Oh the possibilities here

Oh, the rush! This week has been a real hustling as first getting accustomed to the new environment and culture. The amount of kisses and food, haha! I have maybe three posts in progress but haven't had much time to finish them. Or then maybe I'm just too fusspot of creating blog post pleasing to me. I realized that I now I don't have so much time to create long, well-detailed posts. Pity.

  On Friday day I attended into my host mother's work day in primary school. This is the time of the year of Castanyada, a very traditional festival in Catalonia. Here this is kind of replaced with Halloween. I was invited to arrive for the lunch with teachers to their meeting room  to celebrate and get familiarized with teachers and the Catalan school.
   The best moment was maybe when I was introduced to the master chef on the balcony. My yawn dropped of amaze and amusement when I saw that they were grilling three-metre long sausage, but cut and wrapped in a a smaller circles. And those astonishing sized slices of bread! With that I could have covered my face to play hide and seek.

  The wide board was full of different kinds of food  related to this special day called Castanyada. Various kinds of traditional pizzas made of puff pastry, sweet pastries flavored with coconut, stone pine, citrus, etc...  This dish was called Panellets and was enjoyed with aromatic and fruity alcohol called Moscatell,  made by muscat grape.  Also sweet potato preserved in the folio wrap.

 However, the most recognizable character were Castanyas, chestnuts , witch are roasted and later wrapped in the newspaper. Commonly street vendors prepare them hot toasted and sell them on the streets. And this is very delicious.
All the children gathered on school's backyard, made a circle on the track and sang danced few songs, waving their their hands along the song. At the end, all we got wrap of chestnuts and a big piece of batter.cake and few pieces of chocolate. The idea is that parents wait children otside and when the food arrives, the family has their own moment for their kid's eating.
In Sunday evening it might be that I'll be eating one kilo as we are celebrating this festival.

Bona Castanyada!

I'm in Lleida, Spain - Living here

Hola! Que tal? My journey to Lleida, Spain, started only around one and half week ago. I have had a profile on AupairWorld which is a website for people to  inform themselves as an Au Pairs. I thougth to make a blog post about my leaving before I leave but the time was small-scaled. In reality, I got a positive request (for starting to exchange messages) on Friday. And one week later I was having my last overnight stay. On 22nd day was my flight to Barcelona.

 The same day I got the request, I also had a Skype conversation and for two hours! The conversation was with the oldest chid (10-year-old) and her mother, but she was doing something else in the background. At the end we both seemed very sure that I could come. Somehow we were kindred. On the next day we talked more and the decision was made. I would move to Lleida.

   I had finished my Upper secondary School in Finland and after that tried few kinds of jobs. In Spring, when the last application period was, I tried to enroll into University, but to be honest, I wasn't motivated to study for entrance exams. Also to get enrolled to some programs in Finland is hard. Or that's what I believe. Nevertheless, I still wasn't sure what to do with my future and what I would want to study.

Sooo... I had one week time to get all the things ready. From the start - when I was creating the profile - I wasn't even sure which country I was going to. As a criteria I put a few countries like France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain.... a vast range of opportunities existed. And then this family from Lleida appeared to be interested about my profile. Their profile were in Spanish. The mother wasn't speaking English. Three children and a city of 130.000 inhabitants. Nice.

1ª: I didn''t speak or read OR understand any Spanish (Castilian). Maybe some vague words you hear from songs by Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Ricky Martin etc.
2ª: I'm a person who likes to talk and especially if with somebody I'm going to use a lot of time. And still 'No hablo Español'.
3ª: For someones 130.000 is much, enough or too few. For me this was unsure; do I get bored quickly because if I get to known with the city and all the people. Will I know the city like the back of your hand?
4ª : Three children. Hehe, do I even have to tell more?
5ª: This is a addition to last paragraph for a reason.  I attached a great importance to have a place where I could meet new people and get a lot of possibilities for a mass of experiences. To examine for these possibilities I opened the incredible world of Internet and started to search anything related to this certain city: Services, history, schools, communities, leisure time, people living there, living/working/study experience, Au pairs, groups....  Fairly almost nothing which made me scared about becoming to feel hermit there,

 What have I done?

Now when I'm writing this, it is the fourth day. And I have been authentically busy. And I couldn't be more happy. As a consequence, I will continue in the next post.

Benvinguda a Lleida!
Bienvenido a Lleida!

An easy recipe because its possibilities to modify to your own taste!

October usually brings pumpkins to the mind. Maybe because of their market seasonality or because the Halloween is behind the corner. Both.  Therefore I wanted to purchase one small pumpkin and use it as a decoration. But because of the small amount of meat which was left behind, I had to come up something where to use it. Few cups of coffee smoothie sounded exiting to give a try. Before getting into work, some digging for information was needed.

   Before you follow  instructions, I want you to know that feel free to change the recipe according to your own taste. I tried Internet and found recipes related to pumpkin spice, less for the raw pumpkin itself. So nothing is written into rock.

   

  The amounts and ingredients are only directive. For example, I myself used coconut flavored soy yogurt in exchange for plain yogurt. I still recommend to use mild or not strongly flavored as the coffee is the primary, and any exotic could possibly have fun combination. My honey was also flavored with ginger but I used if fewer to avoid too tangy savor.  Feel free to modify the recipe, as I said earlier.

 

  Keep in mind how strong you want it to be. In my version, the taste of coffee was more strong. So if you want it to be softer and sweeter, add more yogurt. The dairy will also make it sweeter  but more likely lightens the taste. 
  Also thinks about the texture. Do you want it to be Ruth's smooth smoothie or more liquid (I don't know what the earlier was).  
  More flavoring can be added also if you want more sweetness.

Can you eat raw pumpkins?

  What I sorted out - yes. But it can be tasteless and hard to eat or cause some people allergic reactions and because of it's fibrous texture - maybe - hard stomach as it is hard to digest.   But I myself used it as raw as I possibly could have done it (to be honest, I feel it wasn't fresh enough yet, haha!) But I didn't prepare this as it's nutritionally-dense food and contains a lot of vitamin A.
  As some maybe have heard, cooking can reduce nutritional contents. But then there is always the opposite perspective waiting behind the corner.  Maybe this depends of the ingredient and the way of its processing. If I had wanted to have it somehow handled, I would have put it into a oven for a while. I would imagine it gets a little bit sweeter in the side of warming and softening.

And If you are really interested... Stop to think this question: are pumpkins, vegetables, fruits, berries, seeds, or what.   ;)

Did you try this and did you change it to your taste? How come?
P.S. I feel like becoming like one of those mothers on their forties when they start their DIY/recipe etc. blogs, jaja