How Entertaining!: March 2011

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Oyster Shooters

My oldest daughter and I love Oyster Shooters! She is the only one I know who will actually eat raw oysters and loves them as much as I do! Although these traditionally have vodka in them, when I introduce these to my daughter she was too young for vodka. Even to this day we prefer them with no alcohol. Anyways we eat so many of these I would hate to think what we would be like if they had alcohol in them!

Mix the following:

Shucked oysters
horseradish to taste
Borkholders cocktail sauce
squirt of fresh lemon
a little juice from the oysters

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Gulas!

In Spain, there were times when I was not sure what I was eating. This was one of them...

I actually ate these (the tiny worm- like "things" called "gulas"). I not only ate these once, but twice at at two different tapa bars! I liked them. My husband (who will eat ANYTHING) pushed them aside and said "You can have these."--how generous huh?. So when I returned to our hotel in Madrid, I did a search on the computer for "gulas," to only find a picture of what I ate, but not a real definition. So I decided I would ask our concierge, who very politely told me, in his finest English, that he knew what they were... he proclaimed proudly... (insert Spanish accent),"They are tiny fish!" I was hoping for a bit more description, but grateful they were not from the "worm family". When I continued to question him... "What kind of tiny fish?", he gracious got on his computer and found the same image that I found earlier!

It was not until we got back to the States, that my husband looked it up, and told me they were baby eels!

Here are some other "delicacies", some we sampled and some we did not; we were not that adventurous:

The markets and restaurants were filled with a variety of tapas to try!

I love shrimp, but have to admit that I had to get used to having the heads kept on the shrimp.

Fresh seafood was everywhere in the market! We purchase "some type" of whitefish that I pan fried in our apartment using flavorful Spanish olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and a splash of white wine. This was so good and fresh that I made it two more times.

We also purchased mussels twice, which were only 1.5 Euros for a kilo! I steamed them in white wine, garlic, salt and pepper and we soaked up the juices with warm, freshly made bakery bread--so good!

We of course had to have gazpacho(which was hard to find, since it is a summer dish) and paella twice. My favorite food was jamon or cured ham (which proudly hung in most tapa bars), which is very similar to prosciutto, but not as salty. I ate this for breakfast most mornings with wonderful "unknown" cheeses we bought at the market and warm bread from the bakery.

If you look to the left of this photo you will see pigeons (yes---pigeons!) hanging and to the right you will notice chickens, both still have their feathers. In one of the cases, we actually saw rabbit with fur still on it. My daughter said that the Spaniards leave the feathers and fur on so that buyers will know it is fresh.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Sangria

When I think of Sangria, I think of hot summer days, not cold wintry March evenings. My husband and I sipped this in front of the fireplace reminiscing about our recent trip to Spain.

1 Bottle of dry red wine
1 orange sliced
1 lemon sliced
1 granny smith apple sliced
lemon lime soda

Mix the first 4 ingredients and let sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Right before serving add 2 parts pop to 1 part wine.

The Castle in Madrid

One of the many beautiful sites, we saw on the 3 1/2 hour walking tour of Madrid.

Museum of Culture in Seville

Plaza de Espana--My favorite Square in Seville!!

Paza de Espana

Orange and Lemon trees were everywhere! The oranges were bitter and not for eating (despite every tourist, including us, trying them) but for making perfumes.