Fish cakes with ugali
preparing the Indian bitter melon
Another good Thanksgiving has come and gone. This year I decided to reduce my workload a bit and delegated some of the cooking. And again José hosted us at his place. We wound up with fifteen people and enough food for at least twice that. And that was with a slightly pared down menu — baked ham, hen, cornbread dressing & gravy, mac & cheese, black-eyed peas, fried okra, broccoli casserole, sweet potato casserole…. Others brought desserts with included cheese cakes, carrot cake, caramel pudding and assorted other sweets.
I didn’t take too many photos but there are some. I hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving as well.
blackened perch & brocoli casserole
Tangerine Beef
Cook it as long as you can to tenderize the beef and for the last few minutes add bell pepper and/or broccoli. If you want to thicken the sauce you can use corn starch, but I never do.
It turned out really well. Not my best effort at it I must admit. But okay.
It has really been a long time since I wrote about cooking. So here goes.
I’ve actually done a little baking lately. First, for Thanksgiving I decided to make a sweet-potato pie. That’s something I hadn’t done in years. Mostly, because you can’t buy ready made crust in Spain and I had never made a crust from scratch. Well now I have. And it was damn good if I do say so myself. And without rolling pin no less. I used a large glass to roll out the dough. Interesting let me tell ya.
And the past weekend, I spent the whole cold, stormy Saturday in my pajamas and decided to bake a cake to 1) help past the time, 2) help heat up my cold flat and 3) satisfy the sweet tooth I’ve developed after the aforementioned sweet-potato pie. And as I do with everything I cook, I invented as I went. It was basically just your plain cake except I had some wild berry flavored yogurt that was quickly approaching it’s drop dead date. So I through that in the batter. (It smelled like blueberry muffins cooking). And to top it off I made a simple little glaze using apricot jam, orange juice, honey, cinnamon and a little plain yogurt to take the edge off the sweetness. It actually turned out quite delicious. (Or else, you’d have never heard about it, right)?
Hey guess what! I recently discovered I could bake! Who knew?
I’m generally a good cook but baking has not been my thing other than my much loved (by me that is) sweet potato pie or things made from a box. But I decided to try my hand at a cake from scratch a couple of weeks ago. I have gotten pretty good making cornbread and figured a cake couldn’t be much different. Just use flour instead of cornmeal and add more sugar, right? How hard could that be. So I attempted an orange cake without any recipe or prior knowledge, and it turned out all right. Actually, I made way too much batter so I wound up with two cakes. One I glazed with a mixture of sugar and orange juice. (Why not it was an orange cake)? The other I frosted with a mixture of jams and jellies (peach, raspberry and plum). They were both okay. Not great mind you, but edible.
So a few days later, I decided I would try something I may like a bit more: carrot cake, one of my favorites. This too without a recipe just following intuition. Let me tell you, it was one hell of a cake!
So next up, I will attempt a red velvet. Straight to the mountaintop.
Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend and ate too much. I did. 
No, Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Madrid, but we did our best to make up for that.
As Thursday was a day filled with classes and work, we decided to observe the holiday on Friday. We did this by inviting 10 friends over to our place and making a big southern meal. This included roasting a chicken (don’t care much for turkey and don’t have an oven large enough to cook one anyway), cornbread dressin’, gravy, candied yams, fried corn, macarroni & cheese, cabbage and of course black-eyed peas. I was dying to have some turnip greens, but I haven’t found a place in Spain to get them. Strange, because the Spanish eat a lot of turnips. They evidently feed the greens to the hogs, or something. But Spaniards think the whole idea of eating the greens is disgusting. Fools!
Oddly enough, the hit of the meal seemed to be the homemade pepper sauce I wipped up just before people arrived as I only realized at that moment I had forgotten to buy Tabasco for the peas and collards. Who knew?! And I learned that doing a Thanksgiving meal without a proper oven is quite stressful and just too damn much work.
Also, D wants me to share that he made the desert: biscocho (basically Spanish pound cake) with an apple cinnamon topping. From scratch, no less. I can verify that I saw him peeling the apples and all. And it was quite delish.
I think a good time was had by all. I hope so anyway.
On Friday I was invited to my friend Ignacio’s potluck b-day party and decided to treat the guest to one of our South Carolina specialties: Hoppin’ John. My version is not completely traditional — what about me is? — as I include one of my favorite spices, coriander. Oh, well, I like it.
Hoppin’ John, for you non-Carolinians, is basically black-eyed-peas and rice. I generally throw in onion, garlic, bell peppers and ham or bacon. For seasonings, you all know that I use whatever appeals at the moment but usually include cayenne & black pepper, salt, the aforementioned coriander, and rosemary. This time I think I also used a bit of ginger powder and rosemary.
And of course it was a big hit. And went well with the mix of Spanish and Filipino foods brought by the others. But of course, I prefer just a big bowl of the HJ with absolutely nothing else. Yummmm!
About a week ago, I made what had to be my best tortilla española (Spanish omelet) to date. It was definitely the best looking one. 
Although they seem simple, they really aren’t and I’ve had — and made — several disappointing ones. But they are terrific when done right.
So how do you do one right? First fry up about 2 kilos (4lbs) of diced potatoes with a chopped onion. I also included bacon, red bell pepper and a carrot this time around. (Spaniards will sometimes add sausage or tuna). After they have cooled, combined them with 5 or 6 well-beaten eggs and salt and pepper to taste. I like to add a bit of cayenne pepper and basil as well, though this is extremely un-Spanish.
Place the mixture in a slightly oiled large frying pan on very low heat. About half way through flip the tortilla onto a plate, platter or similar and slide it back into the pan to cook the other side. The length of time depends on how well done you like your eggs but should be cooked enough so that it will maintain its form when flipped out of the pan.
Slice it like a pie and serve with sliced baguette.
