BURRATA,CHERRY TOMATOES AND IBERICO HAM SHAVINGS

I love burrata!!! Fist time that I tried burrata it was some years ago in San Juan(Alicante) in an Italian restaurant, and it was love at first sight!
Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is mozzarella, while the inside is mozzarella and cream. The word burrata means "buttered"in Italian.
When the burrata is sliced open, the cream from the inside flows out. This cheese has a buttery, sweet and milky flavor that gently fills the palate.
Burrata cheese is traditionally enjoyed on its own, and today my recipe with sliced cherry tomatoes, olive oil, basil and ham shavings complete a delightful plate.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• Cherry tomatoes
• Burrata cheese
• Iberico ham
•  2 or 3 Basil leaves
• 5 raw almonds
• Olive oil(100ml or 1/2 cup)
• Bread toast
• Butter
• Salt to taste

PREPARATION

1. Put the raw almonds, basil leaves and olive oil in a blender cup or food processor and blend all together and reserve
2. Put the cherry tomatoes in a oven tray and roast them in the oven at minimum temperature  for at least 1hour or 90 minutes
3. In another oven tray we can prepare the iberico ham shavings, first put a parchment paper over the tray, then iberico ham and another parchment paper to cover the ham and bake the ham at 300F for 10 or 15 minutes
4. After this we can prepare our plate,  open burrata cheese ball in half and  put  roasted cherry tomatoes and iberico shavings ham inside the cheese
5. Drizzle the burrata cheese, tomatoes and ham with the basil olive oil that we had reserved.
6. Add salt to taste
7. If you like bread, you can prepare a bruscheta toasting the bread with butter in a saucepan, it's delicious serving burrata over the hot bread
8. Enjoy!!!

LENTILS WITH SPANISH CHORIZO AND VEGGIES

Lentils are a high quality protein and high fiber member of the legume family.Lentils grow in pods and can be found in different varieties: red, brown or green.
Low in calories and high in nutrition, are the perfect legume for each season, in the summer we can enjoy them in salads or in the cold winter we can prepare a soup to warm our body.
Compared to other types of dried beans are relatively quick and easy to prepare, so we can enjoy them even when we don't have too much time to spend time in the kitchen.

One cup of cooked lentils contains:

• 230 calories
• 18g protein
• 1g fat
• 40g carbohydrates(16g fiber and 4 sugar)

Also 1 cup serving provides folate,iron,manganese phosphorus, thiamin, potassium and vitamin B6.

Many studies have suggested that increasing consumption of plant foods like lentils decreases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Today we will cook the lentils with spanish chorizo and vegetables.

Usually I'm very careful with the ingredients that I use in my recipes and I found  iberico spanish chorizo, with no nitrites or nitrates added and only made with natural ingredients from iberico pork.

For this recipe we will need:

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 pound lentils(250g aprox)
• 3.5oz(100g)red pepper finely chopped
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 or 2 carrots(depending of the size)
• 1 or 2 potatoes(depending of the size)
  
• 1garlic clove peeled
• 1 tomato or homemade tomato sauce
•  3 tablespoon olive oil
• ham broth or water
• 3oz spanish iberico chorizo(80g aprox.)
• 1/2 teaspoon spanish smoked paprika
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• salt

PREPARATION

1. Rinse the lentils in a colander
2. Diced  onions, red pepper , tomato(if you use natural) and the carrots
3. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepot and sauté(low heat)the veggies finely chopped except the tomato
4. Add salt
5. After 5 minutes add tomato sauce or the natural diced tomato and cook  the veggies 3 or 5 minutes more
6. Add lentils and potatoes(cut in half) to the veggies and cook for another 2 minutes
7. Add ham broth or cold water to cover the lentils 
8. Add spanish chorizo, salt and  bay leaves
9. Cover the pot with a lid and cook for about 1 hour
10. When the lentils are cooked, we can sauté garlic and half teaspoon of smoked spanish paprika in a small saucepan with olive oil over low heat and add this to the lentils
11. Cook for another 5 minutes aprox. and serve very hot
12. Enjoy!!!

CARAMELIZED ONION, BRIE AND IBERICO HAM

Iberico ham is a jewel in the spanish gastronomy, and now we know that is a nutritional food that we can enjoy without any guilty.
The nutritional facts in the iberico ham are:

• Proteins(33g protein in 100g of iberico ham)
• Vitamins, especially Vit B,Vitamin D and Vitamin E
• Minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc
• Oleic fatty acid( only the olive oil has a higher content):positive effect on cholesterol in the bloodstream(improving HDL and reducing LDL)

We can include the iberico ham in our diet, even if we are worried about our weight, 100g of iberico ham are less than 250 kcalories and it's a good alternative to red meat.

For this easy recipe we only will need 3 main ingredients: onion, brie cheese and iberico ham.

Today we will learn how to caramelized the onion without using any sugar(this is a good one!!!).

INGREDIENTS

• 2 onion
• brie cheese
• iberico ham
• bread toast
• olive oil 
• 2 tablespoon of water

PREPARATION

1. Cut the onions in julienne and heat 3 tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan.Add the onions to the saucepan and cook at medium temperature, stir the onion with the oil and reduce heat, stir the onion constantly.
2. We will cook the onion for about 30 minutes at low heat.Gently the onion will turn brown, because of the sugar in the onion.
3. Now it's time to add 2 tablespoon of water to the onion and stir evenly until we get the brown color in all the onion.
4. Toast our bread in a toaster or grill in the oven with a touch of butter.
5. We will spread the brie cheese in the hot toast, then the caramelized onion and the iberico ham on the top.
6. You can finish the appetizer with a touch of balsamic glaze.
7. Enjoy!!!