The Square, Villamartin

                                       The proprietor of 'The Square' Tim Ashbolt

Having written in yesterday's post about rural, traditional Spain, there is of course no point in denying that Spain has witnessed a change to its overall structure. Many British moved to Spain throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the economy was favourable and many Brit's wanted to opt out of the rat race. Southern Spain offered sunshine, a 20 degree average annual temperature, sandy beaches and a relaxed international lifestyle. The Spanish seemed to embrace the mass exodus of foreign people coming into their country, we may have changed the structure of their costal landscape with the mass building of urbanizations, but we greatly contributed to the Spanish economy.

Spain has almost become a country of two halves. Rural Spain is still steeped in tradition and culturally unaffected by 'foreigners'. Visit a 'British' urbanization and you will find yourself in 'little Britain' with British restaurants and shops and a thriving British community within which few Spanish people will venture.

It all seems to have worked out well enough! Brit's can mix amongst their own with the added bonus of sun, sea and siestas. The Spanish economy is richer from all the property they have sold and the businesses which have thrived due to our spending.

Personal choice brought Glenn and I to rural Spain, we wanted Spanish culture and have integrated into a Spanish community and village life. However, take the road out of our village and not many miles away we are thrust into the attractive Mediterranean village of Villamartin. This is a development very popular with tourists and expatriate communities, Villamartin boasts a plaza which is surrounded by chic, contemporary restaurants and bars, and is home to African ring neck parrots and palm trees. The central plaza is a vibrant and modern alternative to the more homely Spanish villages and in many of the restaurants you can enjoy a 'haute cuisine' experience for less than half the price you would pay in Britain!


'The Square' is one such restaurant, exquisite food, beautiful surroundings and excellent service made for a very pleasurable evening!

The Square restaurant offers fine dining, and whilst I am happy to eat menu del dia and tapas, I find the Spanish diet often lacks fresh vegetables and good homemade desserts and dare I say creativity. No matter how 'Spanish' I like to think I have become, I will always want a meal as good as this, with fresh vegetables, (as opposed to salad) potatoes (not chips!) and desserts not from the freezer but homemade!


'I would rather be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain'
-George Orwell

Love Donna xxxxxxx

Land Of The Siesta

Well, here I am eleven days into our stay in Jacarilla and once again I have become my Spanish counterpart. At the very moment I touch Spanish soil and breathe spanish air I relajarse (relax).

Spain is the land of siesta, life here moves slowly and runs until late. One is immediately imbibed with a sense of moving slowly, enjoying the surroundings, eating well and relaxing. This is by no means (as friends of mine tend to think) because we are on 'holiday', this is rural Spanish life, we live within a working community not a holiday destination.

People here don't gulp cups of coffee out of paper cups en route to somewhere else, nor do they eat on the go. Queuing is a relaxed affair, unlike the English who docilely form a queue and immediately become agitated, in Spain it is considered polite to let the older generation go first and common practice is to simply accept that everyone knows their turn and in the meantime are free to wander off to chat with friends.

Spain is a beautiful, interesting and dynamic country full of culture and traditions, some of which have been lost on us Brit's who see Spain in terms of TV shows such as Benidorm. Here are some photos which I hope encapsulate the beauty of Spain!

                                                   Enjoying menu del dia

                                                   The staff at La Fortaleza

                              The market in Jacarilla where women buy fresh produce

                                                             Lovely Frank!

                                        A coffee in Frank's bar served in glass cups

                                                          Beautiful churches

                                                           Delicious tapas

'How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.'
-Spanish proverb

Love Donna xxxxxx


   

Sobremesa: We'll Talk About That After Lunch.

                                              Father and son, restaurant Meson Pedro

Further to yesterday's post in which I talked about the dying tradition of the 'Sunday roast' I would like to talk about the Spanish tradition of eating a Sunday lunch. As you know, my second home is in rural Spain and I divide my time between Hampshire and Jacarilla, rather a dual existence........but one I love!

Yesterday I used the expression 'be home' which a mother had coined regarding her feelings about having her family 'home' on Sunday's. Nowadays in the fast paced cities in Spain people don't have the time for leisurely lunches or week day dinners anymore than us British.  However, at the weekend they return to their origins, the Spanish people value the importance of gathering together with family and friends over a long and languorous comida (lunch) and on Sunday this is the day's main meal comprising of several courses.

Whenever we are due to go back to Spain I telephone my neighbour in advance to book us into the village restaurant for Sunday lunch. It's a case of book early to avoid disappointment as the local Spanish people will have their family tables reserved on a regular basis. Meson Pedro is a family run restaurant and the current proprietor was the baby in the above photo, the restaurant was previously owned by his father and probably his father before him.

I know I wax lyrical about the Spanish lifestyle, for which I make no apologies, but I love that the Spanish have held onto their origins. On Sunday morning I am always awakened to the sound of church bells calling the congregation to mass, Spain has been a committed Roman Catholic nation throughout modern times and many of the villagers don their Sunday best and go to Sunday morning mass.

After church Meson Pedro's is often full to capacity and thus begins a leisurely lunch. The first course is always a salad which is placed in the middle of the table for everyone to share.

The next course can sometimes be a cocido, a stew that consists of legumes, potatoes and meat in small quantities, every region has at least one version.

On my last visit my 'starter' was a mushroom pastry

                                     Not a shy portion! Extremely delicious!

        

               Wine is automatically served with lunch and is included in the price

The main course, meat or fish, comes with little in the way of vegetables, maybe some fried potatoes and a pepper garnish.

                                          Kidneys served with fresh lemon

  Dessert is often a delicious alcohol soaked sponge known as Bizcochos Borrachos.

Next comes 'sobremesa' which literally means 'over the table' and refers to the art of conversation after a meal. Far from taking the last bite and wanting to leave, as unfortunately us impatient Brit's tend to, Spanish people often stay at the table savouring the company over drinks and coffee. It is quite touching to see children spellbound by the elderly recounting their youth, everyone participates in the conversations, which are often quite loud and animated, and there is never a smartphone or tablet computer in sight!

                                                  Coffees for sobremesa!

Sharing a meal with good friends in a fabulous restaurant........what could be better!

'Note on a door: out to lunch; if not back by five, out for dinner also!'
-unknown

Love Donna xxxxx

Easter In Jacarilla

                                         The easter procession in Jacarilla

As we head off to Spain I always think of my mother Constance, but for her and my father we wouldn't own a property in Spain. My parents died within four years of each other, untimely deaths, and all their years of hard work and diligence saw them never reaching retirement age and reaping the benefits. When we first visited Jacarilla with it's beautiful church, historic palace surrounded by gorgeous gardens and woods and it's spiritual little sea rock grotto of the virgin where villagers light candles for their loved ones, I knew mum would have loved it.

The sense of community, the al fresco eating, the paseo (a ritual of an evening stroll) the religious festivals, all of these would have appealed to my mother given her Italian blood.

Before my mother became unwell she had regularly expressed a desire to visit Passione, this was an Italian restaurant in the Fitzrovia district of London co owned by Jamie Oliver's mentor Gennaro Contaldo. Gennaro was a great favourite of my mother's and when he gave the restaurants name to his cookbook she bought it for me, to this day it is my favourite cookery book.

I actually booked a table on one occasion but something else came up and as you do I said to mum, we'll do it next month, but next month turned into another month and into a year............

We never actually made it to Passione and I deeply regret it! I do take some consolation in the fact my mother inscribed my lovely Passione cookbook and I think of her whenever I use one of Gennaro's recipes.

My last post was about simplifying the way you cook, I originally followed this next recipe to a tee, now I tweak it, it's basically so simple and so utterly delicious that it features regularly on our table. I'll give you Gennaro's recipe but think about using streaky bacon in place of pancetta, mixed frozen veg instead of peas, cream cheese rather than ricotta and even a little grated Cheddar if you don't have parmesan.

Pasta with peas, pancetta and ricotta

Recipe
Pasta
Olive oil
Pancetta, cut into thin strips
Onion, peeled and finely sliced
Peas, fresh or frozen
Ricotta cheese
Grated parmesan
Black pepper

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions
Meanwhile, heat a glug of olive oil in a large pan
Add the pancetta and cook until crisp

                   
     Remove pancetta with a slotted spoon and set to one side

                                   
  Fry onion in the same pan until golden

Stir in the peas with a little water
Drain the pasta

Add the ricotta to the pasta with a little reserved cooking water and stir

Add the pasta to the onions and peas, add the pancetta and mix well, season with black pepper
Serve into warm bowls and serve immediately with a sprinkling of parmesan

I haven't given quantities as I'll let you be a judge of that, you know how much pasta per person your family likes, you might want lots of pancetta I use anything between 50g/100g for 4 and 120g ricotta. Sometimes I'll add quite alot of peas, other times a small handful, just adapt it to suit your tastes.

'I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, anyway you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.'
-Maya Angelou

Love Donna xxxxx

Happy Easter

                                        The stunning mountain view, Jacarilla.

Well folks on good Friday I am off to my second home in Jacarilla Spain for a sabbatical, we'll be gone for a couple of weeks so this could be my last post for a while. No doubt I shall be posting photos from various restaurants so I shall keep in touch!

Before I go I'm going to leave you with a simple recipe and a few ideas to mull over. Recently I quoted a proverb: 'when baking follow instructions, when cooking follow your taste.' Quite often when I look at a recipe it's the quantities that put me off rather than the ingredients themselves. I'm a conceptual and playful cook and a recipe to me can sometimes seem like a rule book, 500g of this, 200ml of that........ take this next recipe of fish cakes, I like lots of fish in my fishcakes whereas Bert favours more potato with a hint of fish. What I am getting at here is that I would like to loosen my recipes up and by doing so, encourage a bit of experimentation on your part.

Normally it will be a photo of a dish in a cookery book that will excite me, I'll read the recipe and if it is too drawn out and exacting I'll lose interest! Currently my favourite cookery book is 'Coi' a lovely book of stories and recipes written by chef Daniel Patterson. Daniel doesn't hold with recipes per se, he doesn't give specific quantities, rather he expects you to feel a recipe intuitively, thats my kind of cookery book!

So, where possible I'm not going to give exact, specific quantities (this won't always be possible of course) rather I would like you to take the general idea of my recipe and adapt it, use what motivates you, it's really very liberating and a lot more fun!

Lastly, for those of you familiar with the programme 'Masterchef' you will have seen the invention test, this is when the contestants are presented with a box of random ingredients and have to make a dish using a combination of those ingredients. This is cooking at its best and exactly how I cook, I look at what needs using up in my fridge, combine this with vegetables, spices or herbs and use my intuition regarding quantities and ratios, you'll be surprised at how intuitive you really are! Have fun!


Fishcakes

Recipe
Boiled potatoes, roughly mashed
Cooked fish, flaked (I used trout)
Seasoning: I added a splash of fish sauce, some pickled ginger, and black pepper

                                    Combine ingredients together in a bowl

                     On a floured board roll balls of mixture and flatten into patties

     

 Heat oil in a large pan and over a medium heat gently fry fishcakes for 10 minutes

                                 Serve warm fishcakes with lashings of fresh salad

Ok, that's a really simplified recipe! Quantities you can judge depending on how many you're cooking for, ratios according to your taste, Seasoning can be kept to just salt and pepper, alternatively you could add parsley, tarragon, coriander, chillies, soy sauce, garlic, grated lemon zest.............the world is your fishcake!

As Picasso famously said 'success is 10% talent, and 90% work' cooking shouldn't be laborious but it does require effort and the talent is within everyones grasp.

'The essence of pleasure is spontaneity'

-Germaine Greer

Love Donna xxx

#Reasons We Love You Pizza

                              Sampling some ingredients at my local supermarket

Having written a blog for almost a year (prior to Donna's Pink Kitchen I co wrote Two Mad Cows) I am now at risk of repetition. Although my cooking repertoire exceeds the statistical average, statistics show that the average mother relies on and rotates just nine different meals to feed her family, there are only so many different dishes I can cook.

I love experimenting with recipes but like most families mine have their favourite meals which I do rotate. Apparently the average woman has eight cookery books in her home, but has attempted only five recipes. Three quarters of women surveyed said recipes were too complicated with too many expensive or difficult to find ingredients.

I suppose this blog is about me trying to motivate readers with reliable dishes that work. I've always been inspired by other peoples ideas and experiences-what have they tried, what works for them? With a bit of interaction and banter you no longer feel like you are cooking alone, blogs are a great medium for sharing and interacting in this way.

Cooking is inherently spontaneous, ingredients are interchangeable and armed with a basic knowledge you can shake up your regular fail safe dishes. I might post a pasta dish or a roast recipe more than once, but it will have been tweaked slightly each time, I might add a different ingredient to a gravy or different herbs to a familiar pasta sauce. I for one return to my well worn page favourites in my cookery books over and over again, so, rather than post endless random recipes I will continue to share my family dinners at the risk of sometimes being repetitive but keeping it very real!

I was recently in my local Waitrose and had the pleasure of sampling some of their wares, I was looking for new ingredients for pizza toppings, different cheeses, hams and olives. If you see my previous post #happy Monday I extolled the virtues of making your own pizza dough, I can't recommend this enough! Firstly, the taste is far superior to any shop bought pizza, secondly, you can choose your own toppings from really good ingredients, thirdly, in the long run making your own pizzas is much more economical, and lastly, there is something really gratifying about the whole process.

Pizza

Recipe
500g pizza base mix, no need to buy yeast separately!
2 tablespoons olive oil
300ml lukewarm water

Place pizza base mix on a board, make a well in the centre
Combine oil and water and gradually add to base

                                  Knead the mix for 5-10 minutes to form a dough

                Cover the bowl and set aside for 30 minutes until the dough has risen

Divide the mix into 3 equal parts, roll dough thinly
And now the fun begins, cover with your favourite toppings

Place pizza in a preheated oven 200c/gas 6 (see #happy monday re baking stone/tray)
Cook for 10-15 minutes

If cooking feels like a chore it will remain a chore and unfortunately you will be destined to a life of eating sub standard food.

"When the waitress asked if I wanted my pizza cut into four or eight slices, I said 'four, I don't think I can eat eight'"
-Yogi Berra

Love Donna xxxxxxxx