I'm finally getting around to blogging about all of the food my family and I made during Christmas..... Here we go....

 

 

 The Seafood grocery section made me soooooooo happy... take a look at those gigantic octopi!

 The first night we made a whole chicken.... This was a baked chicken with onions and carrots. The chicken was rubbed down with Spanish Provential Spices and olive oil. The chicken was stuffed with dates and lemon for some extra flavor. Heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake the chicken according to how many lbs of chicken you have... Serve with a rice or pasta side.

 Chicken Sausage Pasta!!! This was delicious. We chopped a whole zucchini, a red pepper, and an onion. Then we put the pasta on to boil.

 Cook your chicken chorizo sausage to 90 percent done.

 Spice your veggies with basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and maybe something a bit spicy....

 Put your sauce on the stove and spice however you like it. We used basil, salt, pepper, and about a tablespoon of chopped garlic.

 Chop your sausage and put into pan to finish cooking and put a slight sear on it.

 Add your veggies to the pan to cool until just slightly crispy.... cook longer if you like your veggies soft.

 Here are the finished serving dishes for this delicious pasta!

 So..... now we venture onward toward a traditional Spanish dish.... Paella!! We decided on a seafood and sausage paella.

 First we started our broth. We used a vegetable bouillon cube and 3 cups of water.

 Then we have our paella rice to cook.... so cook your rice according to the box but cut off about 1/3 of the time so it's not too soft.

 We used some leftover sausage....

 Octopus and squid....

 Paprika, Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Lemon, Saffron, and Cayanne Pepper for our spices.... Spice to taste.

 We used a red pepper, an onion, and a bag of diced zucchini for our veggies. Put your veggies in the pan to sauté for about 7 minutes. Add your spices except for the saffron. Add your proteins and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add your cooked rice, saffron, and about 1 cup of your broth. Let simmer until all of the broth is absorbed. Try your rice.... If you like it.... serve! If you want it softer... and another 1/2 cup of broth and allow to absorb again.... repeat as necessary.

 Serve with lemon and enjoy!

 

 My dad also made an amazing spiced and grilled salmon.... but I don't have pictures....


Try to make and enjoy a couple of these dishes with your family!