Potato-Leek Soup with Crispy Pancetta

Gillian

It’s the time of year where I’m simultaneously mourning the last days of summer and antsy to move on to the crisp fall weather. Barcelona has been skipping back and forth between seasons – sunny and balmy one day, cool and stormy the next.

During one of the fierce thunderstorms this week, I put the potatoes in our CSA basket to good use and made a simple, creamy potato-leek soup that hit the spot. Cozy up with a bowl – you won’t regret it.

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Potato-Leek Soup

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Serving Size: 4

Potato-Leek Soup

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 4 leeks (white and light green parts only), roughly chopped
  • 5 small potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream or half and half
  • Olive oil
  • Salt, pepper, dried thyme and other spices
  • Handful of cubed pancetta (about 1/2 cup)
  • 1/4 baguette, cut into medium chunks

Instructions

  1. Melt butter in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add leeks and potatoes and cook for about 10 minutes, until softened slightly.
  2. Add broth and simmer for 15-20 minutes until potatoes are very tender. Add cream and heat through.
  3. At the same time, cook pancetta in a small pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and bread crumbs until crispy, about 8-10 minutes.
  4. Use an immersion blender (or work in batches in a regular blender) to puree until it is still lightly chunky, not totally smooth.
  5. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and any other spices you like.
  6. Serve topped with pancetta-crouton mix, with extra sliced bread on the side.
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2014/10/02/potato-leek-soup-with-crispy-pancetta/

Grits & Grillades: New Orleans Brunch in Barcelona

Gillian

One thing Americans – and New Orleanians in particular – do exceptionally well is brunch. Long, leisurely, mimosa/cocktail-fueled, this-is-my-only-plan-for-the-day brunch.

Say what you will about our excess and indulgence… in this case, I support it.

sazerac

We have recently started hosting meals through EatWith – a website that allows you to share meals in people’s homes all over the world. It’s basically Airbnb for dining, and when we first moved to Barcelona, being a guest was a wonderful way to meet new people and eat delicious food. And since we pretty much already do this kind of thing on our own (two extroverts who really love food and parties), it made perfect sense for us to become EatWith hosts.

Last weekend, we hosted our first New Orleans brunch and made one of my all-time favorites: grits and grillades. I had never had grillades (or grits for that matter) until I moved to NOLA. It’s a slow-cooked meat dish – made with beef, veal or pork – in a thick, flavorful gravy, served over creamy, buttery grits. So a light, healthy breakfast.

It’s easy to make, but it does take a long time to cook, so I advise making it the day before. The flavors are even better the next day, and all you have to do is reheat it and make the grits before people come over (you’re going to want to have people over: it makes a ton). We made our own chicken and beef stock, but you can also use store-bought.

Get the recipe below!

chicken stock veggies
The building blocks of a good stock
Chicken and beef stock
This is not at all excessive.
wine bottle meat mallet
We don’t have a mallet.
judgy cow
I’m sorry, disapproving cow!
steak
Trimming the steak
holy trinity
The Holy Trinity
mimosas
Mimosas?
brunch
Lovely guests

We used these recipes as references:

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Grits & Grillades

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes

Serving Size: 10

Grits & Grillades

Grillades is a slow-cooked meat dish served over creamy grits, perfect for a New Orleans-style brunch.

Ingredients

  • Grillades
  • 4 pounds boneless beef steak (round steak or stew meat)
  • 4 cups beef broth
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 3 medium onions, diced
  • 2 medium bell peppers, diced
  • 5 ribs celery, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • Flour
  • Vegetable oil
  • 1 large can whole peeled tomatoes
  • 5 fresh tomatoes, blanched, peeled and cored (optional)
  • Creole seasoning mix (We used some of Emeril's Essence and Tony Chachere's)
  • 3 bay leaves
  • Dried tarragon and basil
  • Salt and pepper

  • Creamy Grits
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 cup coarse ground cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 8 oz. cream cheese

Instructions

  1. Trim the fat off the beef. On a floured surface, use a mallet or blunt utensil to pound to about 1/2 inch thickness.
  2. Cut beef into long strips or small squares. Salt generously and set aside on a plate.
  3. In a large, heavy pot, heat a generous layer of vegetable oil to medium-high. Season meat with Creole seasoning mix and pepper, then brown it in batches on all sides (a few minutes per side).
  4. Remove the meat and set aside. Add onions, bell peppers and celery to the drippings and cook until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.
  5. Add the tomatoes, chicken stock, beef stock and red wine, and bring to a boil.
  6. Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir in bay leaves, tarragon and basil.
  7. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the meat is very tender and falling apart (at least 2 hours).
  8. In the last 40 minutes of cook time, prepare the grits. Bring milk and water and salt to a boil over medium heat.
  9. Slowly pour in the cornmeal to the boiling liquid, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Turn the heat down to low and whisk continuously for the first 5 minutes.
  10. Cover the grits and whisk every few minutes. Turn off the heat after about 25-30 minutes and stir in butter and cream cheese, adding salt and pepper to taste.
  11. Pour a ladle of grillades over the grits, and serve with hot sauce.
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2014/09/24/grits-grillades-new-orleans-brunch-in-barcelona/

 

Poached Eggs & Crispy Breakfast Potatoes

Gillian

Our last CSA included five wee little potatoes, which were not quite big enough to make mashed potatoes or tortilla. So I turned them into a quick brunch using a few other ingredients we had in the house. We live on the third floor, which is actually the fourth floor European/ fifth floor American, so I try to avoid unnecessary stair climbing when I’m hangry.

I used the Pioneer Woman’s breakfast potatoes recipe as a guide and added a couple of poached eggs on top (plus a healthy serving of ketchup). My poached eggs never turn out quite as pretty as I’d like, but they were perfectly runny and delicious, and I’m working on new techniques to improve their aesthetics.

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Crispy Breakfast Potatoes

Crispy Breakfast Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 5 small potatoes, washed and unpeeled
  • 1/2 bell pepper
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • Salt, pepper, other assorted spices
  • Olive oil and butter

Instructions

  1. Cut the potatoes, peppers and onion into medium chunks.
  2. Add garlic and toss with a good glug of olive oil and a bit of softened or melted butter. (I find it's most effective to mix the ingredients with clean hands.)
  3. Season liberally with spices.
  4. Bake at 425 degrees F/ 218 degrees C for 25 minutes, gently turning them once or twice.
  5. Turn the oven up - in my case, as high as it will go to 250 degrees C (482 degrees F) - and bake for another 20 minutes. Check on the potatoes occasionally to turn them or take them out if they're starting to get scorched.
  6. Serve with poached eggs.
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2014/09/15/poached-eggs-crispy-breakfast-potatoes/

 

This is what we signed up for.

Brian
beets beets beets beets
CSA Experiment #1

As previously reported,  we recently joined a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We had a couple of reasons for doing so, but one of them was to push ourselves into cooking with things we don’t normally buy.

Challenge number one: Beets.

Neither of us had any experience with buying and/or cooking beets, so when basket #1 arrived with two of them we did what reasonable people do: we left them on the counter for days hoping they would prepare themselves to be eaten.

This did not work, and eventually we took to the interwebs to look for creative solutions, and I was surprised to find there are lots of amazing-looking dishes to be made using beets.

Not really following any one of them in particular, the beet preparation went like this:

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Beet and Goat Cheese Crostini

Ingredients

  • Beets
  • Olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar
  • Goat cheese
  • Salt and pepper
  • Sliced bread

Instructions

  1. Heat a small frying pan with a little olive oil
  2. Trim the skin off of the beets (beware, this will make your hands and your cutting surface red)
  3. Cut beets into small cubes
  4. Sauté on low heat until the beets are tender (about 40 minutes)
  5. Remove tender beets and add a few heavy dashes of salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil
  6. Use an immersion blender (or food processor or blender) to purée until smooth
  7. On a piece of sliced bread, add a splash of balsamic vinegar, spread a hearty portion of goat cheese, and then spread the beet purée
  8. Consume and repeat step seven until you run out of one or all of the ingredients
  9. (Several recipes suggest wrapping the beets in aluminum foil and baking in place of sautéing, and I’m sure there are merits to both.)
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2014/09/13/this-is-what-we-signed-up-for/

The end result is pictured above and turned out surprisingly well.

The moral of the story is get out there and try cooking with something new, even (or especially) if you don’t know where to start with it. It doesn’t need to be fancy or complicated, but playing with a new ingredient can open the door to a variety of other ways to prepare it.

Now I’m actually looking forward to the next time beets show up in the basket so we can make something crazy, like beet and goat cheese ravioli.

Joining a CSA in Barcelona

Gillian

I have a very important announcement to make. Brian and I just joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). It’s just a few blocks away from our apartment in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona, I walk by it every day and I can’t believe it’s taken us so long to sign up.

Every Tuesday will henceforth be known as “Christmas.”

CSA in Barcelona

Els Bandolers de Gràcia
El Carrer Verdi 12
08012 Barcelona
Phone: 93 217 27 85
elsbandolersalcamp@gmail.com

Hours:
Monday to Thursday: 11:00 – 22:00
Friday and Saturday: 11:00 – 15:00, 17:00 – 22:00. Closed Sundays.

Els Bandolers de Gràcia is a great little store where you can buy produce and local artisan products, such as wine, beer, honey and chocolate. The produce comes from local and organic farms in Catalunya, and the CSA is a fantastic deal. Here’s how it works:

1. You sign up and pay a 30-euro registration fee, which includes two baskets – cestas – (you trade an empty one for a magically full one each week).
2. You choose either Tuesdays or Thursdays to pick up your cesta.
3. You pay each week when you get your basket. We signed up for the pequeña, which is still a ton of food for two people and costs 13 euros. The media is 18.50 euros and the grande is 28 euros.

We are only two weeks into our membership, and I already notice an improvement in our enthusiasm and creativity with preparing fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s like a game show: race against the clock to figure out A) what things are and B) how to combine them in an edible fashion.

Mystery greens? Braise them with pancetta, olive oil and balsamic! Potatoes and onions? Breakfast fries! Insanely delicious ripe plums? Eat as many as you can in one sitting, then make a quick stovetop jam with the rest before they go bad! Everything else? Throw it in a pot, you’ve got yourself a stew!

If you’re looking for a CSA in Barcelona, this place is glorious.