New Year & Food- Meat with Spinash

The night of 31st December 2007 was covered with dense fog, so thick that the hands could not see the mouth (not because they don't have no eyes) and driving the car was very dangerous as the visibility was reduced to a few meters. Both in Germany and Holland many motorways were closed because of accidents and many people were saying that they don't remember seeing such dense fog before. How they could see the fog in zero visibility, beats me.

However, today the morning was decked out with a brilliant sunshine, the frozen fields and trees looked almost shiny with frost covering them and birds were out in abundance, looking for chow. Outside our balcony are two tall fir trees, one on the right hand side was almost shaking with the chirpping of birds. My wife who sits and smokes on the balcony, said that she saw many tiny blue feathered birds yesterday (I reckon they were celebrating the New Year). We have pigeans in these trees throughout the year and hear their cooing and gurgling all the time. If I were a meteologist, I would always forcast sunny weather, the temperature this morning is -3c. OOh!

So naturally the thoughts turn to food, if you have your family around you or some friends will drop in later, it is nice to have some food prepared. Everybody sitting in cozy comfort, watching the tele or listening to Mozart or Verdi and sipping winter wine is perfect. Just writing about it makes me mellow.

In winter you tend to prepare more meat or chicken dishes as fresh vegetables may not be available. So I will, for the few coming days, write about preparing dishes with vegetables or veges as side dishes. Today I will write about preparing either lamb, beef or pork or chicken with spinash. This is my all time favourite and my family and even my in-laws like it. It is easy to make and tastes super. What is more, you do not have to stand long cooking it and don't have to prepare a side dish either. More time with the family.

half a kilo of lamb or meat (cleaned of fat and cubed)

two large onions, peeled and chopped

ginger (peeled and chopped)

garlic (peeled and chopped)

two bay leaves

one large fresh tomatoe (chopped)

two tea spoons full of grinded corriandar and cumin seeds, cardamans, cloves and cinaman and one tea spoonful of turmeric powder.

One cup red or white wine

300gs spinash, washed, rinsed and chopped

two meat cubes

olive oil or sunflower oil for cooking

green chilies, black pepper or red chillies to taste

Have a sip of the wine, heat oil in a medium size pot and fry onions and meat for two minutes and pour in all remaining ingrediants to the pot and cook for thirty minutes on low fire (electric gas mark 3). Afterwards, with a laddle, mix the contents very well and you will have the meat and spinash in a thick aromatic gravy. You can add potatoes to the pot if you like.

You can have plain boiled rice or pitta bread or nan with this dish. Red, Rose or white wine go well with this food, so does a chilled bottle of beer. Enjoy your food.

I took up painting in year 2006 and the picture on top left is one of the first ones I painted. It reminds me of Spanish south coast, places from Malaga to Cadiz provinces.