Self isolation, week 12: we get a very special brewing kit, the cast iron pan is brought back from exile, we have a very Valencian Sunday, some shops reopen, and I am also really fed up

Traditional / floral arnadí design

This week has become a bit colder and rainy, which I suppose means we’re getting full on into the summer!

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Chana saag “a la española” (Spanishised chana saag)

Chickpeas with spinach, tomato

We cook dals and curries quite often, but after we had spent the beginning of the year in Spain, we wondered whether we could cook a curry but in a Spanish style. I was certain this was possible—after all, chickpeas with spinach is a typical dish in southern Spain—and yet it was amusing to do it deliberately: to set out to cook a curry but using Spanish seasoning only.

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Puchero

Fideos soup (sopa de fideos)

Whenever we feel under the weather or just in search of some comfort, I channel my inner grandmother and cook a traditional Spanish stew: puchero.

Puchero in the pressure cooker
Puchero in the pressure cooker

This is a traditional “value for money” dish, as it’s easy to cook, relatively cheap, and the leftovers are also used for other dishes. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving ?

A classic on Sundays pretty much all year long (except when it gets hot!).

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Poison pie

Poison pie close up

☠️ This is a great pie to bake for Halloween… or any time you feel witchy! 🧙🏽‍♀️ ☠️

I got Malcolm Bird‘s fabulous book “The witch’s handbook” as a Christmas present in 1989 and we enjoyed reading it and making some of the crafty activities, but we never baked much at home, and also most of the ingredients in the cooking section were a bit unusual for Spanish palates, so the cooking recipes were sort of out of reach.

I still liked the book so much that I recently bought a second hand English edition—and it came just in time for Halloween. The best!

As I browsed through the book, the Poison Pie recipe caught my eye. Why not bake it, now that I feel confident to do so?

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