Fast soup

4 carrots peeled and sliced
2 potatoes peeled and sliced
1 turnip peeled and sliced
1 onion peeled and sliced
coarse sea salt to your taste
1 teaspoon of rice
5 teaspoon of olive oil

1 slice of toasted bread cut in small pieces (optional)


Put the carrots, the potatoes, the turnip and the onion in a pan and cover them with water, when it begins to boil add the rice and let it boil gently for 10 to 12 minutes, it's faster to cook because the vegetables are sliced. Turn off the heat, and beat the soup with an electric hand blender or food processor. Now add the olive oil and stir. Serve in plates or bowls and put the small pieces of toasted bread in the middle.

Fried Pork with Red pepper paste

10 to 12 small pork meat cubes (+ or - for 2 persons)
1 or 2 tablespoon of red pepper paste
6 tablespoon of olive oil (4 + 2)
2 tablespoons vegetable margarine
2 tablespoon of white wine vinegar or 1/2 lemon juice or both
1 hand full of finely chopped fresh (or frozen not dry) cilantro


Cut the pork meat into small cubes and with 1 or 2 tablespoons of red pepper paste (that I've already posted the recipe here) do the same way as I did with the turkey (also posted here) and rub it all over the meat.
In a skillet put 4 tablespoons of olive oil, wait until it is hot enough and you can hear the fizz when you dip the meat into it. Cook it until golden brown, this must be a quick process in a medium-high heat to seal the meat and you can cook less cubes at once to achieve this faster. The golden brown meat cubes can be put aside on a plate until you have them all done.

Next, into the same skillet add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil , 2 tablespoons of vegetable margarine and the cilantro, stirring till you have all mixed together, add the meat and its juices, put the lid and let it cook in a low-heat for a little longer until the meat is not pink inside.

Before turning off the heat, sprinkle the meat with the vinegar and stir. If you want to add the lemon juice it's after turning off the heat.

For decoration and a little more flavor, spread fresh cilantro leaves over the meat.
Instead pork you can do the same with turkey breast fillets cut into strips.

Seasoning & Freezing

If you are going to cook meat for dinner, it's better if you add the seasoning in the morning, or at least some hours before cooking, storing it in the fridge inside an appropriate container or just well covered with aluminum foil or food wrapping film. This way the flavor will be better. If the seasoning is done some hours before, you add less salt, as time goes by, salt have more time to dissolve, its effect is bigger and if we put too much ,we have a salty meat.

Freezing:
If you are not going to cook all the meat you bought, never forget that before freezing it, to wrap each individual steak (not seasoned) in its own wrapping film, avoiding to have them sticking together. This way when you want to cook another meal, you can use the number of steaks you need, without defrosting all of them. We can use the same technique to freeze fish in individual fillets.

Another quick tip: You can add the seasoning as soon as you take the steaks out of the freezer, and let them defrost inside the fridge the same way.

Avoid burning margarine

If you fry with vegetable margarine, you can add a little bit of olive oil to
prevent it from burning too fast and giving it bad taste and appearance.

Best choice

Our first choice must be always for fresh ingredients .

Our second choice for frozen ingredients.
But if you have to choose between products in cans or glass bottles, choose in glass, for me the taste is better and they are the most environmentally friendly, between these two.
This doesn't mean that you can't use products in cans, I use them too, but I always follow this order.

To your lettuce live longer

If you don't use all the lettuce on the same day, start to use the outside leaves and wrap the rest in a clean and dry cloth, put it in a bag and store it in the fridge drawer.

You will see that your lettuce will be fresh for several days.

Be organized

Big empty plastic bottles of water can be cut and lined with old plastic bags for rapidly put the remains near us, when we are preparing a meal.

I already saw many portuguese kitchens after making a meal, with scattered remains all over the bench work (remains of vegetables, egg shells, potatoes peels...).



If we are organized, we will save time and we don't need to do so many trips to the garbage can, even if it is three steps away.By the end of the meal you saved at least 20 steps.






In the countries that have recycling we can have up to three containers for the different types of remains.Take the bags and put the garbage into the right places.

First approach to PORTUGUESE CUISINE

"Portuguese cuisine is characterised by rich, filling and full-flavored dishes and is an example of a Mediterranean cuisine..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_cuisine

Information about cooking recipes

Who knows me and know how much I like cooking, are anxious for my cooking recipes.
They are disappointed not to see them in the blog.

I promise to start as soon as possible.Until then, I know(and I'm sorry) that some of you still have to eat plastic food.

I also have to learn to solve some technical problems. Don't forget I begin to work with computers only a few days ago and I'm still waiting for details of ingredients that can be found in U.S.A. to adjust to Portuguese recipes.

Thanks for your patience.

The Task I left behind

Trying to escape from computers, inventing excuses, I reached the inevitable point; 10 days to do what I should have done , or at least begin, 10 years ago.
Day 5 , my head is about to explode. I´m dizzy, but I would like you to see the panic on my face each time I touch the wrong button.

If I lived 100 years ago, instead of being here fighting with the computer, sweating a lot, I would be sitting on a beach ,putting messages into bottles, and preparing myself to the day I'll throw them overboard. Here, and now, in only a fraction of a second, my bottles will be thrown into the ocean of information, among millions of others, where only those who know the location on the Internet map, can find them.

Of course, it can happen that an errant boat, may find it by accident.

Where our Will fits

If you want to travel somewhere, you can choose a thousand ways and paths to get there; on foot, by car, by truck, by plain, on motorways, secondary roads, you can get lost for a while, to sleep during the journey, without due value to each piece of the voyage, and better yet, you can learn something new, during the trip, about yourself or the places you´re passing by.

If destiny are checking-points on the map of our life, compared to a journey, our will, is never absent, the options are infinite and... eventually we can choose between the quick version, in one lifetime or the long version, to be born several times, perhaps as that person, which is only different (ideas,race,religion,country,costumes...) from us, and we so quickly mistreat. I like quick versions, trying to fulfill all my checking-points, but sometimes, I know, I will regret not to have done something( laziness or accommodation), postponing something that must be done,sooner or later. When something is left behind, a time will come, we have to do it imperatively , for yesterday. The task will be tougher. Right now I'm paying for the task I left behind.

First Things First

My daughter says that I'm too serious. I don´t agree with her, I just have to have a reason to do something.
But first things first.
I´m Portuguese, and the last time I wrote in English was 31 years ago, to get my Certificate from the British Institute in Portugal, so, 31 years later, I have an excuse for bad English.
In those days, I did not know the real reason to learn another language, and between German and English, I felt the second as the right choice.

We cannot escape from destiny.

Some say that destiny doesn't exist, only our will commands our life. Others do nothing, and even don't try to do better, because if destiny is already written , why to bother?
For me, destiny are checking-points on the map of our life and if you don't go there on a life time, perhaps we will be born, again and again, in another body, another sex, race, religion , in another country or continent.But if we have to fulfill all the points, if so, where do our will fits?