Hola, happy half weekday….two more days then it’s the weekend!!

Just thought I would share what we have been eating/doing this week, starting with SUNDAY…

We live in the Granada Province in the area Costa Del Tropical, on Sunday we visited Las Alpujarras another area up near Sierra Nevada (snow mountains where you can ski during winter season) It was beautiful, very high up and if you have a fear of heights the drive might not be enjoyable!…. I loved it.

My Aunt and I had been out until the early hours at a party so we were fairly tired and hungry!! We walked around Pampeneira, a lovely village full of white houses, little shops selling handmade rugs and leather goods, also homemade port and rose wine that you can buy by the litre and a chocolatiers where you can try before you buy.

We then headed to the next village up for lunch: Capileira. Another lovely place with a couple of restaurants and beautiful houses.

We found a little place with a grassed area out of the back (unusual for Spain) with apple and pear trees growing along the edge of an amazing view of the mountains. ‘Casa Paco Lopez’, the house was amazing too, it looked family run and very old but it was the view that made us stay and eat…

The menu was typical Spanish but with some differences from the region, one of the dishes that stood out to me was the Plato Alpujarras, I had seen this on a couple of menus throughout Pameneira/Capileira (I’m always looking at menu’s) and wondered what it was….then the guy on the next table to us ordered it!! That was it; my Uncle’s mind was decided for him as soon as he saw it!! I ordered from the grill and got a serious case of food envy!!!

I would describe this dish to be similar to an English Full Breakfast, it has the black pudding, the egg the sausage etc, but this is a chorizo sausage, a black pudding sausage, cured ham, a chunk of salted pork then a pile of my favourite poor mans potatoes (potatoes cooked in lots of oil with green peppers) then it is topped off with a fried egg!!

Like the English brekky this is not healthy AT ALL ha, but what a delight to see. The black pudding was my favourite part, it had a slight nutmeg taste which was delicious with the salted pork. Morcilla is the name of the black sausage, Longaniza is the chewy paprika chorizo style sausage.  My Uncle got pretty full half way through eating this dish I wouldn’t advise eating this if you have anything you need to do afterwards, he had to drive us home along the mountain edge….PLEASE STAY AWAKE UNCLE G!!

If you’d like to read more about this part of Spain click on my link:

http://www.andalucia.com/villages/alpujarras.htm

We got home and I was pooped, I had to have a little lay down inside with the breeze blowing into my room as it’s so hot at the moment…

After my rest can you believe I was hungry again (hangover perhaps!!) So I decided to have cheese on toast…..but I used my tomato paste on the bread before I added the cheese and it was delicious, like poor mans pizza (perfect hangover snack)

https://lululemonandlace.com/food-blog-2/organic-tomato-paste/

MONDAY was a healthy day, juice juice juice!! Much needed after the weekend.

TUESDAY

Yesterday we stuck with the healthy vibe and had a delicious salad. It is so hot here at the moment and there is no getting away from it so we needed something refreshing for dinner.

We made a salad of crispy gem lettuce chopped into chunks, with cucumber ribbons, an array of cherry tomatoes red and yellow, spoon scoops of soft avocados, caper berries, ripped mozzarella tucked into the leaves with green & purple basil, the whole dish topped with pan-fried Serrano ham. We then drizzled this with Balsamic Creme and Extra Virgin Olive oil, seasoned then served it up with a few basil flowers over the top for decoration!!

Yummy tasty, healthy!!!

WEDNESDAY

Today I got up did my daily tomato pick, made some more tomato paste, and picked some aubergines ready to make more brinjal pickle…

Then I have been working on some blog maintenance, I needed some lunch and wanted something easy and healthy so I made Egg Muffins:

Mushroom & Red Pepper Egg Muffins

Ingredients this made 5

3 Large Eggs

4  Mushrooms sliced

Chunk Red Pepper diced

Butter for greasing (or spray oil if you’d like to be healthier)

Cheddar cheese for topping (optional)

Method

Pre-heat oven to be 200 degrees.

Grease a muffin tray with either the butter or spray.

Whisk your eggs and season well then pour into the tray to just over half way:

I have seen people online put the filling in before the egg but I find it best to do it this way so the filling does not stick to the bottom of the tray.

Fry the peppers and mushrooms in a little olive oil until soft then place into the egg, pushing down and sharing out evenly.

Grate the cheese and place a good finger full on each muffin, no need to measure here just put on as much as you like….

Top with a little black pepper then place into the oven. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is browned on top..

Take a knife and carefully run it around each muffin to loosen it from the tray. I sprinkled over some fresh flat leaf parsley, it tastes great with these muffins….

Eat with ketchup or Brown sauce, or even Brinjal Pickle, we are a little bit addicted to this stuff at the moment 😉 that’s how I ate mine….

https://lululemonandlace.com/food-blog-2/brinjal-aubergine-pickle/

You can make these with any filling, I just used what was in the fridge, but Spinach can be good in this, and bacon if you fancy a bit of meat ……and don’t worry I didn’t eat all 5, these keep well and taste great cold for a little afternoon snack!!

Ok well that’s it for now, enjoy the rest of your day ❤ !!