A Variety of Foods

At the Royal Palace in Madrid with Emily

It was almost ten years ago now (!) that I spent a semester in Spain on a study abroad trip.  I was there with about 30 other kids from BYU and we all lived with a family during our 100 day stay.  Each morning we had classes at the local university and each afternoon we were free.  We traveled frequently, sometimes for a week, sometimes just for a day trip, so we stayed busy during our stay.  There were a number of students on the trip that would jump on the train to Madrid every day after class, spending hours exploring restaurants, theaters, museums, palaces and cobblestone streets in the heart of Spain.  I can think of once that I joined them: the rest of the time I walked back home and spent my time with my familia.  My hope in spending time in Spain was to find out what it was like to live there, not just sight see.

A huge part of the Spanish life, and probably European life at that, is eating.  Each day after class I walked the 20-30 minutes home and would help my madre prepare our lunch.  Everyone sat at the table together for a three course lunch each day.  It typically lasted about 90 minutes and was such an enjoyable part of my time there.  Meals are such an integral part of daily life in Spain; it was really neat to watch how food helped form the backbone of their daily life.  

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COURSE ONE

We always had fresh bread and typically started with a vegetable soup.  "Vegetable soup" is not what you're thinking: my madre would simply take whatever vegetables needed to be used, boil them until soft and blend them with her immersion blender.  Every day was different: bright orange with carrots, lime green with peas and cabbage, brown from lentils, white from cauliflower.  She always put in some olive oil and seasonings and some days were fantastic while others were...not.  While here in the US we often start with a salad, that was very rare in Spain (I can think of one or two times).  We may have also just had fresh vegetables: sliced cucumbers with some olive oil (are you seeing a theme here?), salt and pepper, for example.

The emphasis for the first course was always lots of vegetables.  I went to Spain thinking I hated vegetables but after having them so well seasoned, cooked so many ways (boiled, pureed, steamed, sauteed, baked, in main dishes, etc.) I found I really love vegetables.  I still shy from raw vegetables, so thank heavens I can cook!

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COURSE TWO

After soup we jumped into the main course, which was sculpted by foods I still dream of!  Garbanzo beans with tomatoes and chicken, fish with rice, rice with potatoes and ham, a warm salsa mixture with poached eggs.  It was all so different for me, but always fresh (based on what was at the market that day), always different, filled with vegetables and seasoned beautifully.  I wrote down many recipes there and have sadly not been able to get many to turn out.  I look forward to the day I go back and join my familia at the lunch table again.  

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COURSE THREE

The third course was dessert, but so different from our dessert I hesitate to call it that!  Cookies and cakes are usually for breakfast in Spain (my kind of breakfast!), so dessert was often fresh fruit, a cheese platter (which was actually a foot-long tupperware filled with cheese - some of which was there when I arrived and still aging when I left!) or yogurt.  We would sometimes have a plain yogurt cake, which is a simple combination of a few ingredients (called yogurt cake because you use the yogurt container to measure everything).

Over the past few years I've spent a lot of time reading about French eating, a very trendy topic, and have found that the Spanish have very close ties to the French.  Both cultures highly prize their culinary habits and both derive deep satisfaction out of their time eating.  It is a fascinating lifestyle, very different from our own in many ways (they would never eat standing up or in the car, never eat alone, don't really snack, and don't feel guilty for indulging in foods they enjoy).

I don't think it's possible for me to mimic their lifestyle, but I do think variety is realistic.  The French have an unwritten rule of not serving the same meat twice in a week, for example.  The focus is on always changing things, modifying recipes, adjusting seasonings, and focusing on what is fresh.  Fruit is enjoyed in the spring, summer and fall, when it is growing locally and full of flavor.  Winter is for stews, meats and roots.  Vegetables are eaten in season, at their peak, enhancing their phenomenal richness.

Like several of you, I sometimes find myself stuck in the same dozen recipes, making them over and over until I am sick of them.  I want to shift my cooking focus to be on novelty and change, so I want to go one full month without cooking the same recipe twice!  Would anyone care to join me?  I'm just going to focus on dinner, which will likely be just a main dish and a side (no three courses here for us.  Yet.)

A few of my online favorites, to kick you off:

Poached Eggs with Cheese and Chickpeas - we are not often vegetarian, so you can be sure anything vegetarian on this list is fantastic.  This is great with crusty bread.

Balsamic Chicken Noodle Bowl - this is pretty unreal and, I timed it, took me 23 minutes from start to finish.

Carrot Soup - we made this with fresh carrots and were quite surprised at how great it was!

World's Best Lasagna - more than 8,000 reviews and five stars should definitely mean something.

Chicken and Avocado Enchiladas in Creamy Avocado Sauce - a great excuse to eat even more avocados.

Jalapeno Popper Chili - we just made this two weekends in a row and loved it both times.  We have done two jalapenos (no seeds) and it has not been spicy enough for our liking yet.

Asian Slaw with Ginger Peanut Dressing - this is so fresh and a great combination of flavors and crunchiness.  We don't put the dress on ours until we serve: it keeps great in a bowl in the fridge for several days of lunch!  Mary, I bet you could change this to be peanut free easily.

Lemon Lentil Soup - another vegetarian recipe.  This one is also great with fresh bread.


Do you have suggestions of some great dishes?  I'd love to see comments below!

Bon appetit!

-Rachel