Our Christmas, with a simple recipe and a tractor included

Pep and I always spend the New Year in another part of Spain. We’d book a week’s holiday in a city of our choice, often somewhere rather chilly. Together we’ve had the pleasure of visiting Granada (twice, we love it there), Toledo, Córdoba, Salamanca, Ávila and Cáceres, thoroughly enjoying our time in each of these beautiful cities.

We would usually book our stay in September/October time. Because of this, lots of the apartments and hotels would be full so we’d often have to choose from incredibly dear places or cheap, dingy ones. After our 2019/2020 New Year’s vacation in quite an unpleasant hotel we thought we were being very clever when we reserved an apartment in Valladolid on the day after we returned from our break in Granada. The 6th of January to be precise, almost a year previous to the holiday. There was lots of choice and we found a lovely apartment for a very reasonable price. Little did we know what would be happening in the world a few months down the line.

As you’ve probably surmised, we had to cancel our stay. The Valencian Community borders have been closed for the past few weeks, resulting in many people having to cancel their plans for the Christmas season. But still, we didn’t let it bother us, pretending we were on holiday whilst staying at home. The fact that the weather cooled quite a few degrees in time for the holidays helped. Although I love the heat (the hotter the better), I also relish the cold, especially at this time of year. It gets me in the festive spirit.

So on to our relaxing Christmas holiday at home. First off, the food!! The 25th of December we had a table booked at the Cantonet restaurant in Calpe. I spoke about this restaurant in a previous post (here). They do a “special” menu for this particular day, 27€ plus drinks this year. It includes 4 starters to share (all large portions and rather delicious), followed by a choice of either 3 different rice dishes, “cocido de navidad”, a meat dish or a fish dish. For dessert, three types of homemade “tronco de navidad”, their take on the Yule log. Coffees were also included, along with a plate of festive treats. The food was wonderful, as always.

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Pep and I returned to the Cantonet a few days later and had their usual menu. Fantastic food again but I’ll just mention the desserts (you know what I’m like). They sell various home made panettone for 13€. I bought a red fruit one for my dad a few weeks back and he later informed me that it was delicious. The dessert I chose on our latest visit was panettone and ice cream. It just so happened that the day’s chosen panettone was the red fruit one. Wow!!! The combination of panettone and ice cream is amazing.

I felt slightly yuck after I’d eaten it (all that gluten and yeast does me no good), but it was worth it. I had to try it just once in this lifetime!! Pep had some rather gooey, incredibly rich, chocolate and coffee “tarta de la abuela”. I won’t explain it, you can see what it’s like in the picture.

Roll on a few days and I had to do the ITV on my car (that’s the MOT in English). Exciting stuff I know. But it was an excuse to go out for lunch as I’d opportunely booked my appointment for 1pm. What a coincidence.

Before I talk about our lunch though, just one little piece of advice if you live in this area and need to do the ITV on your car, motorbike, lorry, tractor, etc. Go to the Benidorm centre (website here) rather than the Ondara one. You can get appointments much sooner. The workers are way more helpful and friendly. This was the third time we’d been and they’re always brilliant with us. I also paid online for this visit, they advise this when you book because of the current situation. I arrived 10 minutes before my appointment and went straight through, because I’d paid beforehand. Unbelievable.

We then tootled down to Albir to our favourite Indian restaurant, Tiffin. I’ve also done a post on this eatery (here), this time we thought we’d try one of their menus. It was “wunderbar”!! I’m sure their poppadum are home made. Here’s a few pics of our food and the menus.

For the last day of the holidays, the Three Kings Day, we treated ourselves to lunch in Ca’s Pelut. You probably know I’ve done a post on this restaurant before (here). We go for their delicious veggie paella, in our opinion the best one around, it has no artificial flavours or anything grotty like that. For the 6th of January they normally do a special menu for 20€, everything included. We pre-ordered the veggie paella beforehand but we didn’t know what the other courses would be, we rang 4 days previous to book and they weren’t even sure themselves!! They didn’t let us down though and everything was delicious.

Obviously all the food we consumed over these few days had to be burned off somehow. I’m not into running, I can do about 100 metres before I collapse. I like cycling as long as it’s on the flat (not good around here unless I want to cycle along our driveway). I do yoga everyday which keeps me flexible, sane(ish) and happy too😊. But our favourite way to burn the calories is walking. I can walk for hours on end, up and down mountains, by the sea, into town. Basically anywhere. In fact, when we get back from a walk, even a long strenuous one, give me 15 minutes and I’m ready to go out again!! Here are a few pics (with a bit of info) from the walks we did locally over the holidays.

We did do two more walks, one a bit farther afield, but they deserve another post. This one is long enough as it is!! I’ll write about them very soon.

Getting back to food 😁. I did a few simple, sweet, vegan and gluten free recipes over Christmas, one of which I’d like to share with you. It was posted by a nutritionist on a Facebook group I follow. It’s super easy and a great way to use up a glut of oranges, something many of us have at this time of year. The nutritionist called it “dulce de navidad” (Christmas sweet) and it’s a lovely way to end a meal when you’ve had too much food or you’re sick of eating “turrón” and chocolate. It really cleanses the palate.

All you need is 500ml of freshly squeezed orange juice, 60 grams of cornflour and 80g of raw brown sugar or “panela”. The first time I made it I only had 20 grams of cornflour left so I improvised and used 20 grams of arrowroot and 20 grams of tapioca starch to make up for the lack of cornflour. It turned out fine. The following time I had no cornflour so I just used arrowroot and tapioca starch. The texture wasn’t quite as good but this might have been because I used a smaller mould. It was still very edible.

Chuck all the ingredients into a saucepan over medium heat and whisk until you get a thick paste. The texture is very similar to “Blandiblub” (I think the English call it Slime), that gooey stuff that we loved as kids but our mum’s hated. I know, it sounds revolting but hear me out. Grease a mould with olive oil, tip in the orange concoction and allow it to cool, before placing in the fridge to firm up completely. Use a knife to separate it from the mould. Turn out onto a plate.

The nutritionist sprinkled desiccated coconut over the finished sweet. I can’t stand the stuff so the first time I made it I chopped up some roasted hazelnuts and scattered these over the top instead. Very tasty. The second time I didn’t bother putting anything on it, I like it as it is. My mother-in-law Elena loves it, she said it’s like “membrillo” but with orange instead of quince. If she likes it, I’m happy. She’s a very good cook.

I also made “turrón a la piedra” from this post, but instead of using almonds like I normally do, I used hazelnuts. I omitted the lemon rind and cinnamon, instead drizzling on melted 74% dark chocolate to the finished “turrón”. Marvellous. I did two coatings of dark chocolate ’cause one coating was far too stingy. Hazelnuts are a sweeter nut than almonds so I reduced the sugar to 200 grams. When I make it again I’ll use 175 grams, it was quite sweet. Hazelnuts are a fattier nut than almonds and they release their oils much quicker so the food processor doesn’t need to be on for as long.

A few words on our “huerta” and then on to the main event of Pep’s holiday. We haven’t been doing that much at all on our land, due mainly to “las Navidades” but also because of the lack of rain (hopefully that’s all changing tomorrow). Pep planted some onions, the garlic we planted in this post is coming on quite well and we planted 3 more fruit trees (how we found the space I have no idea). Also Pep bought me two cypress trees ’cause I think they’re wonderful. We planted them following the metal rod magnetic field procedure 😁.

But here comes the grand finale (drum roll please). Pep has bought a second-hand smallish tractor. Well, he’s bought it with his brother Juan after months of discussing buying one. I now know more about tractors than I ever dreamed I would!! I don’t know how many conversations and telephone calls these two guys have had over the past few weeks, all revolving around agricultural machinery, but I wish I had a few euros for every one.

Thankfully for me they bought one a few days ago. It was a pretty good deal and their one hour chats on the phone have reduced dramatically. Obviously there are things that still need discussing (the tyres need sorting out, they’ll have to take it to be ITV’d, etc) but to see them both test driving it on our land was pure elation😁.

It’s actually a pretty nifty machine, I just wish it had two seats. I could see the two of us going out for a Sunday drive perched atop of it, with our Huckleberry Finn hats on and a piece of straw sticking out of our mouths. I’ll just have to wait till he buys a trailer for it!! The funny thing was, my dad got Pep a t-shirt for Christmas that was perfect for the occasion. I don’t think he realised when he bought it just how apt it is (pic below).

Ok, I think that’s enough waffling for one day. It’s been quite a while since my last post so I’ve got a lot to say, although it’s been good to have a wee break from writing. I’m now ready to ramble again. Here’s the link to last week’s spot on the radio. I’m on around minute 42.

I’d like to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year and thank you all for reading my posts and sending me lovely messages and comments. I really do appreciate it and I hope to continue sharing our experiences on this blog. As always, any questions or suggestions don’t hesitate to contact us. Take care all of you and keep warm. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx