Eating on an Auxiliar de Conversa's budget

Hey y'all.  As many of mine friends know, I LOVE to cook.  I love to mix things together and see what result I can get.  So, this blog post is going to be mainly about what I have been eating in Spain on my lovely Auxiliar's budget.  I am living in Galicia which is the northwestern part of Spain that juts out right above Portugal.  Galician cuisine for the most part seems to consists of Galician stews (el caldo gallego), lots of pork, and lots of seafood.  I live in the costal region and a lot of the cuisine here is based off of what one can find in the local fish markets.  Galicians really appreciate the natural flavor of their food and do not tend to add many seasonings.  The most a Galician may add to a dish is salt, pepper, and on occasion bay leaf from my experiences. But when it comes to shellfish, they just boil and salt the water and savor the natural flavor of the shellfish. I do think the dishes are delicious but I am accustomed to adding in more spices to give my food more of a kick.  Galicians also eat a lot of octopus, which is amazing.  I have started learning that there are correct and incorrect ways to cook octopus and I've learned some techniques for perfecting your octopus-cooking methods. Personally I like my octopus boiled, then sautéed with red peppers, green peppers, and a bit of onion.  

This is my octopus sandwich I ate as leftovers last night. If you look closely , you can see the suction cups. 

 

The first thing I learned about Galicia is that Galicians eat turnip greens. I was so excited when I found this out because turnip greens are a staple of the North Carolinian diet in the United States.  In Galicia, they call them "grelos".  They are fantastic.  These are a little less than 2.50 euros for a bunch of them.  I normally buy two bunches at the market here.  Then I cook them with a ham hock or a pork loin until they have reduced in size. A ham hock is "codillo" in Spanish and is roughly 2.30euros/ kg if you purchase a small one, it'll run you about 5 euros.   Sometimes I mix in a little vinegar or Tabasco sauce to give it a little kick.  I love making a dish like this because with 2 bunches of grelos, you can eat it for leftovers for roughly four days. 

A bowl of "grelos" with codillo (ham hock).  

Cooking the langostinos/gambas. 

These  are a bunch of jumbo sized shrimp called gambas or langostinos.  They are delicious.  Like I said earlier, you just boil them in a bit of salt water, drain, and start peeling their shells.  These langostinos/gambas are fantastic and are about 4.50 euros/kg.  The only problem with langostinos/gambas is that if you don't combine them with another dish, they won't really be economical because you end up eating them all in one sitting. 

Getting ready to shell the langostinos/gambas.

Draining the langostinos/gambas

A rice dish with langostinos and gambas that I
bought from the local grocery store. 

However if you are a person that does not want to touch raw shellfish, then you can just go and buy a pack of pre-made rice already mixed with shellfish and heat it up in a skillet. It's really good and cheaper, roughly about 2 euros for a bag of it and it has about 3 or 4 servings. 

Another thing I have come to love is preparing bocadillos.  A bocadillo is a Spanish "sandwich" that is shaped kind of like a sub.  Bocadillos are an economical lifesaver.  A large loaf of bread for the bocadillo is roughly 1 euro and you can buy slices of the meat to fill it for less than 2 euros and a tomato for a few cents. The way I like to prepare my bocadillos is I prefer to toast my bread with a bit of olive oil, then rub a tomato on it, and add my slices of meat.  The sandwich is fantastic, quick, and cheap.  You can even rub a clove of garlic on your bread if you want a bit of spicy kick. I normally buy slices of the cured meat from the local grocery store. 

A hush puppy that I made with a private student. 

Every once in a while I feel homesick and start craving a dish from the United States.  Since being in Spain, I have managed to make cinnamon rolls, hush puppies, and biscuits.  These dishes tend to not be as expensive as you'd imagine because a lot of the ingredients are just your normal baking materials.  Hush puppies were a bit difficult because I needed to buy cornmeal but a local bakery sold it for around 2 euros/kg.  

A pan of cinnamon rolls after a friend and I got at them. 

These are biscuits that a friend and I made one Sunday.  They were fantastic and we ate them like Southerners, with butter and jelly. 

But with all this food, you're gonna wanna wash it down with a swallow of something.  Luckily, Spain is a wine country and the Spanish are a wine-loving people.  In the United States, I was never a big fan of wine, but since coming to Spain, I'm slowly developing a love for red wine.  

This multi-tentacled animal is also a wine lover.
Oddly, it has 9 tentacles. When drunk in Galicia, you can say "Estoy como un pulpo" (I am like an octopus). 

A meal in Galicia is not complete unless it is served to you with wine and perhaps a bit of gaseous water.  This includes your meals at home.  Since being here, I have slowly began stocking my pantry with wine. I've learned how to open a wine bottle and how to begin cooking with wine.  People will even gift you bottles of wine sometimes, or a bottle of champagne. 

My wine and potato pantry. 

"A Lenda Galega" is a cheap wine you can buy here for less than one euro.  It  is pretty much the "Aristocrat" version of wine in Galicia.  However it tastes much better than any of the Aristocrat versions of liquor. If you mix it with gaseous water, it creates a refreshing taste to go with any meal. 

However if you are more a cider person, there are a few brands of cider here.  Spanish cider has to be poured in a certain fashion and drunk in quick gulps.  I did not know this the first few times I drank cider here, and I thought the cider tasted like musty armpit.  After following some recommendations on how one should drink the cider, the flavor got a lot better and it is great.  A bottle of "El Gaitero" cider is about right under 2 euros a bottle.  

Enjoying a bottle of champagne on the beach. 

These are just a few of the things I have been drinking or eating on my budget here in Spain.  If you adjust your diet to more of a Galician one, then you'll have no problem getting by here in Galicia.  Or you can always make a few Galician friends who will cook different things for you or invite you to their homes for meals.  Until later, "bon proveito" foodies! 

Farewell my langoustine friend!