Portuguese francesinha sandwich

This was my first attempt at Portuguese food. I thought, oh, it's a sandwich, it can't be that hard to make. Well, it's a LOT of sandwich and the sauce is epic, but took some effort. Otherwise, yeah, it's not that hard. This is a very iconic Portuguese dish and I'm convinced whoever invented it was looking for a cure for a massive hangover after a big night out.

Paleo tortilla Espanola con chorizo

My breakfasts have become pretty standard and I was looking for something a little different to add variety into our meal choices. With paleo, there's a lot of eggs and a lot of bacon and a lot of sweet potato, not that I mind but I don't want The Boy to get bored and I like to change up our meals.

We've been doing a lot of the breakfast bake which The Boy loves and also a sweet potato hash which is a personal favorite but I wanted to change it up a bit.

Spanish chorizo and chickpea soup

It's getting into the cooler weather for us now and so I'm thinking that we will do a lot more soups for meals.

The Boy likes thick, hearty soups with lots of stuff in it or thick, creamy soups. I made one recently which was a huge hit, the wild rice and mushroom soup, which is just delicious beyond words.

Tonight, The Boy decided that he would cook and he picked a soup recipe out of the A Gluten Free Soup Opera by Sibel Hodge. He picked out the Spanish chorizo and chickpea soup. I didn't really help much at all besides helping him prep the stock and turning on the oven (he still hasn't figured that one out yet! :-) ). I'm so proud of The Boy for doing all of this himself.

So here's the RECIPE for the soup:

Ingredients:

• 100 gr of gluten free chorizo – chopped
• 1 x 400 gr can of chickpeas – drained and rinsed
• 3 large spring onions – sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic – crushed and chopped
• 1 ½ pints (approx. 3 ¾ cups) of gluten free chicken stock/vegetable stock/water
• 1 large carrot – grated
• 3 – 4 mushrooms – diced
• 1 green cubranelle pepper (or regular bell pepper) – diced
• 2 cups of rocket (arugula) – chopped
• 3 tablespoons of red lentils
• 2 large tomatoes – peeled and diced
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon of chilli flakes (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of paprika
• 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of black olives – deseeded and chopped (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil for frying

Garnish:

• Hard boiled egg – chopped

Instructions:

• Fry the onions, peppers, and mushrooms until soft
• Add the other ingredients and bring to the boil, then simmer for 35 – 45 minutes
• Top with the chopped egg and serve

Serves 4 – 6

The recipe asks for gluten free ingredients, but we did not use any. We just used regular old ingredients since neither of us need to be gluten free.

The Boy used all the ingredients, even the optional ones, except with the red lentils, he just used regular (I think, yellow) lentils, since the store did not have any red lentils in a can.

The only thing that we didn't do was the hard boiled egg for garnish. The Boy didn't get round to boiling the egg and since it was for garnish, we decided that we could live without it.

For the simmering for 35 - 45 minutes part, rather than have it simmer on the stove, which can be a bit dicey if not watched carefully, I turned the oven to 120dC and brought the soup to a full boil. Once it was boiling, I had The Boy put the whole pot of soup (make sure your pot is oven-proof!!) into the oven and let it simmer that way for the time. This is an excellent way of simmering or slow cooking anything. Very controlled, no mess, no fuss.

The soup turned out to be very, very tasty. It is a brothy soup with lots and lots of bits and pieces in it, so it makes for quite a filling and hearty soup. Because of the chili and the smoked paprika, the flavor it very full and slightly spicy. If you don't like your soup to be very spicy, ease off on the chili.

For us, this made exactly 4 serves. 2 for dinner and 2 to be saved for later in the week.

Definitely something that we will make again.

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Best breakfast ever!! ... chorizo with potato hash and eggs

The Beloved Boy recently had a breakfast out which he really enjoyed. He's been raving about it since having it and been excited to try it out at home.

I'm so proud of him for this because not only did he discover a delicious meal, but he was also discerning enough to be able to come home and describe to me what he ate so that we could re-create the dish. After that, he proceeded to cook the whole meal himself for breakfast for us this morning with only a few tips and a little guidance from me.

You need to try this!! I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

Here's the RECIPE for what to do: - this recipe is enough to serve 2 people a very hearty breakfast.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized potatoes cut into small cubes
• 1 spicy chorizo sausage thinly sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 1/2 Spanish onion diced
• 4 eggs
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Heat up some olive oil in a pan and cook the chorizo until slightly browned and crispy, remove from pan
• In the same pan, put in potatoes and start to cook it, stirring frequently so you don't burn either side, this will take about 20 minutes, so be patient
• About 3/4 way through cooking the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, cook a little while longer
• Add garlic and onions and continue to cook until the potatoes are ready
• Then add the chorizo back into the pan and turn down the heat to the lowest setting on the stove to keep it warm
• In a fresh pan, add some olive oil and cook the eggs - you can either do them sunny side up or over easy, whatever your preference is - season to taste
• As the eggs are cooking, spoon the potato and chorizo mix onto plates
• Once the eggs are done, quickly top off the potato and chorizo mix with the eggs
• Serve and eat while still hot

This is a delicious meal. I was totally blown away by the mix of flavors, the earthiness of the potatoes, spice of the chorizo and the flavor of the onion and garlic, all mixed in. The eggs added a lovely softer texture through the dish, especially with the runny yolk coating all the other ingredients.

Now I'm thinking I need to have a breakfast party with some friends over so that I can make this dish. It's enough of a meal to serve it on it's own. We didn't have toast, but with friends over, we might add some buttered toast as well. Hmmmm .... who to invite???

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd