Author: ajeanneinthekitchen

On my brief walk-about yesterday, not only was I graced by my new friend the Bushtit, Nature Walks – The Bushtit but I also had the pleasure of a Merlin posing for me up high in a tree. Merlins are part of the falcon family, smaller than a falcon but larger than a kestrel. They are small but ferocious. They are comfortable calling many parts of Colorado home, but we don’t see them all that often. They like to roam the skies.

I have been pondering on a way to showcase my pictures from our beautiful lakes for some time, but was not quite sure how to do it. I had thought about publishing a little book, but in order to produce it to sell, at least for the moment, it would be prohibitively expensive. Yesterday, I was telling this to one of my neighbors, and she suggested I should sell my photos at local art shows and fairs. I had never thought about that before, but now, she has planted a seed I am starting to grow. Please be honest (I can take it), is this something I should pursue? Would any of you be interested in purchasing prints if I were to start selling them? As with many of my ideas, this new idea is food for thought.

Have a great day Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Catalonia is located in the northeast region of the Iberian Peninsula and is made up of four main provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. According to Catalionan conceit, the region also includes the Catalan Lands which are known as the “Else Paisos Catalans” and include Valencia and it’s provinces to the south, Mountain Suzerainty of Andorra, the French Region of Roussillon to the North which is home to the most important agricultural area, the Balearic Islands, and the City of Alghero. All of these regions speak Catalan, or a dialect derived from it and share a common culinary heritage. Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia and it’s largest city, is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and extends down into Catalonia’s vineyard land where the popular drink of cava is sourced, along with many other great wines. Girona is bordered by both the Mediterranean Sea and France, and is the most Northeastern province of Catalonia, which is where the “Wild Coast” or Costa Brava is located. The history behind Catalonia is significant to their culinary life because it alludes to the great effort behind keeping the Catalan culture alive. 

Catalan food is unique because it is a blend of European foods and Mediterranean foods, rather than foods found in the interior portions of Spain. It has been enriched by the cooking practices of the Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Italians, and French and the dishes resemble Catalonia’s medieval roots. Many of the basic ingredients that go into Catalan dishes include onions and peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, nuts, wild mushrooms, a variety of beans, apples and pears, and herbs. Rice, eggs, pasta, wild game, chicken, veal, pork, duck are also commonly seen as staples in Catalonian dishes. Additionally cinnamon and chocolate are utilized for many dessert dishes and wine or cava is served with almost every meal. Dishes are composed of simple ingredients and do not contain an overwhelming amount of seasoning, therefore it is necessary that they are made with the best, most fresh products. Traditional Catalan cuisine is quite diverse, ranging from pork-intensive dishes cooked in the inland part of the region (Catalonia is one of the main producers of swine products in Spain) to fish-based recipes along the coast.

I think I must have been a Spanish chef in a previous life because I am definitely gravitated towards all the different Spanish cuisines. I love Mexican food and spicy foods with a passion, but I also love the wide varieties of food from the mother land, Spain, just as much. My most recent Spanish/Catalan culinary adventure was with a Catalan pork and sausage stew.

Catalan Pork and Sausage Stew

This is a simple stew made with simple ingredients, that when combined is just simply perfection. I used some cooked pulled pork that Larry had made earlier.

1 1/2-2 lbs cooked pulled pork

1-1/2 lbs sausage

1 1/2 lbs pumpkin, peeled and cubed

2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed

1 onion, diced medium

1 bell pepper, diced medium

1 jalapeno, diced fine

2 cups tomatoes, diced

salt & pepper to taste

2 bay leaves

1-2 TBSP garlic

1 cup dry white wine

3 TBSP tomato paste

1-1 1/2 cups water

5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme

olive oil

Cook the sausage until mostly done. Allow it to cool, then slice.

Cook the onions, peppers, pumpkin and garlic in olive oil until tender.

Add the sausage and continue to cook until it is done.

Add the wine and be careful of flare-ups. Add the bay leaves.

Stir in the tomato paste.

Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and continue to cook for about 20-30 minutes, stirring often.

Serve in a bowl since you want all the good flavors of the broth too. Serve with warmed bread to soak up the flavorful broth. You don’t want any of it to go to waste. I served it with warmed pita bread and a cool, crisp chardonnay, but a warm, full bodied red wine would pair nicely as well. !Delicioso! !Desfruitas!

Whether you are in the Catalonia areas of Spain or you are just bringing Catalonia to your own kitchen, I guarantee you are going to love this warm comforting stew. It is loaded with nothing but pure goodness that will warm you up from the inside out.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

It’s a new year and I have to new bird friend. I got some fabulous shots today. I cut my normal walk short due to the ice on the sidewalks. The ice and snow were cleared in some spots, but not in others and I slid a few times, so I thought it best to cut it short. But I was still able to get a few really great shots.

I met a new bird friend today. It is a little Bushtit. It is only about 3 inches long and it is a little ball of grey fluff. It’s so cute. There were a few in the trees, but they were difficult to capture. They are so tiny and fly away very quickly, but one let me get in a few shots before flying off to join his friends.

Make the most out of every day and make every day a good day.

It is hard to think of foods that can survive a long car ride, but I came up with a couple of good things to take with us to our recent trip to Hays, KS. Both were successful transports and were enjoyed by all. Along with the Parmagiano herbed carrots, Roasted Parmagiano and Herb Carrots, we also brought the makings for some crab stuffed mushrooms with us too. The carrots were served with dinner and the mushrooms were appetizers.

I made the crab stuffing at home and brought it with us and then I stuffed the mushrooms once we got to Hays.

Mushrooms are a staple in our house. I can use mushrooms in just about anything, and do too. 🙂 And crab, well that goes without saying. I love anything with crab. I also added some of my leftover sausage and spinach mixture that was leftover from my breakfast tortelets. A New Year’s Breakfast

Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

1 lb mushrooms

7 oz jumbo crab meat

5 green onions, sliced very thin

1 jalapeno pepper, diced fine

1/2 red bell pepper, diced fine

1 TBSP garlic

salt & pepper to taste

a dash of dried thyme

dash of dried oregano

dash of dried marjoram

dash of dried basil

1/2 cup Parmagiamo cheese

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup cooked sausage crumbles, optional

Mozzarella cheese for topping

paprika and parsley for topping

Combine everything together and mix well. There is no right or wrong way to do this, but I prefer to mix my spices and mayonnaise together separately then carefully fold it into the crab and vegetable mixture.

Preheat the oven to 350* F or about 190*C.

Wash the mushrooms and pop out the stems. Generously fill the mushroom caps with the filling, then top with mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle the tops with the paprika and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted and the mushrooms are hot. Add the parsley and serve immediately. You want these hot, straight out of the oven. Eat as many as you like. They are fairly healthy, at only about 167 calories per mushroom and are full of different nutrients.

Happy New Year Everyone. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Side dishes are often overlooked when preparing or serving meals, yet they are just as important as the main part of the meal itself. The parts complete the whole. You need the side dishes just as much as you need the main protein portion of the meal in order to make a complete meal.

I was originally preparing some roasted Parmigiano and herbed carrots for our Christmas Eve dinner, however, I learned that one of our guests was bringing a carrot dish so that plan was scrapped. Unfortunately, I already had the carrots prepared and they just needed to be popped into the oven to roast. No problem though. I quickly activated Plan B, and put everything in a plastic freezer bag and popped them into the freezer until our trip to Hays. This was a great plan and it worked out very well, since all I had to do to transport them to Hays was to take the the whole bag. They were a big hit with Larry’s family and not a carrot was left. I did not get a picture of them before we started to eat though. Sorry about that, but they will look very similar to how they looked before putting them in the oven.

Parimigiano Herb Roasted Carrots

2 lbs carrots, peeled and cut into sticks about 3 inches long

1/2 stick melted butter

1 TBSP garlic

1 tsp dried orgeano

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried marjoram

salt & pepper to taste

1/4 cup Parmigiano cheese

chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 400* F or 200* C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the melted butter and seasonings together then toss the carrot sticks into the mixture, making sure to thoroughly coat the carrots.

Spread the carrots out onto the prepared sheet pan in a single layer. Top with the Parmigiano cheese and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the carrots are tender.

Top with the chopped parsley and serve. These are a guaranteed winner and are so easy to make, using just simple and basic ingredients. They will pair well with anything you choose to serve beside them. Besides, you can’t go wrong with carrots, right?! 🙂 this recipe was inspired by Cooking with Mima and My Meals are on Wheels. https://www.cookinwithmima.com/ https://www.cookinwithmima.com/ Thank you both for this wonderful idea.

Happy New Year Everyone. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope your New Year celebrations were fun and safe. I always love the celebrations that ring in a new year. It wipes the slate clean and allows us all new beginnings and new possibilities for the upcoming year.

We just returned home from Hays, KS last night. Kansas is a plains state and is pretty flat, especially western Kansas, though there is not much difference between eastern Colorado and western Kansas. The differences are very subtle indeed, though they are there.

Western Kansas is known for three major industries – agriculture, cattle ranching and oil, although there are also a lot of wind farms popping up as well.

Hays is about 341 miles east from us, and is about a 4 1/2 hour drive. When we left, we still had a ton of snow left in Colorado. We still have a ton of snow, with the possibility of more to come today too.

The further east we went, the less snow there was. The roads were very clear, all the way both going and coming. On our trip home, it was the opposite. The further west we went, the more snow there was. Kansas had no snow at all.

We went to celebrate the holidays with Larry’s family. It is always good to visit, but it is always good to come home too. Our fur babies were all very glad to see us, even though we were only gone for a couple of days this time. It was still an eternity to them though. It’s good to be loved and missed so much.

I contributed a few things to the Billinger feast, but it is hard to travel with prepared foods. I made easy things, that were easily transportable. I will share them with you later. But I am home and back in the kitchen once again. Tomorrow you will kitchen experiences once again.

Happy New Year Everyone. I hope 2023 is kind to all. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

This year, our church decided to do something different for the New Year’s Day service. Instead of the normal cakes, cookies and breakfast treats, they decided to do a breakfast for everyone. Even though I will not be there, I am still cooking and providing some of the goodies for everyone to enjoy. Per request, I made my pumpkin, spinach and chorizo tortelets. I have made those before, and as you can tell by them being requested, they were a popular item. Spinach, Pumpkin and Sausage Tortelets

I made 4 dozen of these delicious, hearty tortelets for everyone to enjoy and to ring in the New Year with. These will be served with a variety of other goodies that will be provided by some of our other patrons.

Happy New Year Everyone. I hope 2023 is a good year for all. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

It has only officially been winter for about 10 days now, and we have already had 3 winter storms, each dropping a lot of snow. This is actually our 4th or 5th snow already, but a couple were still technically in fall. It started snowing again about 5-6 PM last night, and we got about 8-9 inches out of it. Everything looks so beautiful in it’s heavy winter blanket of white. Larry was just out clearing the sidewalk and driveways before going in to work.

This is from our back deck last night.

And this is what I woke up to this morning. This is from my bedroom window.

And this is from my office, on the other side of the house.

It is truly a winter wonderland. I think it is supposed to snow again this weekend too.

We are leaving for Hays, KS early tomorrow morning, weather providing. From what I understand, it should be OK going out, but we are expected get more snow and heavy winds coming back, which means we would be leaving earlier to come home. We are definitely leaving 2022 with a blast; a big blast of snow and cold weather that is.

Happy New Year Everyone. Stay warm, stay well and stay safe. ‘Til next time.

We have such a wide variety of critters and birds around our lakes. I love seeing them all and I get really excited when either I “meet” new friends or see those that don’t frequent our lakes much. We do have Northern Shovelers around here, but we don’t see them all that often, and I see the females even less. Yesterday, when I was out on walk-about, I saw a female Northern Shoveler enjoying our waters. The males are brightly colored, but like a lot of bird and duck species, the females are more subdued and not as colorful. It was a cold, cloudy overcast day, so the colors are not that great.

The Shovelers are known for their long, spoonlike beaks. It helps them “shovel” in their food and “shovel” the waters around to get to the food.

Have a great day Everyone. ‘Til next time.

With a new year coming just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to see how other countries celebrate. There are some pretty interesting ways of ringing in the new year too.

1. Ecuador – Citizens parade around the city with scarecrows built to look like popular politicians and cultural icons—and at the stroke of midnight, said scarecrows are burnt to a crisp to cleanse the new year of everything evil.

2. Brazil – It’s customary to light candles and throw white flowers into the water as an offering for Yemoja, the Queen of the Ocean, who is a major water deity and is said to control the seas, to elicit her blessings for the year to come.

3. Spain –  Locals will eat exactly 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight to honor a tradition that started in the late 19th century. Back in the 1800s, vine growers in the Alicante area came up with this tradition as a means of selling more grapes toward the end of the year, but the sweet celebration quickly caught on. Today, Spaniards enjoy eating one grape for each of the first 12 bell strikes after midnight in the hopes that this will bring about a year of good fortune and prosperity. 

4. The Netherlands – They eat Oliebollen. Ancient Germanic tribes would eat these pieces of deep-fried dough during the Yule so that when Germanic goddess Perchta, better known as Perchta the Belly Slitter, tried to cut their stomachs open and fill them with trash (a punishment for those who hadn’t sufficiently partaken in yuletide cheer), the fat from the dough would cause her sword to slide right off. Today, oliebollen are enjoyed on New Year’s Eve, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Dutch food vendor in the winter months who isn’t selling these doughnut-like balls.

5. Russia – They plant underwater trees in the freezing water. For the past 25 years or so, it has been a Russian holiday tradition for two divers, aptly named Father Frost and the Ice Maiden, to venture into a frozen Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake, and take a New Year Tree—typically a decorated spruce—more than 100 feet below the surface. Though the temperature is normally well below freezing in Russia on New Year’s Eve, people travel from all over the world to partake in this frozen fête.

6. Italy – Italians wear red underwear. Italians have a tradition of wearing red underwear to ring in the new year. In Italian culture, the color red is associated with fertility, and so people wear it under their clothes in the hopes that it will help them conceive in the coming year.

7. Greece – The Greeks hang onions on their front door in order to promote growth throughout the new year. Greek culture has long associated this food with the idea of development, seeing as all the odorous onion ever seemingly wants is to plant its roots and keep growing. Onions are a symbol of rebirth to the Greeks.

8. Chili – New Year’s services are not held in churches, but are instead held in cemeteries. This change of scenery allows for people to sit with their deceased family members and include them in the New Year’s Eve festivities.

9. Japan – In Japanese culture, it is customary to welcome the new year with a bowl of soba noodles in a ritual known as toshikoshi soba, or year-crossing noodles. Though nobody is entirely sure where toshikoshi soba first came from, it is believed that the soba’s thin shape and long length is meant to signify a long and healthy life. Many folks also believe that because the buckwheat plant used to make soba noodles is so resilient, people eat the pasta on New Year’s Eve to signify their strength. 

10. Denmark – In Denmark they smash plates against people’s front doors. People take pride in the number of broken dishes outside of their door by the end of New Year’s Eve. It’s a Danish tradition to throw china at your friends’ and neighbors’ front doors on New Year’s Eve—some say it’s a means of leaving any aggression and ill-will behind before the New Year begins—and it is said that the bigger your pile of broken dishes, the more luck you will have in the upcoming year.

Some of these traditions sound fun, others are a bit to out there for me. But do whatever floats your boat. I personally enjoy the way we celebrate here in the United States, England and Australia, with the big ball dropping, the countdown and fireworks, but most importantly, celebrating with family and friends.

No matter where you are in the world or how you celebrate, I hope 2023 is indeed a Happy New Year for all. May you be safe, healthy and prosperous all throughout the upcoming new year. Happy New Year Everyone.