SPAGHETTI PESTO

Pasta and pesto! Pasta is good. Everybody likes it. And pesto! It is a wonderful sauce. I have to admit that basil is, maybe, my favourite herb. We will make our own pesto. It is not difficult.

Ingredients:

½ package spaghetti
Some drops of extra virgin olive oil for the pasta
Some salt to cook the pasta
Enough water to cook the pasta
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon pine nuts
Some salt for the pesto
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil for the pesto
¼ cup parmesan cheese

I guess you know how to prepare pasta. So I will not say much about it. Heat some water. Bring it to a boil. Add some salt and oil. And add the pasta, of course. Have the pasta boiling for the minutes the package says and once it is ready, drain it and reserve.
Now we will prepare our pesto. It is good to do it in a mortar. We will mix the garlic, the basil leaves, the salt, the black pepper, the cheese and some of the olive oil. If you want, you can add some parmigiano reggiano or pecorino cheese as well. We will work on it for a while and then we will add half the pine nuts. We will mix it and finally we will add the rest of the olive oil and pine nuts. Now, just a gentle mixing, try it and fix it according to your taste. And now we just have to mix the pesto sauce with the pasta. We will put everything in a pan, mix it and heat it for a while. A drop of olive oil will not do any harm. And just enjoy!

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PORK IN TOMATO SAUCE

A Spanish recipe. One that brings back to my memory home meals.
It is an easy recipe. The main ingredient is pork. Then tomato sauce. It is simple but delicious.

Ingredients:

1 pound pork loin chops
Some flour
Some salt
Some extra virgin olive oil
½ green pepper
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
Some tomato sauce
2 tablespoons roasted chopped red pepper
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon oregano

First we will coat the pork with some flour, but not too much. We will put some salt to the meat too. Once this is done, we will start frying the meat in a pan with hot oil. A bit later we will add the green pepper, which will be cut in little pieces. We will keep on frying and then we will add the garlic to the pan. When we see that the meat is almost ready, we will add some tomato sauce that we will have prepared previously. At this moment we will also add the red pepper and the herbs. We just have to let it finish for a while at medium heat. Easy, isn’t it? But delicious. Enjoy.

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THREE-FLOUR BREAD

Who doesn’t like bread? I really love it. And I love baking my own bread. I haven’t bought much bread since I got my bread machine. I bake almost all the bread I eat.
You can make the kind of bread you prefer. You can mix flours. You choose. Your bread is yours!
I will show you how I bake my three-flour bread. You do not need to use mother dough, although the results would be better. You can do something else instead. But first, the ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 cup and 1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon powder milk
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup bread flour
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tablespoons “old dough”
2 teaspoons yeast

I make my bread with a bread machine. I put the ingredients in the machine. First the water, then the oil, the sugar, the powder milk and the salt. I mix the three flours in a bowl and then I add it to the machine. As for the salt, what you can do, instead of using regular salt is using some seasoned salt. By doing this you can give your bread a different touch.
As I told you, I will not use mother dough this time. What I do is the following. Every time I make bread, I keep a small piece of dough apart. I take it from the dough once it has risen. I keep it covered in the fridge so that I can add it in my next bread. You can even freeze it. That starts the dough for your bread.
Let’s go on with our bread. Add the piece of old dough to the machine. Then make a little hole in the flour and poor the yeast there.
Now we will select the program to knead the dough and turn the bread machine on. Once the cycle is over, we will let the dough rest in the machine for 60 more minutes. Then we will prepare a tray, grease it a bit and take the dough from the machine to make three loaves. This is important. When we do this, we do not have to knead the dough again, just shaping the loaves without manipulating the dough too much. Then we will let them rest for 30 more minutes. Of course, you can shape your loaves the way you want. You can make small rolls if you want. It is completely up to you.
Now it is the time to bake. We will have the oven preheated to 425ºF. I also put a tray with a bit of water in a lower rack of the oven. This is in order to add some humidity to our bread. In principle, the bread will be in the oven about 25 minutes, but this will change according to the oven you use, so you will have to be careful about this. What I also do is turning over the loaves when these have been in the oven for 15 minutes or so. This will help the loaves to be done evenly.
When the bread is done, I turn off the oven but I leave the loaves in it for a while with the over door open. Now you only have to enjoy your bread. Believe me, once you bake your first bread you will not be able to stop.

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MUSTARD SALMON

Fish. Salmon. Today I will cook salmon. This is a quick recipe. Very useful when you are in a hurry. You just need a can of salmon. I make my mustard salmon with a can of salmon but if you can get fresh salmon, you will have to cook it further. Then mustard. I love mustard. A great combination.

Ingredients:

1 can of salmon
3 tablespoons cooked peas
Some extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons mustard
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon dill weed
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice

First we will remove the bones from the salmon. The bones in canned salmon are not hard but I think it is a good idea to remove them. You can keep them, though. If you keep them, your salmon will have more calcium, which is always good for your health. Then we will mix the salmon with all the other ingredients. We will mix them well but trying not to squash the cooked peas. We will put this in an oven tray, previously greased. And then we will take it to the oven, preheated to 350ºF, for just 5 minutes. Serve it warm and enjoy.

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