Culinary Adventures

I have a very short multiple choice quiz for all of you blog followers out there……
Which would you rather NOT eat?
a. Pastries
b. Chocolate
c. Candy
d. Churros and chocolate
e. Anything healthy (including but not limited to vegetables, fruits, chicken, etc…)
Well, as most of you may expect, I chose “e” for my answer and unless there is something seriously wrong with you, I might suspect you have all picked the same answer. Here’s where my favorite Southern Spain phrase “no pasa nada” enters into play. This can be translated to “don’t worry.” Well, one could say that I took this phrase a little bit too literal when I came to Spain two years ago (especially with my eating habits). Now, I have to preface this by saying that this is not going to be a post about self-image or body confidence but more just about pure facts. When I left Spain before, I was FAT.

Just look at the chub that has accumulated around my nice round face here when my parents came to visit me.


I don’t think my parents would have recognized me if I hadn’t snuck through the security exit into the baggage area at the airport and ran toward them like a flailing idiot. Also, you know it’s bad when you come back to visit your host family two years later and they spend the better part of 10 minutes looking at this picture which is displayed in their living room and commenting about how fat I was when I left (I guess I will take that as a compliment though as they are implying that I look better now).

This is a direct result of my “no pasa nada” attitude when it came to eating. My friends Liz and Emilee did not help the situation but only made it worse. There would be nights that we would make trips to multiple candy stores, devour two pastries, and then sit by the river eating a carton of neopolitan ice cream. Would I feel a little guilty? Yes, but then would think “well, I am in Spain and I might as well enjoy myself.” This eating situation was only made worse by my host mother who insisted on giving me the largest portions of food at lunch. Then, there was the problem of my picky eating…..if there was something at lunch that didn’t taste so good to me, I would simply shovel it down with plenty of bread (yes, I am pretty sure there were days I may have eaten an entire baguette by myself.)
Moving on, those days are behind me and I am looking to still enjoy myself in Spain but might I say “in moderation” this time (at least with regard to food). I stopped in a magazine shop the other day and picked up a “cooking healthy” magazine and another one that has recipes. Might I say they are all a little strange? There are a few that I think we could stomach but for the most part that idea was a fail. One of the shows that I really like to watch on TV is this guy who has a cooking show. He always breaks out into song and is just really entertaining. Well, one of his side dishes the other day was couscous. It looked good. I couldn’t stop thinking about couscous the entire next day. Here is where domestic Emily enters the picture (I know I say it a lot but these domestic things don’t come easily to me….cleaning, cooking, laundry). I decided to cook up some chicken, broccoli and couscous. Everything came out really great (and I even used chicken broth instead of water to make the couscous like my cooking show guy did so it had more flavor). Tad and Michael Lynn were a little skeptical of the couscous but after trying it decided that it wasn’t so bad.
Here are some pictures from our dinner the other night




So, in my package that is so happily displayed in my last post, there was the October issue of Fitness magazine. One of the highlights on the front cover was recipes for easy, healthy soups/stews. Well, this is perfect for Spain because that is what they eat all of the time. I went for a run this afternoon and came back with an exceptional amount of energy and decided I’d try my hand at chicken tortilla soup.
I looked at the list of ingredients and thought I’d be able to find them all in a Spanish grocery store. The only ingredient I couldn’t find was cumin and so I substituted curry which seemed to work fine. The recipe claims that it only takes like ½ hour to cook but I managed to prove them wrong! It took me a good chunk of time but the finished product was a success! Tad and Michael Lynn really liked it and so did I! We had a nice healthy meal and have some left over for tomorrow.


I have a couple of other pictures but I can't get them to load (I'm not always the best with this blog website!)
So I can’t say there was much of a point to this post except to show that I am actually trying to make meals and have acquired the label of "resident cook/mom" of the piso.