La Comida de España

After traveling a lot these past few months, I've decided to slow it down the next few weeks and focus on some homework (yes, I do still have homework over here). While that's going on, I thought I'd spend a little time talking about some Spanish food!
First things first - a little bit about meals here in Spain. The meal schedule is a little different over here so getting used to that was really interesting when I got here.

My breakfast everyday!

Breakfast is at 8 (at least for me because I leave for class at 8:30) - pretty normal
However, lunch (la comida) is not until 2:30 - 3:30
and Supper is at 9:30 (or sometimes later)

Breakfast: Everyday for breakfast is pretty much the same and always very simple. Every morning I wake up to have 2 pieces of toast and then either some coffee (for my roommate), or Colacao (a type of hot chocolate - for me).

Tortilla Española - A potato omelette

After going to classes for the day, we then come home to lunch, which in Spain is the biggest meal of the day. Lunch is usually a three course meal. First up is always some type of soup. My family likes to make some types of vegetable purees. I'm pretty sure that they just cook a bunch of vegetables and then blend them together. The soups usually include carrots, potatoes, sometimes beans, spinach, peas, and pretty much any other vegetable they have. Not always my favorite, but sometimes they are really good! Other soups include lentils and vegetables (one of my favorites), garbonzo bean soup, and sometimes we just get a complete bowl of peas or beans.

Empanadas

The second course is then usually some kind of chicken, or maybe ham. Finally, we usually end with a piece of fruit for dessert.

Dinner is usually not a very big deal here in Spain and I have actually never seen my host family eat dinner which is kind-of strange. But for supper, we always have a small salad - each time made with lettuce and then olive oil and vinegar for dressing (the Spaniards love their olive oil). Along with the salad, we then have either pizza (it's delicious here), empanadas, tortilla española, fish, or something simple. 

Finally here's a little more information:

An example of something I had for tapas once

Tapas are something that doesn't really translate to English. Tapas are "small" snacks that come with drinks that Spaniards usually start enjoying around 8pm.

Churros are wonderful! I've never really been a big fan of churros until coming to Spain, but let me tell you, chocolate con churros is absolutely amazing! They always come with a cup of chocolate that you dip the churros into, and then drink at the end!

 Finally, here is a picture of some chorizo I had while in Portugal. This was cooked by soaking it in alcohol and then setting it on fire! It was absolutely delicious!

There you go and I hope you learned something. Needless to say I'm being well fed while over here, but I will be excited to come home and have some of the food I grew up having. The only thing I think I forgot to talk about on here was Paella. Paella is extremely common, and very good! It's flavored rice that is cooked with seafood, usually shrimp, some kalamari, and/or mussels? I'm not really good at naming my seafood, but it all does taste really good! hopefully I'll be able to learn how to make it before I leave.

Hasta Luego!