Christmas food

Every part of the earth has it's own food for Christmas and even in each country there are differences depending on each home.
Well, in my family, as in all families in this corner of the world, on the Christmas Eve dinner, we eat cod with boiled potatoes and "grelos".

Some people prefer cabbage. We always must have cabbage soup that we call Caldo Verde. This it's a must have.

In some parts of the North of the country people also eat  octopus rice. Oh, that is good too. Sometimes I make it for lunch. Maybe this year I will have it for diner. Uhm, good idea.

For Christmas lunch many people have turkey but it's not mandatory, not like the cod for Christmas Eve dinner, together with the Caldo Verde.

And desserts...

I haven't any pictures of past Christmas Eve dinners, I wonder why.
This year I will be more careful about dinner pictures.

..

All the pictures, except the first one, were found searching the internet, they are not mine and I found them after looking for some free photos.
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Partying at:
Home and Garden Thursday at A Delightsome Life

Past Christmases

So here we go, in the middle of December, with the house decorated for Christmas, lists done and being checked, plans made and shopping done and being done.

Presents not all wrapped but being done.
That's a nice time of the  year.

I look back in time and see how Christmas is always a blessed time and how it's such fun to get things ready for the big day.

All pictures in this post are from Christmases past and I hope that soon I will post some of the preparations of this one.

This picture above is from a year when all the girls were younger and we even had a baby (who now is a teen), that's why we have this amount of presents - and not all of them were in this picture !

The food work is always an important part but, of course, it is in every home and also are the tables.

We can never forget the Christmas Pudding, a MUST in my home.

Just in case some of you don't know it and are wondering why it is in flames, I must tell you that you pour some brandy and light a match on it. It's always a big moment and we hope that it produce some nice and big flames. In this picture my husband very proud of the accomplishment.

As for today I leave you with the Nativity - which this year is already set, as always since the First of December - but this years pictures deserve another post.

Bye for now.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

As you can see, I had a lot of presents.
The first one was from girl nº 3.
The drawaing was from my little girl. She says it's me and her in the picture.

Also the magnet, key ring and flower with her picture - those made at her school - was given by the little one.

My big girl gave me a box of AfterEight because she knows I like everything minty

and girl nº 2 gave me that beautiful rose.

Lovely presents.

And my husband gave me this hortensia

and made the lunch:

pork sirloin.



And didn't forgot the dessert!



Cheesecake!

Panados de frango

...or chicken fillets with bread crumbs.

Just take some chicken breast and cut very thin slices.

Season with salt, garlic and whatever you want as, for instace, some pepper.

Beat an egg and put the slices throught it. Take it out and do the same with bread crumbs.

Fry in oil, nor olive oil but maybe sunflowers or other like that.

That it and let it stand for a little bit on a paper to take the excess of oil.

Have it with rice, salad or chips.

Hmmm...

You may make it with porc or veal.

Carnival and Valentines Day

We are in carnival days.

I don't like it.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to make me nice clothes for these days: a fairy, a ladybird, a butterfly...So many nice things.

Now I don't like it and I always make the effort to dress the girl that is in the first years at school because it's required that they are dressed for carnivals ' friday. So my little one was a stawberry. I would like to show you but since I decided not to post their faces in the internet, I can't.

Carnival will go untill tomorow, the last day, followed by Ashes Wedensday with fasting. Because here most people say they are catholics but they don't even know what is to be a catholic, most people don't fast. I do. If any catholic is reading this I say: have courage and fast. It's good for your soul. God doesn't need our fasting but we do. We need to fast for our sins.

...

On Valetines Day.

It was not a thing of our culture but shops thought it was a good way of making some more money and began to fill the shops of valentines things and now everybody buys them.

First it was nothing for me buy when I married an englishman it became a bit important .

So, yesterday my husband gave the beautiful chocolate box you can see.

Pitty I couln't take a nice picture but it will give one idea of the beauty.

He invited my parents to lunch with us.

Camembert, Stilton and Cheddar

Looks like a turkey, so big it is

Roast potatoes and parsnips

Can you see the steam?

Apple crumble. The apple made by me and the crumble by my 8 years old girl.

Coconut cake, given by my mother.

It was such a good day.

A trip to the garden center

Yesterday it was lovely at my little one's school. There was she, singing in the choir, very proud of her.

Today I was a bit in a strange mood, as my husband said - not related with yesterday, I was just tired and irritated. So my husband decided we would go to the garden center. Poinsetias, rosemary, evening primrose and lavender, it was our choosen plants.

And for dessert he made cheesecake.

Not bad, hum ?!

Bolo Rei

Bolo Rei means King Cake. We eat it at Christmas times in big quantities. No Christmas is Christmas without Bolo Rei. It's like Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding in England.

It's made with yeast, like bread, and it takes candied fruit and nuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, raisins and that kind of stuff.
Many times, as the tradition says to do, it has a little present inside and a broadbean. That means that the person who gets the slice with the bean inside must buy the cake next time.
Well, that was some time ago. Now, with safety measures, most times the cake hasn't the bean or the present.
Even so, we keep eating it a lot.
When I was a little girl, in our home, it was my grandmother who made ours. It was an adventure to me to see the whole process. The smell, then my grandmother putting a cloth on top of it and leaving to raise, later on tending the dough and putting in the oven...
And then the smell of freshly baked Bolo Rei...
Now we buy it.
That's ok, it's still good anyway.

Crumble time

It's foggy here. Cozy time. Good for baking. Maybe some apple crumble.
This picture shows an apple pie my husband made some weeks ago. It was very good but, for me, nothing is better than crumble.
So, crumble it is.

Stuffed red peppers

First we put some olive oil in a pan and fry, until transparent, maybe two onions, sliced. Also one or two courgettes, sliced too.

Add rice, mix and pour water on it.
DH, who made all this, instead of putting in a pan, he put in a tray. We can make the rice and then put it on a tray but DH say this is the best method.

While the rice is cooking, take a bottle - or can - of red peppers "piquillo". Thess peppers ares spanish and we buy it in a spanish supermarket we have here. I wonder if in America people have it too. Maybe in Mexico people eat it because of the spanish background.

So, we take one and put tuna, canned, inside as you can see here.


Put the peppers all over the tray, on top of the rice.




Put some grated cheese on top


and oven with it.


I must say, this is rather good!