but there are plenty of things I´d love to try on all the blogs I read, visit or follow!!

What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

Probably a Kitchen Aid mixer for all my baked goods!!

Who taught you how to cook?

Apart from helping my Gran and Mum when I was little, I mainly taught myself how to cook using recipe books and I also did a GCSE in Food Technology, which also helped!!

I´m coming to you for dinner what´s your signature dish?

My signature dessert is definitely cherry cheesecake, not sure what my main course signature dish is! Maybe my Don Quijote burgers but since I´ve only made them for me and my OH not sure what everyone else thinks about them!

What is your guilty food pleasure?

I have a really sweet tooth so anything like chocolate etc. I absolutely love marzipan-in fact I used to prefer the icing and marzipan to the fruit cake-still do actually!!

Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Don´t know! I don´t like coffee, beer or wine! Or maybe that I have lived in the UK, Germany, Spain and the USA!

Anyway,here´s the five I´ve tagged to join in although it´s not compulsory:

Gill at Gillthepainter

Extra Relish

Debs at thespanishwok

The Rambling Chef

and last but not least: Mamacook

Torrijas (Spanish Style French Toast) & 6 weeks to go!

I don´t know whether Torrijas is classed as a cake or a dessert but it´s definitely one of my favourite Spanish cakes or desserts and they are very typical and traditional at Easter time, so I also decided to enter it in the Easter Cake Bake blog event over at A Slice of Cherry Pie (if you click on the above link you will find out all the details about this event and how to enter).

I had a bash at making Torrijas once before and wasn´t very successful.I think it´s because I didn´t buy the right kind of bread (apparently this is the main secret to making perfect Torrijas)and also I put too much bread to soak in not enough milk, so they didn´t get wet enough so this year I thought I´d give it another try. I used Mil Postres recipe for torrijas as a basis for making my torrijas and this time they turned out perfectly and were absolutely delicious (even if I do say so myself!). My mum did the frying though as she didn´t want any hot oil to spit out onto my pregnant belly!

Ingredients (makes 8 to serve 4 people)

8 slices of special bread for torrijas (if you can´t get this bread, you could use brioche, milk bread, French baguette or even normal sandwich bread, however it is important that it is thickly sliced)
1/2 litre (just over 3/4 pt) of milk
100g sugar
1/2 cinnamon stick
peel of 1/2 lemon
2 eggs, beaten
abundant sunflower oil for frying
extra sugar & ground cinnamon (for dusting)

Method

1. Place milk, sugar, cinnamon stick and lemon peel in a pan and heat until warm and milk becomes infused with the flavours. Do not allow milk to boil.
2. When milk has cooled, strain the milk through a sieve and put bread in milk and leave for some minutes (about 10-15) until bread has soaked up the majority of the milk. (as pictured below)


3. Dip bread in beaten eggs and then fry in abundant sunflower oil until golden on both sides.



4. Drain torrijas on kitchen roll to get rid of excess oil.
5. Mix sugar and cinnamon (I eyeballed the amount but there was definitely more cinnamon than sugar as I love cinnamon!)together and then dip the torrijas in sugar & cinnamon mix to coat them on both sides.




We put them in the fridge and ate them the following morning for breakfast.Yummy!

Anyway, the weeks are flying by and I am counting them down...there are only 6 more weeks (well 5 after this week finishes) till I give birth, which I´m looking forward to,well, maybe not the actual birth! ; ) and it´s all very exciting. I´m not sure how consistent my blogging will be up to and after the birth but hopefully will find some time to blog & bake or cook!

Goat´s Cheese and Cranberry Salad

I´m so excited as this is the first time I´ve taken part in a blog event! Nuría over at Spanish Recipes is hosting a new bimonthly event Eating Good Feeling Good which will look at a different ingredient from the Food Pyramid in each event. The first ingredient of this month´s event is olive oil and I knew as soon as I saw it I knew which recipe I would be submitting!

Living in Spain I have been converted to olive oil and use it every day in my cooking from frying to salad dressings.I even use it for Chinese stir-frys!! My favourite ways to use olive oil is for frying and in salad dressings. However, I still can´t get used to putting it on toast in the mornings for breakfast and I prefer a mild olive oil as it doesn´t have quite as strong a taste as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, so it is more versatile and can be used in all types of dishes. Although olive oil is very good for your health, it is still a fat and I only use a little when frying-one bottle lasts me for at least a month!I believe that olive oil is good for your health because it is rich is monounsaturated fats which lower the risk of coronary heart disease and it actually lowers the cholesterol in your body.

Anyway, although olive oil is not strictly the main ingredient in this recipe, it is a very important ingredient in the recipe. As the days are starting to get warmer (at least they were!) sometimes it´s too hot to be slaving over a hot oven, so a salad is just what you need. And what could be healthier than a salad? The idea for this salad came from a recipe I saw for Goat´s cheese and Cherry salad in Allrecipes which I adapted to what I had in my fridge at the time and it has become a firm favourite. I think the flavours just blend together really well, the tart sweetness of the cranberries and pear with the crisp tang of the lettuce leaves and the creamy bite of the goats cheese.

Ingredients (serves 2 as a main dish)

85g bag of mixed salad (baby leaf salad is particularly good)

1 medium/large ripe Conference pear, peeled and chopped

1/3-1/2 cup dried cranberries

55g goats cheese, chopped or crumbled

a couple of slices (smoked) ham or turkey, chopped (optional)

pinch of salt to taste

about 1 tbsp mild olive oil

about 1 tsp red wine vinegar

Method

1. Place ingredients in a bowl.

2. Season with salt and dress with the olive oil and red wine vingear. Toss to cover salad completely with the dressing.