In my village, which is Leciñena and throughout the region of Los Monegros when Christmas approaches, begins to smell "empanadicos" pumpkin or its variant giant empanadones " .
is a simple dessert with the thistle, is not lacking in monegrinas Christmas tables.
Today I give the recipe another day empanadicos and I will give that of the empanadones which is very similar if not equal and differ only in size and added anise.
Ingredients for the dough:
2 parts water (for example, a glass of 250 cc)
1 part olive oil 4 measures
flour a pinch of salt and other sugar
Ingredients for filling:
pastry Pumpkin (orange) cut to
omelette raisins, toasted hazelnuts, pine nuts, sugar and cinnamon.
Procedure for the dough:
Boil the water by the oil and pinches of salt and sugar. Pour boiling liquid over the flour sifted and mix with a wooden spoon. Let stand one hour.
last
mealtime make balls of dough to roll once stretched with us is a circle about 25 inches in diameter, fill in part of the circle with slices of pumpkin, raisins, pine nuts and chopped hazelnuts, add sugar, cinnamon and a drizzle of oil. Closing the loop to form a crescent and close around it to prevent the filling. Brush with olive oil empanadico surface, sprinkle sugar, a little prick the surface with the tip of a knife and bake in preheated oven at 180/200 º C until cooked through and golden.
can be eaten cold, but they are best slightly warmed.
is also traditional filling of spinach with pine nuts, quince and even apple or strawberries.
we put in a bowl butter and 150 gr. icing sugar, beat well with rods, now add the sifted flour with the cinnamon and mix well. Separate the whites from the yolks and beat egg whites until stiff, add yolks and then mix the egg whites until stiff and add to the mix. Melt the chocolate and add to the mixture, sprinkle the salt and mix . We spread ten small custard cups with butter and cocoa dusted, the fill about 2 / 3 with "mass" of cocoa and store covered in refrigerator for 12 hours.
Preheat oven to 220 º coulant and bake for eight or ten minutes.
This dessert is served warm, almost straight from the oven.
coulant To unmold I advise you to do this grabbing of pan with a dry cloth and desmoldéis with the help of a nail useis custard cups or silicone.
If you have a hurry, you can put in the freezer and then bake the custard cups thawed but very cold.
You can follow dessert with vanilla ice cream or coconut.
Chop the onion, garlic and ham. We fire a pan with the olive oil and when hot poached onion, ham and garlic. We add the rebollones into pieces or whole if small, the braise and let simmer half an hour. Add the white wine, turn up the heat for ten minutes to evaporate the alcohol quickly return to a simmer and leave about twenty minutes (until tender). Add finely chopped fresh parsley and serve hot.
Notes.
The addition of the ham is optional. The
rebollones have to be tender but not bound waste and salsa and "jelly"
In the unlikely event that the sauce does not link them well, we can add a little corn flour (cornstarch) dissolved in cold water.
Behold tapas prepared on my land. These we can test these days it is celebrating the Competition III Tapas in Los Monegros. Do so only worth visiting Los Monegros? Water will have little wine and good food but not missing.
And many more ...
By the way ... I had the 'thankless' task to be competition jury this year ... I'll tell you how it ends. I still have several days 'hard' work.
A oxtail about 1200 grams, cut into pieces at the joints
A small ham bone
50 g fat
250c.c dry white wine onions
Two Two Two garlic carrots
One liter of vegetable broth or beef
Four ripe tomatoes
Two bay leaves One sprig of thyme
olive oil 125c.c V / E
A little flour
Sal, two nails and peppercorns
PROCEDURE
Chop the garlic and onions, carrots cut into thick slices, grate the tomato and chop the bacon.
half the oil in gilded tail pieces of floured and salted. Book.
The resulting oil, brown them well the bacon, garlic and carrots, add the wine and let it evaporate, add the chopped tail, the ham bone and broth. We went down to a simmer and let cook for one hour. In the remaining oil fry the onion, tomato, bay leaf, pepper and thyme , add the cloves and fry few minutes, then remove the excess oil and add this sauce to stew tail. Correct salt and cook for another hour and a half (until this tender)
We serve with fresh vegetables or fried potatoes and peas sauteed with ham
The melon was a little bland and decided to make jam. The result was excellent. I recommend it.
Ingredients:
A kilo of melon
700 grams of sugar
half lemon juice.
Procedure:
Once peeled, seeded, cut the melon into chunks. Put the melon in a bowl with lemon juice and sugar, cover and let stand for one hour. Put a saucepan over low heat, add the contents of the bowl and let cook for an hour or less, depending on desired consistency. Let cool and fill the glass jars.
Note: If we buy the jam in three or four days, it is necessary sterilize it, but keep covered in refrigerator. If we want to keep for more time should be spayed.
Four hundred grams of fresh tomatoes (preferably pear)
large onion
garlic clove
Canela
Salt and pepper
A scoop of flour (to bind the meat)
olive oil
A glass of dry white wine
for bechamel
Fifty grams of flour
Fifty grams of butter
A liter of milk
Nutmeg, salt and pepper
Lining
natural tomato and fresh basil
Procedure
Wash the eggplants and cut lengthwise into ½ cm slices, salted, we let stand for ten minutes and then dry them and fry in a little olive oil (almost like a plate). The reserve on paper towels to remove excess oil.
Chop the onion and garlic and poached. Add the chopped carme seasoned with salt, pepper and a little cinnamon and cook for five minutes. Add the tablespoon of flour and fry two minutes. Then add the crushed tomatoes skinned and white wine and cook the whole for five minutes. Reserve.
Bechamel
In a saucepan put the butter and when melted add flour and cook over low heat two minutes. Gradually add hot milk, stirring with a stick, salt and pepper nutmeg and cook, stirring, finished the set to leave no lumps (about 20 minutes).
mounting plate
In a source of hormones put a layer of eggplant, then a layer of meat, another eggplant and other finishing beef with eggplant (three layers) covering with bechamel and grated cheese. It broil in the oven and served with tomato slices and fresh basil.
In my house we are not fond of soupy rice typically prefer rice "dry" in paella or baked. This recipe for rice with lobster, you can do exactly and I left with a sticky rice, neither dry nor soupy, but if you prefer the more widespread prescription of rice with lobster, you just have to put other 250c.c. more broth and so will remain a risotto.
Ingredients
500gr.cada
a two lobsters (they must be alive)
Four cups of rice 125c.c
pump
125c.c Ten cups fish stock
A red pepper
A green pepper onion
A clove of garlic
Two peppers saffron Pinch of Salt
olive oil
Procedure:
First wash the
lobsters and cut into thick slices, starting from the head to die as soon as possible. We
paella with a background of oil and fry the lobsters (reserve)
The resulting oil (add more if there is little), make a sauce with vegetables cut into brunoise. Add the rice and give it a few laps to pick up flavor. Add the broth, the meat of the two peppers and saffron, put the salt needed and cook for three minutes, add the lobster pieces and cook about eighteen minutes. Let stand covered for five minutes and serve.
Note: The fact that lobsters are living, not a symptom of unnecessary cruelty. It is the only way to ensure freshness and therefore they are full of meat.
As I promised a few days ago, today we give any suggestions if you think you are or go to Granada.
First, as I imagine that the Alhambra is a place that you want to see, I recommend that you bring forth entries with one day in advance and the visits are restricted (Palacios Nazaríes) and there are often crowds at the box office for purchase the few tickets that go over the counter. (In the ATMs at La Caixa can take.)
Gastronomically Granada is awesome. All the bars to bring you your drink a cap on the choice of waiter (not often choose the top), which never disappoint you.
In bars like those in the area Realejo Albaicín, the Cathedral, the university area and the Plaza Nueva you can take excellent beers and fine wines with the appropriate cover for free. Speaking of wines you recommend a bar on Calle Carmen Nuns 2 in the New Square area called The Brujidera in this establishment are wines from all over Spain and of course also of Granada. The wines have better character than waiter is something unsavory, though I must say that is very knowledgeable about the wines they serve and that gave me maridada lids perfectly with the wine I ordered. It can also be coincidence.
For the brave who want to try the tortilla Sacromonte, I noticed that the original recipe has testicles and brains among its ingredients yourself.
Albaicín In the area there are good Arabic food restaurants, mostly Moroccan, and that can make a good mint tea accompanied by honey and almond cakes. Speaking of cake, do not hesitate to try Piononos, typical cakes made with cake drunk Granada, cream and casseroles. They are delicious but overwhelming. The pastry making are excellent
is not only one of the greatest pleasures in the world, but is a very important action, which gives us the amount of vitamins, minerals and nutrients our body needs.
course, neither is eating for lunch, right? If we feed in a very healthy must learn to eat healthier foods that are in the market.
One of the most important meal of the day is breakfast. Breakfast is as a fuel for the body because it will give us the energy we need to face the day with optimism and vitality.
For a good breakfast , which are staple foods need torque to get nutrients. Eat well and take note of this breakfast very rich and full of energy.
first thing to eat is fruit . Fruit or fruit juice can bring you many vitamins . In addition, it gives you fiber, which is very necessary to have a good digestion.
Add milk to your breakfast . These can be yogurt, milk and / or cheese. With milk you get the calcium your bones need to stay healthy. Alternatively
include cereals, either in flakes or bread. The cereal, which fills you much, this also gives you plenty of fiber to the body.
If you want to complement you can add to your breakfast a portion of sausage, but that are low in fat so you do not affect health or weight.
In Ethiopia is well known the story of the discovery Coffee by the goats. In 300 AD, on a hot day, it was common to see the goats jump over the rocks, climb and descend slopes and slopes winding impossible. Usually, when the sun, fell asleep, but that night they jumped on a olable incontro, dancing and chasing each other, while his eyes moved in a hilly in all directions.
A shepherd named Kaldi noticed that the goats just stopped to chew the berries of a bush and after eating, were jumping into the moonlight. That's what caught their attention: they ate seeds, not the leaves, as they did with any other plant. Legend has it that Kaldi tried them, despite its bitter taste, and experienced the same elation from the goats. Then communicated his discovery to the monks of a temple, who soon would use in their nightly prayers. This legend confirms the fact that humans started to use substances to alter their ways to mimic the behavior of animals: they watched what they ate and that was guaranteed not die of poisoning. But not everything is animal food consumed.
In antiquity were consumed substances that alter the state of consciousness, not to "deviate from reality," but to get closer to her and explained, through magical thinking, the nature and origin of the cosmos.
What "drugs"?
The word "drugs", by our cultural context, it is immediately associated the concept of "addiction" in the more lenient "cases", "vice" or "organized crime". Drugs also the connotations of 'debt' is a word of obscure origin in Castilian seems to come from northern France. Maybe it comes from the Celtic word meaning "bad" or "poor quality"-Breton: droug , Welsh drwg , and Irish: droch - which is applied to open chemicals and goods overseas in the fifteenth century. María Moliner recorded in his dictionary as "any substance that is prepared and sold for any purpose: industrial, painting, cleaning, etc.. In particular, any natural or synthetic substance used in medicine, especially the energetic action. " The dictionary of the English Royal Academy adopted this usage, with some modifications and now also recorded as "activity or obsessive hobby" and "person or thing that is hateful or angry." then describe some examples of animals that, without human intervention, and frequent consume certain plants or fungi to alter her nervous state and that, far from reaching a conclusion, give us an overview of how much we still do not know the nature and than just the subject of detailed studies by experts on the subject. Most of these references are based on the research of psychiatrist Ronald K. Siegel, [1] he has done a unique job in their field.
Flying Cat
The closest example of animals who take drugs is that of domestic cats. Catnip (Nepeta cataria), also known as "Cat Mint" is a common herb that grows wild in fields. common when a cat (Felis domestica) contact with this herb, has a behavior into four phases: sniffs the ground repeatedly, for human smell the leaves have a smell like peppermint, and then lick or chew the leaves. Often it takes to watch the sky with his face away and suddenly shakes head quickly from side to side. Then rub his nose and cheeks against the plant and eventually your entire body rubs against the plant, the most sensitive light shocks give the plant with their backs. In laboratory tests, when they have been supplied extract of catnip to cats, the reactions are more intense, twisted her head violently, salivate in abundance, showing extreme symptoms of central nervous system arousal and sexual arousal. From these experiments discussed the hypothesis that this herb was instrumental in the evolutionary development of feral cats to predispose them to sexual activity: a natural aphrodisiac spring. It has been found that the degree of response that can have a cat to catnip is due to the presence of a gene, but as currently many generations of cats ever come into contact with this plant, only 60% of cats respond to their effects . But those cats who discovered the plant, the frequent daily. All cats react like catnip plant. Like house cats, jaguars in the Amazon rainforest herbs to heal with vomiting, such as Banisteriopsis cappi, plant vine that produces "a playful behavior in those who consume." Amazon Indians imitated the jaguar and eat to heighten the sensitivity of their senses.
Pink elephants
is no coincidence that Dumbo, the Disney character who could fly because of their large ears, put on a drunken pachyderm to the point you start to see color congeners Rose, as the elephants have a special inclination towards alcohol. In Africa, elephants show great eagerness to the fruits of trees of different families of palms (doum, marula, mgongo, palmira). When ripe, these fruits tend to ferment quickly, some even when they are still subject to the tree. After the elephants have eaten all the fallen fruit, stir and beat the trees to fall more. The fermentation process of this fruit, it produces ethyl alcohol of 7 degrees and continues to ferment in the digestive tract even of those who consume it. This custom of the elephant is far from accidental. A herd of elephants normally runs ten miles a day, but when the time of ripening of these fruits, especially of the species Borassus - adult males may separated from the herd to travel up to 30 miles in one day. Indian elephants in Bengal and Indonesia are no exception: eat greedily durian fruit (Durio zibethinus). In fact, several species seek the fruit fermented monkeys, orangutans, "flying foxes"-a species of bat, and even Sumatran tigers, whose diet is carnivorous. We know of cases of children who collected and transported these fruits and, when attacked by a tiger, rather than attacking people, were left with the loot ethyl. The elephants that are filled with the fruits of durian stagger and fall to the ground state lethargy. Apes lose motor coordination, shake their heads and fatigue climbing trees. But the love of elephants by the alcohol goes beyond just eating fruit. In 1985, West Bengal, a herd of 150 elephants stormed a clandestine laboratory which produced alcohol and drank large amounts of distilled malt. As a result of his drunkenness, ran aimlessly, leaving a balance of five people dead, a dozen wounded, seven brick houses and a score of huts destroyed. Drunken elephants are highly susceptible: they scare easily at sounds or sudden movements and this becomes aggressive as a defensive reaction.
Ignored plants and mushrooms consumed some animals due to an addictive behavior, because they do not involve physical dependence or withdrawal crisis.
Rain Bird
The birds are known a case of "collective binge" and is between American robins during their annual migrations-in February, when they move to California. The first records of this behavior dating from the mid-30's. Flocks of thousands of robins (Turdus migratorius) land on some small trees called "California acedo" (California holly) and eat the fruit, which locals call "Christmas berry." For nearly three weeks, you may see a genuine revelry among birds, which fly disoriented and confused. It has been shown that with five fruit is enough to intoxicate these birds, but each one eats more than thirty. However, we do not know what the real reaction that cause these fruits among the robins, then to review the autopsy nor the fruit or the contents of her stomach is showing signs of fermentation, so the term "binge" is used only to describe their state of euphoria. Despite his gluttony, the birds survive this experience and continue their journey without significant consequences.
worth noting that there are many cases of addiction from birds to certain plants and fruits, as they feel particularly attracted by the seeds of Papaver somniferum and are a known scourge of opium poppy . And he knows the sparrows that are introduced into the stores to feed only hemp seed. This particular feed the birds seem to produce different degrees of stimulation and excitement. Several bird-breeders of parrots or canaries-added hemp in the diet of their pets to "improve his song" or "increase his loquacity."
The red-nosed reindeer
The beautiful mushroom that appears in cartoons or children's stories, just remember the unique houses of the Smurfs, "the red hat and covered with white spots , is the quintessential hallucinogen: Amanita muscaria. The origin of its use is lost in the mists of time, and archaeological and ethnographic data have shown its spread through Asia, Europe and America. This fungus grows under pine and birch trees and forests in Russia are the food of the reindeer during the summer. Once you have ingested, running from side to side with no apparent end, twist the head and is isolated from the herd. Caribou of Canada also frequent this fungal intoxication and, like the reindeer from Russia, Waving the hind legs awkwardly and twisted his head. However, this behavior has consequences for the herd, because mothers in the state leave their young unprotected at the mercy of predators. Many animals eat mushrooms, usually genera Psilocybe and Panaeolus . In Mexico, it is not surprising that where there are these mushroom species, dogs are eaten. Their reactions are to run in circles, twisting his head, howling for no apparent reason and refuse to obey the orders of their masters. Still unclear if the dogs are aware of what would happen after eating these mushrooms, but a proven case of this occurs among the goats, which are able to attack anyone as long as stay with a booty hallucinogen. The smallest morsel of Amanita muscaria mammals occurs in a remarkable state of intoxication, characterized by the contortions of the head: the most common in animals found in that state because the reindeer are not the only, and squirrels also eat various insects, especially flies, hence the origin of the name of this fungus.
"Inevitable greedy"
Al Amanita muscaria is also known as "fly swatter" because it was used as a "remedy" to remove these pesky insects. In the nineteenth century was still common fungus hats in the window sills as an insecticide. But at that time had entomologists realized that the flies actually died not to enter Contact this fungus, but went into a state "lethargic." Therefore, once the flies remained motionless, advised throw into the fire. Over time, it was found that the most active part of the fungus is just below the cuticle red hat, where are located most of the alkaloids isosazólicos-ibotenic acid, which are the same hallucinogenic agents to humans . Previously it was believed that the toxic agent was muscarine flies, but by providing laboratory muscarine to insects, they were not affected. The flies become intoxicated with the same alkaloids that affect humans.
This
that surprised us, have known life toads living near the Amanita muscaria and await the insects land on the fungus, freak out and end up as food "well traveled."
Dr. Ian Q. Carrington is a self ethologist who has studied the most diverse species in their natural state. Her favorite pastime is to open a bottle of wine, pour a drink and wait for it to appear that mosquito immortalized in his verse ethyl Quevedo, the mosquito (Drosophila melanogaster) falls into the cup, take it out "more drunk than a Cuba" and places it in a napkin. After a time the mosquito takes flight. is the author of "Manual for conversation I", under the label "Other Inquisitions, with useless data most incredible and strangers who can become indispensable when necessary to" break ice. "
[1] Intoxication. Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise. New York. Pocket Books. 1989. 8 °. 390 pp.
We have presented some photographs to a contest that summons the Reps Guide l, by Tapas & Blogs . He has performed many people, so it is going to be complicated, but still no luck. This is one of the photos:
Near Lújar town in the foothills of the same name, we find a forest of oaks ( Quercus suber). cork is the southernmost of Europe, very small with relict oaks ( relict forests are those that remain as a vestige of some type of flora that once existed in the area and that this is only that sample vegetation than in the past was ) but of great beauty. It is a short path, through dirt tracks, you can do with young children. As you know the cork is removed from the cork, which among other things is used to make wine stoppers .
course, neither is eating for lunch, right? If we feed in a very healthy must learn to eat healthier foods that are in the market. 
