Recipe: Fried Eggplant

Here's one posing with salmon.

THIS IS SERIOUSLY THE MOST DELICIOUS FOOD IN THE WORLD

1) Peel eggplant.
2) Slide it thinly and place slices in a bowl of water.
3) Beat an egg and sprinkle salt; pour breadcrumbs into a plate.
4) Assembly - coat slice in egg then breadcrumbs, place in pan over medium heat with oil in bottom.
5) Once golden brown, enjoy with tomato sauce!

Recipes: Easy Garbanzos

Yummy, super easy garbanzos:

1) Chop and saute onions in olive oil.
2) In a large pot over medium heat, boil water, garbanzos from a jar (here they're packed with spinach), and a little salt.
3) Add sauteed onions and chopped potatoes and continue to boil.
4) Call it done when the texture is to your liking!

I like how there's so much leftover broth, so I use it to make couscous :) 

Printed: Education Things

Some things that have caught my attention lately:


FINLAND: Oh, Finland. The country with consistent wonderful education outcomes for years and years, studied and admired by all. This recent article gave some facts about how they do things that I hadn´t heard before - I´d be curious to find out how true these things are for all schools, but it´s definitely food for thought.  (no school until age 7? teachers spending 4 hours per day in the classroom?? and they all have masters???)

Recipe: Basic Fall Vegetable Soup

SO EASY.

1) Boil water and add a cube of chicken bouillon (OK - so I learned this is NOT actually all vegetables, like I was told.  This is not the first time this has happened in Spain - I ordered a 'vegetable sandwich' and was surprised it came with a bunch of tuna on it, people seem to never mention that things are made with BONES so now I always ask, and meat broth doesn't seem to 'count' as meat.  Anyway, I'll just substitute with vegetable bouillon).

2) Chop roughly and add potatoes, red peppers, squash, spinach, leek, onion, and carrots (the big ones, not baby).  Cook with the lid on for about half an hour.

3) Eat it as is or, if you want, puree the mixture so it becomes a creamy soup.  The end!

Captured: Quotes

So many recent photos + my obsession with quotes + glorious, glorious free time =

Captured: Avila & Toledo

Two more daytrips. I just love how from Madrid you can hop on a train or bus for an hourish and be in a totally different world with it's own history and culture. I can't say the same if you travel 60 minutes in any direction from Grand Rapids or Chicago...

Avila, just 25 min away on the train. The city walls - started in 1090, most rebuilt in the 12th century.

Rambling: Thankful

Alright, well I wasn't going to write anything for thanksgiving. At first there was just too much to choose from and I couldn't pick just one or two things for, say, a facebook post.  Besides, it sounds less meaningful and cliche today since everyone else is saying the same things - family, friends, food, health, etc. And plus I feel like it's obvious what I'm thankful for, so what's the point of writing it out (side note - I've actually been doing this thing for a few months where before I eat when I have food in front of me I take a deep breath and mentally list 3 things I'm grateful for - it's calming and reflective and stops me from just scarfing down my food without tasting it - woo!). But as I'm heading to bed, I'm still thinking about what I am thankful for, so here goes:

Printed: More Killing in Chi than Afghanistan

This article is from the summer but I just re-found it and it seemed worth posting.

Facts from this article: 
- More Chicago residents - 228 - have been killed so far this year in the city than the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan - 144 - over the same period.
- Chicago's murder rate is also currently quadruple that of New York and double Los Angeles' rate.
- The city's homicide rate is up more than 50 percent over last year.

Tio Hardiman, Illinois director of anti-violence group CeaseFire, wrote... "once you take a closer look, you will find out that the majority of conflicts stem from interpersonal conflict that escalate into a gang conflict." 
 

So sad. This reminds me of three things:

Captured: Madrid Street Music

Ok, sometimes I am just blown away by the street musicians here.  For your listening pleasure, here are two groups that were in Sol this weekend (I really wish I would have gotten the 5-member band playing traditional Andean flute music on the subway - complete with a rolling sound system!!)

Then this random old man started dancing :-)

Captured: La Sanidad en Lucha

Some girls and I met up for wonderful Sunday churros and here's what we found when we arrived in Sol.