Coconut balls

Oh, my God! Christmas is here and I have had no time to publish anything…

Before everything is over, here are some coconut balls that I made for Christmas Eve. They are really good and very easy to make.

I take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

COCONUT BALLS

200 g of condensed milk

125 g of grated coconut

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate cover

Mix the coconut, condensed milk and vanilla. Put the mixture to cool in the fridge. When the mixture has more consistency form little balls and cover them with melted chocolate. Leave to cool until the chocolate hardens.

Russian salad

There are thousands of versions of this recipe, and all are delicious. A salad suitable for both summer and winter. In fact, I usually prepare more often in winter. I am a little apprehensive with the combination of heat and mayonnaise, and as I like homemade mayonnaise ...

Here is my version.

RUSSIAN SALAD (serves 4)

4 medium potatoes

2 carrots

1 handful of frozen peas

1 egg

1 small tin of tuna

1 slice of onion

1 slice of green pepper

Several lettuce leaves

White wine vinegar

Salt

And for the mayonnaise:

1 egg

Sunflower oil

Lemon juice

Salt

Peel potatoes and cut into medium size pieces. Peel carrots and cut into small pieces.

Put them in a pot to boil in salted water with the washed egg (making sure it has no cracks in the shell) and peas.

Meanwhile in a bowl finely chop the onion and pepper. Add the tuna, drained and flaked.

When the potatoes are tender, put the egg aside and drain the water. Pour the potatoes, carrots and peas in the bowl with the onions. When the egg has cooled slightly, peel it and chop it. Mix everything together with a splash of vinegar. Add more salt if needed. Now prepare the mayonnaise.

Wash well the raw egg (I use soap and a cloth) and put it into the blender receptacle. Add some salt and begin to beat on high speed with ascending and descending movements. Then, start adding the oil slowly without stopping the blender. Check that the oil is incorporated into the mayonnaise before adding more. Stop adding oil when the mayonnaise has acquired the desired consistency. At this point add the lemon juice and salt to taste.

Wash and chop the lettuce and add to the potato mix that would have now lost most of the heat.

It only remains to add several tablespoons of mayonnaise to the salad and toss well to make it homogeneous. I prefer not to mash the potato too much.

Potato and chorizo casserole

I don’t know about you, but at this time of the year I crave a lot for soups and stews in general. Winter is almost here! So to be prepared, today I bring you this dish that is really easy to prepare.

POTATO AND CHORIZO CASSEROLE (serves 2)

2 medium potatoes

1 onion

1 small green pepper

2 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon of paprika

½ chorizo

1 bay leaf

Olive oil

Salt

Finely chop the onion, pepper and garlic, and sauté everthing in a pot with a splash of olive oil and the bay leaf.

Meanwhile peel the potatoes and crack them with the knife into pieces. This way, we get a thicker consistency.

Add the chopped chorizo​​, potato and paprika and cook for a couple of minutes. Then cover with water and cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add salt to taste and serve.

Notes:

- The cooking time depends on the type of potato. If you see that the potatoes are tender but the dish has become very "watery" you can smash several pieces of potato to thicken the sauce.

- This dish is also very good if you add a bit of cayenne pepper.

Squid in sauce

A quick and tasty recipe. I made it the other day just for myself. I didn’t what to cook anything complicated but didn’t want the typical fried egg and chips.

In the freezer, I always have frozen squid that I normally use for paella. This time I gave them a different use.

SQUID IN SAUCE (for 1)

3 small squids

½ onion

1 clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of tomato sauce

Olive oil

White wine

Chopped parsley

Salt

Clean the squid and cut them into rings. In a pot with a splash of oil (I did in the pressure cooker to save time, but can be cooked in any other pot), fry the onion and garlic finely chopped, being careful not to burn them. 


Add the squid and cook for a couple of minutes then add paprika, tomato sauce and a splash of white wine and close the pressure cooker for 5 minutes. If you use a normal pot, add also some water and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the squids are tender. 


Add salt to taste and chopped parsley and serve with white rice.

Tomato soup with mint

This soup is typical of the village of Alora (Malaga). I'm not very fond of putting cream or chicken stock in soups, so to me the special flavour of the mint makes this recipe very good.

TOMATO SOUP WITH MINT (for 2)

½ red pepper (or green, but red gives better color)

3 ripe tomatoes

½ onion

2 cloves of garlic

Virgin olive oil

A good branch of fresh mint

Salt

Day-old bread

In a saucepan fry the onion, garlic and pepper with a good splash of olive oil. When they have softened, add the peeled and chopped tomatoes. Fry for 10-15 minutes, stirring every now and then to prevent sticking. When the sauce is done, add water and liquidise with a blender. Incorporate the mint and let it cook for about 5 minutes. Add salt to taste. If tomatoes are very acidic you can also add some sugar.

At serving time, place thin slices of bread on plates and serve the soup over them. It can also be accompanied with diced fries.

Roasted pepper salad

My husband is an expert on finding deals. In one of our occasional visits to Lidl, where we went to buy puff pastry, he saw red peppers at a very good price. So we bought a few to make roasted pepper salad.

This salad is made with roasted peppers and tomatoes. I normally roast several at the same time and freeze them in individual bags (one pepper and one tomato per bag) so that in other occasions I can make pepper salads in almost no time.

This salad is ideal to accompany fish and is very popular in southern Spain.

ROASTED PEPPER SALAD (for 2)

1 large red pepper

1 tomato

Fresh onion

Virgin olive oil

White wine vinegar

Salt

Place the peppers and tomatoes on a baking tray and smeared them with some olive oil. Roast in the oven at 240 degrees C until tender. If you intend to freeze them, don’t roast them too much because the cold will soften them even more.

Once they have cooled down, peel the tomato, peel and remove seeds from the pepper. In a bowl or dish, chop the ​​tomato and crush lightly with a fork. Add the pepper cut into strips and some onion finely chopped. Season with a small splash of vinegar, a large splash of olive oil and salt.

Quince preserve

My neighbour Toñi gave me some quinces! Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

The first thing that came to mind is to make the famous (at least in Spain) quince preserve. Last year I made my debut with this recipe but as I have a very bad memory and I didn’t write it down, I had to call my mother to remind me how to make it. Here is the procedure...

QUINCE PRESERVE

1 kg of clean quince

¾ kg sugar

The first thing is to peel and cut the quinces (which is not easy with quinces as they are). To do this, cook the quinces in boiling water for 15-20 minutes in a normal pot, or 5 minutes in the pressure cooker as I did. Drain the water and wait until they cool down before peeling and cutting them. As I am very impatient, I didn’t wait enough and I burned my hands. L

In the empty pot put the chopped quince and sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent sticking. When the quinces are softened liquidise with the blender and continue cooking.

BE CAREFULL! From this point, the quince-sugar mixture has become a kind of magma that will not hesitate to burn you if you are not careful, so I recommend lowering the heat when you are about to stir it and to use a lid as a shield.

Continue to simmer until it thickens and acquires a golden color. It will be ready when the spoon stands by itself into the quince. Distribute in molds and when it has cooled down put them into the fridge to solidify.

Chocolate muffins

Here is the “brunette” version of the muffins. Because there are days when it is not bad to take a good dose of chocolate to lift our mood.

Ah! and if you are feeling really low, you can add chocolate chips to the mix and you will get the shock treatment for depression. :-)

Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

280 g of all-purpose flour

174 g of sugar

½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of sodium bicarbonate

3 tsps of pure cocoa powder

170 ml of milk

150 g of sunflower oil

The preparation is quite simple. Mix the dry ingredients in the one bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in the another one. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and mix with a spatula just until incorporated.

Place the paper cups in aluminum molds so that the muffins rise upwards and not sideways, and fill ¾ full. Place in a oven preheated to 200 degrees C and bake for 10-15 minutes. You will know that they are done when inserting a toothpick in the muffins, it comes out clean.

Chickpeas with spinach

As promised, here is the recipe for chickpeas with spinach. This recipe, like many on this blog, is from my mum. With the basics of this recipe you can make many variations, like using chard instead of spinach or only asparagus (without the chickpeas). 

I hope you like it.

CHICKPEAS WITH SPINACH (for 2)

100 g dried chickpeas

1 bunch (or package) of spinach

2 slices of yesterday’s bread

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon of paprika

Olive oil

Ground pepper

Salt

Wash and chop the spinach. In the pressure cooker cook the chickpeas (which have been soaking since the night before) for 5 or 10 minutes. They should be tender but not overcooked. Open the pot and add the spinach and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

Cover the bottom of a frying-pan with olive oil, fry the bread and garlic and reserve. Drain water from the chickpeas and spinach and fry lightly in the remaining oil with the paprika.

Meanwhile, in a mortar, crush the fried garlic and bread (it will be easier if you add the vinegar and some water at this time). Dilute this paste with water and pour over the chickpeas and spinach. Add water to almost cover them, season and cook over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes.

For the very hungry, you can add a chopped hard boiled egg on top at serving time.

Spinach salad, with goat cheese and walnuts

I don’t know if this happens to you, but usually when I buy spinach, I am always left with some in the fridge that I don’t manage to use. They sell you a big package and only my husband and I eat spinach. You know kids ... they see something green on the plate and there is no way they will open their mouths.

But this time I managed to use all spinach by preparing two different dishes: a spinach salad for dinner and chickpeas with spinach for lunch the next day.

Now for the salad, the recipe for the beans I will explain in another post ...

I will not include quantities for the ingredients, I leave that to your individual taste.

SPINACH SALAD, WITH GOAT CHEESE AND WALNUTS

Baby spinach
Tomato
Goat cheese
Walnuts
Raisins
Virgin olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt

The preparation is very simple. Wash and dry spinach leaves thoroughly. Chop and place them on a plate. On top add diced tomatoes, diced cheese, raisins and walnuts. Dress it all with a vinaigrette made with one part of vinegar to three of oil.