Pachamama in Portugalalala

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on September 21, 2009
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2-1We’re still buzzing with excitement over our recent adventure in Portugal! We had the honor to be invited to cater for a medicine retreat that was held at Monte Velho, a most wonderful hidden treasure in Portugal’s Sao Vicente natural reserve. Pachamama totally recommends this place for completely relaxing revitalizing holidays, and as a serene venue for retreats and workshops…

We were asked to prepare 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 soups for about 25 people. Because this retreat was aimed at healing and purifying, we chose our ingredients extra-carefully. For breakfast we served soaked seeds and nuts, muesli, home made bread, a selection of home made jams, free range eggs, Greek yogurt, olive oil, tomatoes and lots and lots of fruit. The lunches were a range of various salads and dips, with lots of different flavors and textures ~ a feast for the senses. The soups that we served at night were heartwarming and filling, but easy on the system.

The place was remarkable, the people were lovely, we made new friends and had nothing but fun! BIG thank you’s to Gyata, Ash, Vera and Henrique…

Click here to see the photos we took!

26 September: Multi Cultural Day in Coin

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on September 19, 2009
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Pachamama Catering reprezzzenting… on the Multi Cultural Day in Coin!

As off midday we will be offering a range of tasty delicacies for you to enjoy… The market promises to be a entertaining mixture of stands, music and performances from all over the world.

cartel internacionalidad baja calidad

Vegetarian workshop ‘Pachamama’s Kitchen’

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on April 3, 2009
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cookingworkshop_1-copy

Pachamama is happy to announce the first in a series of monthly workshops called ‘Pachamama’s Kitchen’! We’ve had several requests from complete strangers for doing workshops, so we’ve taken the idea on board and are developing a whole series of them!

I’ve partnered with Diana Bright, who’s ideas about cooking and presentation fit in perfectly with mine. I’m really exited to actually have such a lovely colleague! Diana is a native Spanish speaker, which will enable us to do bi-lingual workshops, both in Spanish as well as in English.

The first workshop will be held both in Alhaurin de la Torre, as well as in Velez-Malaga, so we cover a wide area. We are still confirming the venue in Alhaurin de la Torre, but in Velez the workshop will be held in the spacious and beautiful old townhouse where Diana lives.

Even though we want to give a little bit of background information on vegetarian cooking, its’ benefits and how to easily and effortlessly make the transit in your diet towards a more plant-based nutrition, the main focus of the workshops will be hands-on cooking. And of course to enjoy the fruit of our labor by eating the delicious results together during lunch!

We’re aiming at organising one workshop a month, held on 2 different locations, covering a wide variety of subjects, like ‘credit-crunch cooking’, ‘appealing appetizers’, ‘perfect picnics’, etc. Keep an eye on this space for updates on each particular workshop.

With each workshop you will receive laminated sheets with information and recipes in a beautiful folder that you can keep in your kitchen. All materials and ingredients are included in the fee, as well as lunch.

UPCOMING 1ST WORKSHOP
The first workshop will focus on a Moorish 3-course lunch (or dinner for that matter). This is the menu:

~
Hummus
Baba Ganoush
Carrot-coriander salad with cumin
Cucumber salad with mint and yoghurt

Couscous with spring vegetables

Yoghurt pudding with cardamom and pistachios
~

LOCATION & DATES:
Alhaurin de la Torre: (exact location to be confirmed)
april 18th, 10:00 am – 14:00 pm

Velez-Malaga, C/Pizarro 29
april 25th, 10:00 am – 14:00 pm

BOOKINGS:
Either use the email form on this website to let us know you want to participate, or give us a ring.

PAYMENT:
Your reservation will be guaranteed upon us having received a non-refundable down payment of 50% of the total fee of 40 euros, which comes to 20 euros. Please contact us for information on various methods of payment.

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS:
We know these are financially tough times for many of us, including us. If you would love to participate but really can’t afford it, please feel free to contact us. We can work something out and/or maybe do a nice exchange!

If you want to sign up for 6 monthly workshops, you will receive a discount of 20% on the total price for 6 workshops, which saves you 48 euros.

BOOK EARLY AS SPACES ARE LIMITED!

Pachamama @ Spring Fair

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on April 1, 2009
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springfair

Pachamama has channeled her inner merchant last Wednesday during Spring Fair at Finca Anemona! It was absolutely lovely and a huge success, so I’m aiming at doing more markets in the near future… I will keep you posted where and when Pachamama will be present with a stand.

I’ve offered home-made lemonade for sale, that the day before was still hanging on the tree. There were moroccan preserved lemons as well. Besides all those lemony things, I had 4 plates on display with food to taste, that could be purchased in little plastic boxes. There was a good old hummus, mojo verde (which sold out incredibly fast), spring salad with fresh artichoke hearts, fresh beans and preserved lemon, and an aubergine salad.

For those who have bought a jar of preserved lemons, here’s a recipe for a delicious grilled pepper salad with preserved lemon:

Ingredients:
-2 red bell peppers
-1 preserved lemon
-1 clove of garlic
-pinch of grounded cumin
-juice of 1 lemon
-large dash of olive oil
-salt

Turn on the oven as hot a possible, and put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven. When  the oven is hot, shove in the bell peppers halfway up the oven on a griddle. Turn around every now and then so they get charred evenly. When mostly black all over, take them out and let them cool down.

In the meanwhile, take a preserved lemon out of the jar, remove the flesh and rinse the peel under a running tap. Chop in large chunks.

Take a mortar, put the garlic in with a pinch of coarse sea salt and grind until you get a smooth paste. Add cumin and lemon juice. Stir. Add olive oil, stir again. There you have your dressing!

Now back to the peppers. Remove skin and seeds with your fingers. Please don’t wash them under running water, even though that seems a practical thing to do, as they will loose some of their intense sweet taste. Tear in large pieces.

Now arrange the pepper and the lemon on a nice dish, pour the dressing over. This is typically a dish that improves over time, so you can make this one well in advance if you like.

Dragon Soup

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on March 18, 2009
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dragon-green1Last week I’ve been taking care of my 3-y old nephew and 1-y old niece for 10 days. I’ve had such a lovely time with them and have unleashed my maternal instincts on them!

I’m not really used to cooking for children, but it’s common knowledge that they’re not too fond of vegetables, especially if they’re recognizable as vegetables. Being a responsible auntie however, I thought it was important for them to eat healthily, and I refuse to give them anything I wouldn’t eat myself, like those horrid canned peas or processed foods.

I must say I was quite flattered with their appetite, as they happily munched away most of the things I cooked for them and didn’t complain about coriander and other ‘exotic’ flavors.

One day, I came up with a soup that went down surprisingly well, regardless the fact that it contained loads of green veggies! I think the secret was the story it came with. The recipe is inspired by the Lebanese Spring Soup from Claudia Roden, but I withheld that information from the kids of course. Instead I told them this was a soup made of a green dragon, It contained dragon scales and even dragon warts, as proof it was made from a real dragon. Ow, I’m such a witch, manipulating those innocent children with blatant lies to make them eat their veg…but it worked!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:
-1 chopped onion
-2 cloves of garlic
-a large carrot
-2 stalks of celery
-2 potatoes
-half a broccoli
-2 big handfuls of spinach
-frozen peas
-bay leaf
-handful of chopped coriander
-handful of chopped mint
-1 liter of vegetable stock
-bread
-4 cloves of garlic
-pinch of salt
-olive oil

Put olive oil in a large soup pan, and slowly fry onion and garlic until tender. In the meanwhile, chop all the vegetables, except the spinach and peas. Add potato, carrot and celery and fry a bit more for a minute or 5. Then add broccoli and stir. Pour vegetable stock, add bay leaf, bring to boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes until the veg is tender.

In the meanwhile, cut bread into small pieces and fry with olive oil, garlic and salt, until crispy. Drain on kitchen paper.

Now comes the spinach part (make sure your kids are well away from the kitchen, because if they see you do this, the dragon story won’t go down anymore). Throw the spinach in the soup, take the bay leaf out and turn heat off. Get out your hand blender and blend the soup until smooth. Careful, or your kitchen and you will end up looking rather green as well. You will have a beautiful bright green soup by now!

Add the peas for dragon warts and chopped herbs for dragon scales. Serve in bowls and garnish with fried bread on top.

Simply sumptuous

Published
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on December 19, 2008
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I’ll confess: I’m a huge fan of everything Claudia Roden! She is my major Guru, when it comes to food. If it weren’t for her, Pachamama would not know what to do in the kitchen…! ;) Well, I would, but things wouldn’t be the same.

Even if you’re only slightly into cooking, do yourself and your messmates a favor and get yourself one of her beautiful books! All her recipes are very user-friendly, ranging from utterly simple to somewhat more elaborate. But most important of all – you’ll get mouthwatering luscious results!

About Claudia:
Claudia Roden was born to a cosmopolitan Jewish family in Cairo, where she grew up eating – and questioning the origin of – food from all over the Middle East. She began by collating recipes at a young age from everybody she met, from family members to virtual strangers. “Food was,” she explains, “a way of re-connecting with my culture – my lost heritage. And the discovery of a 13th century manuscript in the British Library eventually led to my interest in food sociology and anthropology.”

Claudia’s meticulously researched first book, A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1968), transformed Western attitudes towards this then little-known cuisine. No longer was the Middle East seen purely in political terms – Claudia introduced the aromatic and wholesome ingredients of Middle Eastern cookery, and her writing bristled with passion and warmth. Matthew Fort once wrote: “Claudia Roden guided me and thousands of other curious cooks through this fabulous culinary landscape with a mixture of humour, learning and delicate greed.”

Her aim is to simplify traditional recipes and make them accessible to a younger generation

Claudia says that in the age of globalisation and the Internet, it’s particularly important to record old recipes and understand their cultural context. “There’s room for modern food, but new for the sake of newness is not necessarily better. You need to preserve the old, too”, says Claudia. At a time when there’s an increasing emphasis on healthier, lighter cooking, her aim is to simplify traditional recipes and make them accessible to a younger generation.

Claudia has also written authoritatively about Mediterranean, Italian and Jewish food, and is currently writing a book on Spanish cookery. In a career spanning more than 45 years, she has won numerous awards and is considered iconic. As historian Simon Schama once stated: “Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker. She is, rather, memorialist, historian, ethnographer, anthropologist, essayist, poet…”

For the love of pumpkin…

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on October 12, 2008
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…and the love of easy to prepare dishes, I’ll give you my super quick and easy Pumkin Soup recipe!

Ingredients:
-a large piece of beautiful fresh orange pumpkin, cut in chunks
-a big sweet potato – or a couple of smaller ones, again cut in chunks
-a few carrots in small pieces
-2 chopped celery stalks
-1 chopped onion
-2 cloves of garlic
-1 teaspoon of ground cumin
-1 teaspoon of mild paprika
-1 dried chili pepper
-1 liter of prefab supermarket vegetable stock
-fresh coriander
-and – if you’re into dairy – a generous blob of creme fraiche.

Take a soup pan and throw in a dash of olive oil. Sauté the spices, along with the onion on a medium fire, until the onion looks glassy. Add garlic, chopped carrot and celery and leave it for about 5 minutes, stirring every once in a while, until you can smell all the flavors.

Then add the chunks of pumpkin and sweet potato. Stir so everything is covered with spicy oil and sauteéd veggies. Empty the pack of vegetable stock in the pan and bring to boil. Once boiling, temper the heat and let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes. Taste. I find I don’t need to add extra salt because the stock I use is already salty, but maybe you will want to use salt if your stock doesn’t contain it.

When ready to serve, fill some nice big bowls with soup, drop a generous blob of creme fraiche in each bowl if you’re not on a calorie restriction program, and sprinkle with fresh coriander leaves. Delicious with crusty wholemeal bread. Get ready for a heartwarming autumnal experience…!

Diva Feast

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on June 6, 2008
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It’s surprising how many lovely Dutch women live around here! And the good thing is: they are all really different and fun to hang out with. Since half a year or so, we come together every month to catch up, exchange the latest news and help each other out with whatever. It’s a really nice little network of ‘Divas’! Until now, the group has come together in restaurants, but this month was different!

Last Wednesday the Divas came together on the beautiful finca of one of the girls in Alhaurin el Grande. A truly amazing place, with a beautiful garden and stunning views. Of course someone needed to take care of the catering! And that’s where I came in. For me it was a fantastic opportunity to give 25 women a taste of my cookery and I had lots of fun in the process!

Daniela provided me with the extra help I needed. She’s the wonderful bubbly 17 year old niece of my boyfriend. A complete ‘kitchen virgin’, she’s eager to learn and quick in picking up the routine of things. Above all, she’s a lovely person and a joy to work with!

Here’s what I served:
-Coffee & Moroccan Mint Tea
-’The Mother of all Carrot Cakes’ (causing some orgasmic reactions…!)
-Juicy Lemon Cake

After that, we had:
-A cute little plate with 3 Moorish tapas:
Falafel with Mojo, Aubergines with Garlic, Mint and Yoghurt and a Spicy Orange Salad with Black Olives.
-Wine, Tinto de Verano and other drinks

And for those who could not get enough of it, there was a lunch:
-Fish Kefta with Preserved Lemon and Coriander
-Tabouleh
-Roasted Vegetable Salad
-Moorish Cucumber Salad perfumed with Orange Blossom Water
-Tomato dip from Marrakesh

To see some pictures of the gathering, visit the gallery. Here’s a big THANK YOU to everybody who made it possible (you know who you are) and to all the girls who were there!

Ditching the plastic!

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on May 29, 2008
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Thank God for Ikea, or more precise: thank God for Ikea on half an hour driving distance from my house! Until last year a pilgrimage to Ikea took half a day, but since a couple of months we are blessed with our own Ikea. It’s no surprise I really like going there.

Now with my own catering business it’s even more legitimate for me to go there, as I am converting from plastic cups, plates and cutlery to the real thing: Glass, earthenware and stainless steel! Easy to clean, much nicer to eat and drink from and – most important – much better for our planet.

Take a look at the nice glasses I bought this morning! They go by the name of Pokal…

Lunch @ Debra’s yoga retreat

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on May 29, 2008
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It’s been a while: time flies when you’re having fun! Just a quick post here to let you know I’ve been doing lunch last week for Debra’s yoga retreat. I’ve served a light lunch, because putting your legs up your neck goes much better on easily digestible food! ;

Here’s what the people ate:

-Tomato dip from Marrakech (yes, the same one everybody devoured on the Satsang. I knew the people at the retreat did not have it before, so could safely repeat this one)
-Courgettes marinated in Chermoula (also a repeat-recipe, for the same reason as the tomato dip)
-Salad with fava beans, artichoke hearts and preserved lemon
-Jewish Egyptian salad with fennel, celery, potatoes and parsley
-Bread

Everybody really liked it and later that day I even got a phone call from one of the attendants who wanted to share her enthusiasm about the lunch with me!