Pisto Manchego

As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to make pisto manchego, a delicious Spanish dish which is something like the French ratatouille.   Then I had a slight hang up and had to make the salsa de tomate frito that goes into it.  Now, however, presuming that in the few weeks since I left you with my recipe for tomate frito you have made it, I present you with the full and delicious recipe for pisto manchego.

Salsa de tomate frito

Ever since living in Spain, attending my first and only lesson at a cooking school there, and being obsessed with El País’s food blogger El Comidista, I’ve been into making Spanish food. With a stack of recipes from the cooking school and countless ones online, I’ve been able to make everything from croquetas to gazpacho. Still, one of my favorite dishes has always been pisto manchego.

Christmas Cookies Galore!

Since it's Christmas time and I have managed to post all the Christmas cookies I have for this year, here's a compilation of this year and last year's goodies.  I hope you'll enjoy them and end up adding one, two or all four to your Christmas cookie list. Merry Christmas!

Sandwich Cookies

Rum Balls

Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

Butterballs/Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cookies

Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

It’s week two of December and time for another round of Christmas cookies. These next ones are the perfect sugar cookies for cutouts. With the use of an actual vanilla bean to make the dough they have lots of flavor as opposed to the plain sugar cookie cutouts you’re probably used to.

Sandwich Cookies for Christmas

Warning: If you make these cookies you’ll probably end up making them every year for the rest of your life.

Double Layer Stout Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Apparently, November 26th, is National Cake Day. Who knew?

I have no clue why and I am especially unsure why they would put this holiday anywhere near Thanksgiving, but that’s no excuse for not participating. And if you do, make this cake.

Apple Cake

I knew my mother was setting the bar high when she said someone proposed to her over this cake.

It was something of a joke, tossed out as “I will marry whoever made this cake”.  Regardless, it should be taken as a sign that 1) my mom is amazing baker and 2) this is a damn good cake.  So while no proposals emerged from my production of this cake, it still received lots of high marks from my friends for being moist and yet crunchy on top.