Day 10 - Spain - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

This one might look a little familiar. Last year, I did Paella for Spain as well. I had been meaning to make it again all year so when I decided to do the challenge again, I knew Spain would be a full repeat. I even used the same recipe. The only changes were that I didn't use clams this year (they weren't very popular last year and don't keep well) and I topped it with some parsley since that was in a lot of the pictures and would be a nice note of freshness.

First things first, I laid out my ingredients. I also used chicken, peas, and parsley which aren't shown here. 

I don't have an actual paella pan but I have a very large frying pan and it does the job really well. 

After I cooked my chicken, I put in my bell pepper and chorizo.

When those were done, I added my tomatoes and chicken stock.  After that came to a boil, I added the rice and put the chicken back and let it simmer. Once you add the rice, mix it once and then not again. Add the shrimp in and when the shrimp turns pink, remove them.

When there is very little liquid left, put in the peas. It probably should have had a little less liquid but I'm impatient and was hungry.

Once the rice looks totally cooked, add back your shrimp and some parsley.

Then enjoy!! Paella feeds a lot so it's a great food for hosting. I invited over my neighbors and it was enough for 6 people to have heaping plate fulls and a little left over for my lunch. 

I also picked up some of this Reserve Rioja at Bevmo. It had great smokiness and was a good pairing with the strong flavors of the paella. I'm happy it was one of the 5 cent wines because it was an amazing wine. So good, in fact, that I might be drinking the second bottle while writing this....

Day 12 - Spain - World Cup Eating Challenge

I can honestly say that this World Cup has had a lot of surprises. I really thought Spain was going to make it out of group stage so I wasn't planning on attempting Paella until much later in the cup. This last round of group stage games has led me to do a lot of shuffling and I'm kind of sad about some of the countries that I'm going to have to skip. Luckily, I was able to shuffle my plans and get Spain in.

I had already been planning on having a couple of friends over for dinner. When I saw my country options, I immediately knew I was going to do a big Brazilian black bean stew. However, that clearly didn't work out and nobody minded when I said I was switching to Paella.

I scoured Pinterest and settled on the recipe I thought would be the most authentic. I followed this pretty closely except for a handful of changes. I'm pretty allergic to mussels so those were out. The only chorizo I could find at Safeway was more of a ground chorizo than a sliceable sausage. I thought about switching it out but I really wanted the flavor profile to be the same so I stuck with what I had. I also skipped the saffron. When I saw that it was $20/ bottle, I figured we'd manage without it. The paprika and chorizo both have such strong flavors, it didn't seem like it would matter. In the end, I was right about the chorizo. It kind of broke apart when it was cooked with the rice and really infiltrated it with tons of flavor. There were no discernible meaty chunks but you could taste it throughout. I really love the flavor of chorizo so this made me super happy.

I have always loved Paella so I'm really pleased that I was able to make it on my own and that it came out so tasty. I'm also pretty happy with the cost. This ended up being one of the more expensive dishes but I know I could make it again with a much lower cost. Half of the expense was just seafood and I would be totally happy just making it with shrimp. I actually ended up buying too much broth and rice so I have more than enough to make this dish again. All I would need to buy are more shrimp, chorizo, and another bell pepper. I could definitely round all of that up for about $12. That's definitely not bad for how much is made. It fed all four of us easily with enough for me to take leftovers.

My guests also brought a salad which went really well with it. Paella is pretty heavy so having fresh veggies on the side helped a ton.

So honestly... how soon is too soon to make this again?