COOKING IN A DIFFERENT CULTURE, part 3

So what have I been cooking? As mentioned, Grandma's Christmas bread trees and muffins. Also, I bought a great new oval skillet/sauté pan at IKEA before Christmas--perfect for the Spanish-style omelets I have been envisioning. Think frittata and you will get the picture. I make one with onions, tomatoes, peppers, and bacon; and then, another with baby spinach, onions, and Slovak bryndza cheese [milder, but much like feta].

We have vegetable soup with our left-over beef tenderloin... And, creamy chicken, pasta soup that is so yummy and has fresh-squeezed lemon juice added just at the end. I also manage to make a pot of cream of chicken and mushroom soup with 5 leftover mushrooms and one chicken breast.

That's one of the things I love about soup--you can take a few simple or leftover ingredients and make it a meal. It works especially well if you have the ingredients for a proper mirapois--equal parts of finely chopped celery, carrots, and onions sautéed in extra-virgin olive oil or butter. When the onions are translucent you add some flour and make a roux , stirring over medium heat until the flour is cooked. You then thin it to desired consistency with a lovely chicken or vegetable stock and It's Soup! You can add your favorites and make it as chunky or smooth as you like--even pureeing with an immersible blender. Some mirapois have minced garlic added, but suit your own taste.

We have egg salad a couple of times. On Christmas Day we eat it topped with baby shrimp. MP spent 4 years studying in Norway and learned to love that combination. DM mixes up our family's favorite guacamole. We are missing the jalapeno peppers, so we use green and a few shots of hot sauce.

The night that CA and I babysit the grandkids we stir-fry some onions and sweet peppers with some spicy sausage slices and mix it all together with some white rice. Just to make it clear--we ate this spicy concoction. The little ones had their normal mac and cheese.

DM steered me away from the canned tuna at the grocery store, but when we were in Simmering near Vienna in Austria I did my normal label staring and managed to secure three cans of nice tuna fish, so there has also been tuna salad.

We've been talking about lemon tarts, biscuits w/ sausage gravy, and molasses cookies... MP asks about making BBQ pulled pork with the lovely pork loin roast her mother gave her. There is not commercially made BBQ sauce available, so I will have to figure something out with what's available.