Eating Away Winter Blues ::: Spanish Chorizo Carbonara and Catalan Market Salad

After a full afternoon of snowshoeing at South Park in Pittsburgh, Pa, Pedro and I enjoyed a delicious dinner, courtesy of Jamie Oliver's 15-minute meal series. Perfectly paired with a snow-chilled beer and a glass of kegged champagne (Pedro's 2013 batch of dry, carbonated Chardonnay made with malolactic fermentation and aged with 40 g of French oak chips). Here's alink to Jamie Oliver's recipes for Chorizo Carbonara and Catalan Market Salad. This meal is easy to make and would be ideal for entertaining (fast and easy to multiply). Although a couple of the ingredients can be expensive (the pine nuts, chorizo and the manchego cheese), the dish is well worth the splurge. A few substitution tips and adjustments we made include:

Catalan Market Salad

• We used asiago cheese instead of manchego (same sharp, aged taste and less expensive)
• Substitute honey roasted almond slices from Trader Joes for the pine nuts
• I spritzed the salad with fresh lemon after tossing it with dressing
• Although red wine or cider vinegar would taste good on this salad as well, the sherry vinegar really adds a unique flavor and I recommend keeping
• The mint also adds a unique (and delicious) flavor to this salad
• This salad could be a great base for other renditions 

Spanish Chorizo Carbonara

• We used sour cream instead of natural yogurt, which wasn't readily available - this substitution worked fine
• We used asiago cheese instead of manchego
• We added dried pepper flakes in addition to the fresh red chilli