tattum's kitchen

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!! My best wishes to all of you and your family! Count to ten and open your present!! (drag along the mouse on top of the photo)

No Buying Bread Project

Remember that Joey made some bread? Well she said that she was embarked in a new project, the "No buying bread" project.
I thought that it was perfect, I must do the same, because it's true, it tastes and it smells totally different. Of course the kneading is a little messy, but at the end, it's easy, and sooooooo delicious!!  And the most important thing is that Joey was right.
Making bread made me feel that I'm able to get over everything, over the fears, those silly fears of things that you haven't done before, because you thought that it would be so difficult.... Enough! I thought.

Well, is not that I'm going to make a parachute jump, because I won't. But in the kitchen, there is nothing impossible. I'm going to try to savour the simple things of life that make me feel sooo good, fresh bread, home made pate, marmelades, home made pasta, my cakes, etc....
Now I have time, maybe I won't have this oportunity again in the future, if my baby comes one day, I must be prepared, I want to be a well prepared mummy, and if I'm able to make all this wonderful things, I will be happy with myself, happy with my life....

The recipe comes from Jamie Oliver's, Happy Days With The Naked Chef.

Basic Bread Recipe

1kg flour
625ml tepid water
30gr fresh yeast/ 21gr dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 level tablespoon salt
extra flour for dusting

Pile the flour on to a clean surface and make a large well in the center. Pour half of the water in the well, then add the yeast, sugar and salt and stir with a fork.
Slowly, bring in the flour from the inside of the well. (if the well breaks, the water will go everywhere, so be careful when you do this)  Add more water while you start to knead the pastry. Knead for 4 or 5 min until you have a silky and elastic dough.

Flour the top of the dough, put it in a bowl, cover with a cleanfilm, and wait for half an hour for the dough to rice. It should be the double of size.

After the half an hour, knock the air out for 30 sec, by squashing it. Now wait again another 30min.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, and bake for 30 min aprox.

I also wanted to wish you with all my heart a lovely and happy Xmas to all of you. May all your dreams come true.

Lots of Love
Tattum

 

Torta Pascualina

Like I've told you many times, Argentinians have a very interesting mixture of cultures. I just love that. If you could get to know the country and the people a little more, you just wouldn't believe how wonderful they are. Well, la Torta Pascualina, is one of those dishes that everyone does at home, easy to make, with veggies, and something that kids adore...
This Torta is named Pascualina because of "Pascua" or Easter in english.
And well, you may know why, but I'll explain it a bit, the Catholic tradition says that during Easter you can't eat meat, so there are many plates special made for these days. In Spain one, very well known, is the Potaje de Vigilia. Made with spinach, chickpeas, cod and carrots.
And in Argentina, la Torta Pascualina. My father learned it from her mother and I learned from him. 

The recipe.

Torta Pascualina

1kg spinach
1/2 chard (or is it swiss chard)
2 eggs
1 big onion chopped
2 already made pie doughs
2 teaspoons nutmeg
200gr breadcrumb (the soft part of the bread)
200ml milk

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. In a small bowl mix the breadcrumb with the milk, salt and nutmeg, and set aside while you work with the other things.
Fry the onion, and once it's transparent add the spinach and chard. Stir and add salt.
When you see that the bread has absorbed the milk, put it in the blender. Add this to the spinach and stir till everything is well mixed.

Prepare 1 of the pastries in a mold and add the mixture. On top add the eggs, better if you make two little holes and put the eggs on them. Close with the other dough the tart. Cook for 30 min, or until the top in brown.

Hope you like it!! Besos desde Marbella

Pâté de Foie de Poulet au Pedro Ximenez

Don't you think that things in french sound much more chic?

I can't believe I have done a Pate of my own!! And it's so easy!!
Ok, Sunday morning was the most productive morning of my life (talking in a culinary way, of course).
At 9:00 am while having a cup of tea and a shared chocolate muffin (which I made the day before) with Alvaro, I started with the bread. Recently, Joey, made her own bread following the Nigella Lawson's recipe from How To Be A Domestic Goddess.
Last week I tried to make bread for the first time, the result wasn't as good as I expected... the crust was too hard and the center was to thick, the taste was good, but I wasn't satisfied...
So Joey, made her beautiful white bread, with a strange shape ;), but very, very good looking.
I decided to give it another try.
And this time it was much better, still, I have to improve it a little bit... (I'll post the recipe and photos tomorrow)
At 11:00am I started to cook the Torta Pascualina, one of my family's favorite dishes...(I'll also post soon this one)
At noon I was starting with the Pâté.  And by 1.30pm I was already preparing the Spaghetti a la Putanesca that you already know.
I'm now watching Sex in the City, with a cup of tea and just writing....uffff!

Now the recipe.... try it, it's so easy that you won't believe it. (after that come and tell me how it was ok?)

Pâté de Foie de Poulet au Pedro Ximenez
350 gr/12 oz chicken liver
1/2 cup butter
1 piece of bacon chopped
1 onion chopped
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons of Pedro Ximenez (or Coñac or Oporto)
salt, black pepper

In a saucepan add the half of the butter and fry the onion, the garlic, and the bacon. Once the onion is transparent, add the chicken liver and cook for 5 min, add salt and pepper, add the wine and cook for another 2min.
Take everything to the blender and mix it till it looks like in the photo. Meanwhile melt the rest of the butter till it's liquid.

Take the mixture to a pot, maybe individuals would be best, and add the butter melted on top. I also added a lot of pepper on top of the butter. Fridge till the butter has harden again.

Have it with some toasts, and a cup of red wine. Bon appétit!

WBD #14 Max and the Cookies

Sweetnicks is hosting Weekend Dog Blogging #14. Max has been asking me to participate again in this 4 paws special.  So here we are. This time it was necessary  to take a photo of our   friend eating human food. I must say that this is a little impossible with Max. I swear that what you see in the photo is Max eating a big cookie...But he gave me no time to take the photo....so I'm sorry if this is not what you all expected,... I think that I should have done best during my teaching...

I cut the cookie in 3 pieces. 3 pieces, 3 photos, do you see something similar to a cookie? I don't... I was with my camera prepared, but he didn't give me a chance, he ate it all and once it touched his mouth I just couldn't go back...  I must have a few words with him...

I don't want you to think that he is always like that so here you have a photo of Max flying... The flying dog remember?

A Walk and Apple Muffins

I couldn't help of going out this morning with Max for a long, long walk. It was a sunny day, a little chilly, but just perfect. We live just next to the countryside, and many times you will find cows, sheep and horses left out to pasture. So there we went, Max running around, smelling everything, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
The snowed mountain you see in the distance is the Sierra de Madrid, there is a little village with a ski resort called Navacerrada, here is where every "madrileño" skier , comes on the weekend.
When I got back home, I decided to make some baking, tomorrow will be the last day of baking in Madrid, because I'm planning of going to Marbella next week, and that will leave all my fans with no breakfast. And I don't want that.

I had some ripen bananas, that I was planning to use for a Banana Cake like Paz's, but when I peeled them they weren't in a good shape, so I had to think of something else... I had apples, but a pie wouldn't be easy to take to work tomorrow, so I decided to go for the Apple Muffins. I couldn't find any recipe, so I used, once again, the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe of the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook. The are delicious, next time I will add some nuts.

And here it comes.

Apple Muffins

4 apples, peeled, chopped very thinly
2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of baking powder
1 tablespoon of baking soda
1/2 tablespoon of salt
1/2 cup of butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup of sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400ºF
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Melt the butter and sugars together. And in another large bowl add the apples chopped, the eggs, the vanilla and the sour cream. Stir well. Add the dry mixture.
Bake for 20 min.

The Awakening and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi everyone! I'm back.
It has taken me a while, I know, to move on from wherever I was, but finally, thanks to Paz, I'm back.
I'll tell you what happened, ...2 days after my birthday, at work, 5 min before going home, the General Manager fired me. He said it was because they were reducing staff...who cares...

In this whole month that I have been "out", I made lots of baking, with the idea of starting a new business by myself. With the help of Alvaro, we made a study of how much it would cost to start selling cakes and pies to restaurants...it was quite alright. The only problem is that I would need the sanitary approvals, and for that you need an industrial kitchen, which I don't have... so everything is in stand-by right now... But it would be a good idea if I could take it to practice, the type of bakery that americans are used to is not easy to find here (well thanks to Starbucks is not imposible) so muffins, brownies, cookies, and pies and cakes, have a nice market here... we'll see what the new year brings...

My guinea pigs were katira, tintin toto, Alvaro, and their collegues at work. The good news were that they asked for more, the bad news, that they asked for them free...
I tried lots of recipes, the best one, Cookies

So here I will post my Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook, they are everyone's favourite.

2 cups/480gr flour
1 teaspoon/5gr baking soda
5 teaspoon/5gr salt
1 cup/240gr butter
3/4 cup/180gr sugar
3/4 cup/180gr brown sugar
1 teaspoon/5gr water
1 teaspoon/5gr vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt.
In another large bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Add the water and vanilla. Mix the ingredients until they are just combined. Add the eggs and mix them lightly. Stir in the flour mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips. Don't overmix the dough.
Drop the cookies 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets using two tablespoons or an icecream scoop.
Bake for 12 min.

Thanks for being there. Besos

To Paz and Fran

I have left a few of you a little apart, I'm sorry.
I'll be back soon.
Meanwhile have a look to the lovely paintings, like this one, from The Green Girl.