Asparagus Soup

I'm a bit crazy about soup at the minute. I make a big batch and then have it for lunch over 3-4 days, ultra tasty, cheap, easy and healthy. Its too tempting with all the good veg you get here - none of those peppers made in Dutch mega-greenhouses that have all been measured and weighed to a fucking gram. Here its all massive red peppers and plump aubergines all for a fraction of the price of in the UK.

This one is for my Lunch and Tracy's dinner. Asparagus is in season at the minute so it should only cost about £1.50 for a pretty decent bundle. Add an onion, some stock and a bit of cream and its about seventy cents a serving.

For the soup I chopped a medium onion and started frying it in olive oil. Chop the hard ends off the bottom of the asparagus, chop it into pieces and throw it in with the onions which should have a bit of colour on them. Fry for a few minutes and add about a litre and half of vegetable stock. Now all you do is put it all in the blender and blend until smooth then add some double cream and blend a bit more. Season.

It doesn't sound like it would be that great but it really is, it seems to be better if you dont overcook the asparagus before blending it though. Keeps it nice and green.

Cabbage Timbale with Tomato sauce and Parsnip Gnocchi

This is a vegetarian recipe that looked quite difficult but was actually pretty easy. With Tracy being vegetarian I often end up cooking vegetarian meals either for both of us or just for her. This one was taken from the Guardian food website and then adjusted with different ingredients.
I wasn't even sure what a timbale was when I started this recipe but its basically like a dolma or stuffed cabbage leaf. I'd never made gnocchi before either but it was surprisingly easy.
I started by boiling three cabbage leaves for five minutes then letting them cool. I sliced an aubergine into rounds and roasted it in the oven whilst I was doing the next bit. I quickly fried an onion, quarter of a green cabbage, garlic and some large spring onions. Here the bottom af a large spring onion can be the size of a regular white onion. I seasoned, tasted and then once it had cooled I mixed in grana padano cheese, the original recipe says to use gabriel cheese (http://www.wcnc.ie/) but I couldn't get this so substituted grana padano which I like because it doesn't overpower the other ingredients. Feta would probably also work well here and would give a it a bit of the taste of spanakopita.
So you have your cabbage leaf, cabbage and cheese mixture and roast aubergine. At this point I greased a couple of metal rings about 8cm wide and put them on a baking tray then  lined them each with a cabbage leaf. At the botton of each I layered a few pieces of the roast aubergine then nearly filled with the cabbage and leek. I finished each one with a few more pieces of aubergine and folded cabbage over the top. These are now ready to go in the oven.
The next part is the gnocchi which I was convinced would go horribly wrong. I boiled a couple of peeled parsnips and a couple of potatoes for about twenty minutes then mashed them together. Let it cool and add 1 egg yolk and enough flour to form a stiff dough. Make it into gnocchi shapes, put them on a floured tray and they are ready to be cooked, they just take 3 minutes in boiling water and are ready when they float to the top.
The last part is the sauce for the gnocchi. This is ultra simple, the only thing you have to have is good, ripe tomatoes. In Catalunya their national dish is "pan con tomate" (or "pa amb tomàquet" in Catalan) this is simply really ripe and juicy tomato squeezed onto toasted day old bread that has had garlic rubbed over it and topped with good quality olive oil. It doesnt sound great but can be really good if all the ingredients are upto scratch.
I peeled six tomatoes, chopped them quite small and mixed them with fresh basil, thyme and olive oil. Thats it - put the timbale in the oven for about 10 minutes. Boil the gnocchi for a couple of minutes then mix it with the slightly warmed sauce and serve with the timbale.

Probably Italian Pork Meatballs

Ok, so I was going to start this last week but due to laziness and ineptitude it has had to wait until now. You see I made meatballs last week which were pretty good and took photos and everything so thats what I'll start with. I've tried just about every different combination of meat for italian style meatballs and I think just plain good quality pork is the best. Although, since living in Spain I have started combining minced veal to the mix and that also works well.
It is much easier to get good quality minced meat here that in England - the veal I used to get fresh from the Boqueria Market in the centre of Barcelona. Even in the supermarket close to our new place its pretty good - you select your cut and they freshly mince it right there in front of you. Thats where I got the pork from for this recipe and it was really nice - fatty, meaty and slightly pink - not like the white stuff you get in the packets. I'm not sure what cut it was though - it looked like a hock - I asked the counter guy what was bueno para picada and thats what he recommended so thats what I got. I think loin which they sell everywhere here would be too lean and shoulder maybe too fatty, I will try them...
As an aside, whenever I ask for some pork belly here (called simply panceta) I always have to tell them that I want the entire thing uncut, at which point it goes a bit like this:
Me: quiero un kilo de panceta de cerdo. No corte.
Butcher: ssiiii??
Me: si entero
Butcher: entero? sin corte??
Me: si sin corte.
Butcher: (shrugs) vale.
Otherwise they just automatically start cutting it into strips, which you do see a lot in cheap and cheerful restaurants here served with chips and eggs. I just assumed roast pork belly would be a common thing to cook here because they are so big on pork, guess I have to ask someone.
Anyway, back to meatballs. In the blender I mixed  parmesan, fresh breadcrumbs, sage, parsley, a bit of garlic and quite a lot of salt and pepper. I then added this to the  pork mince, (coarse with quite a lot of fat seems to work best) with a lot of lemon juice and gave it a mix.
For the tomato sauce I fried garlic in a lot of olive oil and butter, added chilli flakes and fresh basil and fried for a couple of minutes (you could add wine at this point but oddly I didnt have any) then added two tins of tomatoes. I let it get back to  a simmer and added a teaspoon of suger, salt and pepper and splash of jerez vinegar. I let it simmer for ages so it gets quite thick cos thats how I like it but its pretty good with just 15 minutes cooking. Get the spaghetti on.
Ok so now I make that lump of minced pig into a lot of small meatballs, usually enough for about five meals, and fry them until they are really brown and crispy. This time I took most of em out and left six in the pan, drained off the fat and added a few spoons of the tomato sauce, fresh basil and the cooked spaghetti. Then you gotta grate more cheese onto it.
I've made these meatballs before slightly changing things each time and these are definately the best so far. I think the quality of the pork mince really made the difference this time.