Once again I turn to my faithful soups. I know it’s still summer (just about!), but as I grew up all meals started with a soup and I want my kids to have the same healthy habit. The truth is I never tire of making soups and made this one this week because I had a chickpea craving. I love chickpeas! (I know I’ve said this before…). And they are healthy too, which is a huge bonus.
One of the staple foods of Portugal is salted cod or ‘bacalhau‘, as we call it. It may well be THE staple food. The tradition of eating salted cod is at least 500 years old and we pride ourselves in preparing salted cod in hundreds of different ways. Literally hundreds, and some claim thousands. Cod is the only fish the Portuguese don’t eat fresh and somehow the tradition has stuck to the point that buying fresh cod in Portugal is hard if not impossible but buying any other fresh sea creature that can be eaten is easy. We love our fresh fish but we wouldn’t have our cod any other way!
When I started food-blogging about 8 months ago I set extremely high standards for myself. I am lucky enough to have come across some truly inspiring food blogs and wanted nothing less. However, that only managed to depress me as there was no way I could emulate those wonderful blogs I read regularly. I was (and still am) learning how to be a better cook, make up my own recipes, take good photos of food and reading about light, lenses and composition. I had (and still have) two small children, a full-time job, a hectic lifestyle, home & family to look after, long commutes to work, running to keep healthy, gardening, DIY, you name it. And I had just started. Some of the blogs I am talking about have been around for a least a couple of years and others more.