Update!

OK, I keep getting asked what I'm up to these days. I used to do Weeks In Review, which were fun, but honestly, my weeks currently are not as packed with excitement as they used to be. So...how about a like a month in review? With pictures!

Let me set this up by saying the sabbatical continues. Viva la pre-tirement! Yes, yes, I will find myself a 9-5 eventually, but for now I'm doing odd things here and there and continuing to live it up a bit.

So here we go: besides getting possible brain leaks (and the subsequent 2 weeks of migraines), I have been...

Travel cooking:

Falafel!

Patacones/tostones! 

Fried platanos! (mmm)

Syrian-style eggpant casserole!

Flan! x17...I will dominate flan making!

 (And thankfully I've pretty much talked the young adult small group that meets at my house on Sundays into testing out all my flans. Because even though I love it...a girl can only eat so much flan!)

Dusting off my inner artista: 

I finally got around to printing and putting up a photo project I'd been planning for a while

(and don't worry, they ended up much straighter than that!)

My mom bought a groupon for us to go to one of those painting night things. I'm not gonna lie...it was kind of stressful! But also a lot of fun. I know we didn't make Van Gogh jealous or anything, but I think we did decently! I hung mine (on the left) on a random nail in my kitchen to dry and ended up leaving it there. 

Ha, and another day, out of nowhere, I was in the mood to water-paint. So I wrote and painted my niece a book. There's no pictures of the end product, so I'll just let you imagine how that worked out : )

And taking some pictures around Fort Worth for a project with my mom. So many good looking buildings!

Reading!

I've been stowing away in libraries...

Having time to read was a large part of the "loafing" (Razor's Edge anyone?) I planned for on my sabbatical. While traveling I did conquer some giants (like all 900+ pages of Of Human Bondage) and lots of other good stuff, but with all the adventures and talking with strangers and naps, I didn't get as much reading in as I figured I would. 

I'm making up for lost time. 

Writing!

Postcards! What? Did you think I was gonna say a novel or something? ; )

Send me your addresses! 

And finally...Traveling!

(Of course! But just a little bit...) 

I made a weekend trip out to Albuquerque to have a little mini-reunion with some of the girls I lived in Spain with. Last year we met up in Austin for the weekend, and this year was even more fun! And look--we timed it so that we made it to the (world's largest) hot air balloon festival!

Then I took Greyhound bus (oh yes! I had been wanting to do that for a while now!) up to Denver, where again timing was perfect and David took me to see the Aspens changing colors. So beautiful! 

OK, and one more thing, aka, the real reason I am blogging (...procrastination!): 

Studying for the GRE!

Yep. I know. Strangely everyone around me is much less surprised than I am that I am thinking about applying to PhD programs. It was all getting overwhelming, so I took advice from soon to be Dr. Meredith and just decided I'd take the GRE, see how that goes and start from there. 

PSA: If a book's introduction feels the need to tell you that you shouldn't start hyperventilating...that's not a good sign. 

OK, so that's what I've been up to!

Destination Cooking: Part 2

What's up next? One of my all time favorite dishes--Spanish tortilla.

First off, Spanish tortillas have absolutely nothing to do with Mexican tortillas. They are both round, but that is pretty much the end of their similarities. In Spain a tortilla is basically an omelet and can come plain or with a variety of ingredients. The best version of tortilla, though, is the Spanish tortilla, or tortilla Española (also sometimes called tortilla de patatas).

Though commonly translated simply as a potato omelet, tortilla is much, much more. It is simple and ubiquitous--every bar/cafe worth its salt in Spain will have tortilla--but when you try to make one yourself, you understand that tortilla is not just eggs and potatoes thrown together.

When I lived in Spain there was no point trying to make one. Like I said, you could buy it anywhere, and the grocery stores all sold pretty decent pre-made tortillas for a couple of bucks. I knew it couldn't be that hard though--all my middle school students said they could make one, and...trust me, they were not all the most intelligent creatures. So when I got back to the states I confidently set out trying to make one.

Not only was it much more difficult than I imagined, it took forever. After lots of trial and error (and some secret tips from Spanish friends) I came up with a tortilla that I think rivals any tortilla I have eaten in Spain. The problem is...it takes me all day. Every once in a while I spend the afternoon slicing and frying potatoes to make one, but it just seems wrong that something so commonplace takes so long.

On this last jaunt through Spain I took the opportunity to talk to lots of people about their tortilla making skills. I got tips on how you can boil, roast and supposedly even microwave the potatoes to speed up the process. Then I found a recipe, from a real deal Spanish chef, for a 10 minute tortilla using...potato chips! I was dubious, but thought it was worth a try. The recipe came from Lobstersquad, and was a take on Ferrán Adrià´s recipe.

You need:

4 eggs (beaten together with a bit of salt), olive oil for the pan, 1/2 a cup of fried onions, and 100 grams (~3.5 oz~1/2 a bag) of good potato chips--don't skimp here! 

Mash up the potato chips and add them, along with the onions, into the eggs. Give it a good mix and let them soak for 5 minutes. (And, yes it looks a little gross.)

Coat a small pan in olive oil, heat it up and dump in the egg mixture. When it has started to setup, but isn't cooked all the way through, put a big plate on top and invert the pan to flip the tortilla onto the plate (you'll probably want to use some oven mitts/etc. when you do this so you don't burn yourself). Slide the tortilla back into the pan (runny side down), tuck under the edges of the tortilla and give it a minute or two more (this side will take less time). 

And voila! Tortilla de patatas!

The verdict? It was a little dry...but otherwise a fine substitution. The dryness was probably partially my fault as I was cooking other things at the same time and let it cook a little too long, or perhaps added a few too many chips. I saw other takes on the recipe that added a little broth to the mix--I might try that next time. Or add another egg. It also took me longer than 10 minutes (although not too much longer), but then again it generally takes me forever to cook anything. 

Overall, it might take some tweaking, but dang, for 10-15 minutes in a Texas kitchen, it was a pretty good tortilla!

Destination Cooking: Part 1

Until I move into my house (hopefully soon!) I am back at the parent's house. It's great and they are lovely, but it's also weird. So this week while they are on vacation it has been a great opportunity to take advantage of the (almost) empty house. What am I doing?

I'm not throwing house parties.

I'm cooking!

I'm no great cook and I always end up dirtying a thousand dishes no matter what I make, but I enjoy cooking. It's been a long time since I had a stocked kitchen to work with, so I got busy on some recipes/dishes I had tagged to try. I find that when I can't travel, cooking and eating does a pretty good job of filling the exploratory gap. My brother Casey has filled me in that people he knows are cooking up some of my recipes, and it's been forever since I had any on here, so I thought I might throw some of these up as I go through them!

First up--Southern Spain: Gazpacho. My brother Brian has a garden and his tomatoes were piling so I decided to channel my Sevillian friend Maica and make some gazpacho. (Gazpacho is a cold vegetable soup for those who aren't familiar.) Normally gazpacho includes day old bread--originally, before the days of blenders and food processors, the bread helped to pulverize/liquify the other ingredients. Maica, because of stomach issues, doesn't eat grains so makes her gazpacho with carrots in place of bread. It sounds like an odd switch, but it tasted just as good to me.

Here's the non-recipe recipe: It's more like a ratio. You want to blend together a bunch of tomatoes, a little bit less quantity of cucumber (peeled--don't be like me and forget that. It will definitely make the soup look less appetizing to have bits of green peel floating in it!), green bell pepper, a handful of chopped carrots, and a clove or two of garlic. You then pour in a good dose of oil and vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar), and some salt to taste. Then blend it up! Give it a stir and add in a little bit more of whatever you feel like it needs, or of what you like.

You will most likely want to add some water in, depending on how juicy your veggies were. Gazpacho is always served chilled, but Maica had another trick up her sleeve. Just blend in some ice in place of water and voilà, the gazpacho is instantly cold. Que inteligente!


You can also mix in some toppings to take it up a notch--Spanish jamon (cured ham) is typical, but I liked the addition of melon (cantaloupe, honeydew or watermelon), too.

Turn on the flamenco music and enjoy!