Paella is the traditional dish of the Valencian region of Spain. To be considered "proper" it must be cooked over an open flame and the most authentic of ingredients are thought to be rabbit and snails.
Ingredients for a Paella to serve 8 -10 People
1 Rabbit (or chicken)
1 Red Pepper
2 Large Tomatoes
1 kg Paella Rice
Saffron
Olive OIl
Thyme or Rosemary (or both)
Salt
Water
First chop the tomatoes in half and then ...
Grate them until only the skin remains. Set aside.
Fry the strips of pepper in olive oil
Untill they are well cooked and lightly charred, remove and set aside
Brown the meat, add the grated tomatoes and salt to taste, cook together for about 10 to 15 minutes
Add water to the level of the rivets in the pan, saffron and herbs
Leave to boil untill the meat is well cooked and tender, adding water if it boils away too much
Remove large bunches of herbs and add rice, distributing evenly over the pan
Place peppers on top of the rice
And leave to bubble away over a lowflame until all the water has boiled away
Once the water has boiled away
Leave to rest for about 5 minutes and serve
With lemon wedges, crusty bread and salad.
¡Aproveche!
I had a bit of an accident whilst cutting the hair of himself. He handed me the clippers after trimming it himself and told me to tidy it up at the back.
I of course obliged, but he had taken the comb off, one swift manouvre and Oooops too late!!! It all had to come off. Now, contrary to popular belief, it does actually get quite chilly here in Spain in January and the poor thing was nearly bald. There was nothing for it but to knit him a hat. I managed to find a free pattern and off I went. In two evenings it was finished and I'd got the knitting bug back :-)
A friend directed me to Ravelry and here I am totally hooked once more. My first completed project is this hat and scarf. Hat actually knitted up a bit big, so I will have to rip it back and start again. But, on the whole I am realy quite pleased. I now have on the needles, another scarf like this
and a white baby blanket/shawl type thing. which I might just have overfaced myself with. I also managed to find a real wool shop Lanas Orihuela who are so very helpful.
But of course this is not enough,
now that I had rediscovered my love of knitting again, I really needed to have all my needles, scissors and other such gubbins kept in the same place. So a quick search of the internet and a day on the sewing machine, one pair of old jeans and an old smock top of the girls and I managed to come up with this...
a knitting needle case.
So this years market was even bigger than usual - Fantastic. The only problem being that I only had a few hours to myself. Met up with the AFOTO peeps,
but soon had to leave them in my wake due to their dawdling - hahaha. I was specifically looking for the birds of prey, that are normally on display. Unfortunately they weren't in their normal situation, which is excellent for photographs but in another, not quite so photogenic.
I managed to catch the display, but there were a lot of people around, making it very difficult to isolate the birds in flight. This one here is looking right at me ¿No?
The stalls were their normal colourful selves and instead of going for lots of portraits this year as I did last year, I concentrated on the produce they were offering.
I was quite tempted by these dried flower headbands, but as I have no forthcoming bridesmaid appointments nor maypoles to dance around, I decided to forget it,
These wooden roses were also very tempting, especially as they were sprayed with a gorgeous smelling oil.
Now I'm really kicking myself that I didn't pick up one of these
And, incense sticks to colour coordinate with every room in the house
Delicious looking homemade bread, which smelt divine.
Next year, no excuses, I will be dedicating the entire day to this.
Oooops, uploaded all the photos for this blog post and then completely forgot about it. So, last Monday I went out to chuck the rubbish in the communal bin thingy that we have over here. So much better than having the rubbish festering in the back garden and having to drag the bin through the house option that is the norm in the UK. And there, underneath were four tiny puppies. Of course, I had to have a quick word and a tickle of their bellies - well who wouldn't! Returned to the house, shut the gate and there they all were, so tiny that they could get through the bars of the gates. Of course I tried the "Shoo" option - think Out of Africa you know Meryl with the lion, but to no avail. Went into the house and just ignored them. The time arrived to pick the girlies up from the school bus and they followed me out into the road again - success. Got back with the girlies and not a sign of them out in the street, round to the back door and there they all were! Himself had returned and given them a bowl of milk, girlies were instantly in love and now here I am with another 4 mouths to feed!
This is the smallest of the four - Lily
And as they do make the the loveliest of models, I guess that they can stay - for a while ;-)Incidentally, a quick trip around the neighbours and nobody knew anything about them. So it looks like somebody just dumped them :-O I am guessing that they are only about six weeks old, two girls, two boys and will be about the size of Jack Russels fully grown.
What are some people like?
Now, I'm not one to do this very often. But, just before Christmas I contracted with Orange and Internet Everywhere, as I am unable to get an ADSL line due to the remoteness of my house. Hell, my lane dosen't even show up on a TomTom,
and if my normal postman's on his holidays...
So for two and a half days I have not been able to connect successfully to the internet using the above "dooberry" but in white. I made a couple of phone calls, still not too sure what the problem was, but they called me. Yes, they called me this morning appologising yet again and discounting 50% of this months charges.
Big, big up for Orange
So, photographically speaking my New Year's resolutions are- Complete Project 365 - My first two pics are on this post
- Improve and Learn
- See if I can make a bit of money to buy new gear
- Enjoy
Should be relatively easy to fulfill I think
