Christmas food – part V

And finally, a small overview to some of the other deserts ;)
By the way, I want to wish all “Quichas” bloggers and readers, a sweet :);) and great 2006!!!

Christmas food – part IV

This one is called "Rabanadas" or "Fatias Douradas", which I can translate as "Golden Slices" :)))
It’s made from bread slices, which are imbibed in milk (that was warmed with a lemon slice and a cinnamon stick), passed through eggs and fried. Then they’re covered with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon powder. One can add a kind of syrup as well, made with honey, Oporto wine and other things.

Christmas food – part III

And finally, the deserts. In a blog that very often dedicated its posts to food, I can’t think of a better way to end this year than with some “sweet” pictures :))). So, this first one has an example of the typical fried Christmas deserts. This in particular can more or less be translated as “Dreams”, because they’re some what fluffy... :):);)

Christmas food – part II

So, after the cod, usually we have some kind of meat, later on. This year, the pork stuffed with dried plumbs was the elected ;)

Christmas food – part I

As I promised to some of you, I did a “photo documentary“of our Christmas food in order to illustrate some of the typical Portuguese dishes of this season. I couldn’t but start this new section in “Quichas e Afins” with the main course that you’ll find in the majority of the Portuguese homes on Christmas Eve: codfish with vegetables.

Today we had the Institutes’ Christmas lunch and this was what I got as a gift... :))
You can take a look at some pictures on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catarinamoita/tags/immxmaslunch/
As you can see, science in Portugal has a quite feminine touch... ;)

Yes, you guessed right. These were the “pearls” of the 7th art that I had to endure during my flight to Lisbon. Not one, but two. Why, beats me, but it was quite painful...

Today's dinner: cod in the oven stuffed with cheese, apples and fries :):)

Plus, this is a landmark: we've reached the 100th post of Quichas!!! Hurray!!! :))
Many thanks to all the contributors ;):)

Thank you all for coming to the dinner! :)
You can take a look at the pictures on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/catarinamoita/tags/portuguesedinner/

It's winter. It's cold out. In fact, right this second, we are experiencing blizzard conditions here in the Boston area.

The goats need sweaters.

Wedge, this post is for you ;)

Someone has been having too much fun with the God Mic.

You’re probably thinking who the guy in the picture is... :) Well, as my last post was about an American holiday, I thought it was only fair this time to dedicate another one to a Portuguese holiday. And so, as tomorrow (December 1st) we celebrate the Restoration of Independence from Spain, it became the chosen one. As such, here goes a bit of history: Portugal was ruled by Spain during 60 years, after a succession crisis in 1580. By 1640, a revolution took place (as is our tradition, only one person was killed - the State Secretary), and John IV (the guy in the picture) was acclaimed king, and that initiated the 4th dynasty – the Bragança dynasty.

another fun time waster; my high score so far is 1,023 feet.
what's yours?

http://gprime.net/game.php/kittencannon

not content with just stringing up some icicle lights on your house this year?

here's what you should do.

As tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I thought of writing something about it. While I was browsing some funny cartoons to go along with it, I found this one by Stavro Jabra dating from 2003 in Al-Jazeerah’s web site... As I “digged” more in their archive, I found several almost invariably about Bush and Sharon, which the second (also from 2003) is a very light (and actually funny:)) example... I learned as well that “Aljazeerah Info Center needs your support”, and that you can send your donations to: Al-Jazeerah Info Center, P.O. Box 724, Dalton, GA 30722-0724, USA. Or you can just use Paypal... God bless America

As part of the lab is preparing to go and watch the 4th movie of the Harry Potter series, out of curiosity I decided to go to the official website and take a peek in what’s being discussed in the forums. The subjects discussed are profound  and I must say that the word “hot” is quite ubiquitous… Here are some examples:


Harry Potter Forums:

1. We love Snape's pants club

2. Snape is hot

3. Does anyone here think Emma Watson is hot?

4. Does Bellatrix have children?

5. Where do the teachers sleep?

6. HARRY & HERMIONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOGETHER!!

7. Ron is so hot!!!

Ed, here goes your answer according to wikipedia:

“Chowder is any of a variety of soups, enriched with salt pork fatback and thickened with flour, or more traditionally with crushed ship biscuit or saltine crackers, and milk. To some Americans, it means clam chowder, made with cream or milk in most places, or with tomato as "Manhattan clam chowder." Corn chowder is a thick soup filled with whole corn (maize) kernels. Chowder is often commonly associated with New England cuisine.”

“Bisque is a highly-seasoned thick, creamy soup of puréed shellfish, of French origin. It can be made from lobster, crab, shrimp or crayfish. It is thought the name is derived from Biscay, as in Bay of Biscay, but the crustaceans are certainly bis cuites "cooked twice", for they are first sautéed lightly in their shells, then simmered in wine and aromatic ingredients, before being puréed. Bisque is a method of extracting every bit of flavor from imperfect crustaceans not good enough to send to market; if the shells are not ground to a fine paste and added to thicken the soup, it is not really a bisque.”

Old Classics are always funny.

I first saw this back in 2001, and I still laugh over it. Would Martin beg for food from these dogs?

Martin, this post is for you. While you're starving in Dominican Republic, this is just a glimpse of all the food you've been missing during this week: http://flickr.com/photos/beckie42/sets/1278277/

I hope it will serve you as a lesson, to never go to the Caribe on vacation... ;)