Carly Ellen Kramer's Blog

When your 12 year-old spies a new (and reasonably priced) vegetable at the market and asks to try it, the only correct answer is “yes.” The new-to-him veggie in question? Nopales, the paddle shaped pads of the Opuntia cactus plant. Opuntia cacti aren’t exactly indigenous to the Midwest US which Crowded Earth Kitchen calls home, […]

This simple Portuguese dish makes a delightful addition to a company-ready petiscos table (Portugal’s answer to Spain’s tapas) or makes a simple weeknight supper all by itself. If you can’t find chouriço sausage, you can substitute chorizo for similar (if not quite the same) flavor. Ingredients 1 kilogram (about 6 cups) peeled, diced Murasaki sweet […]

A few weeks after our discovery of an open air market in Porto, we happened upon an enchanting little market in Portugal’s Algarve coastal town of Alvor. Known locally as Mercadinho da Ria, this menagerie of pop up, shaded market stalls appears on Sunday mornings around 8 am and has completely vanished by mid-afternoon. For […]

Portuguese cuisine offers a wealth of slow food options. Amêijoas em Vinho Verde, or Clams in Green Wine, is not a slow food option. Instead, Amêijoas em Vinho Verde is the perfect dish for those times when you need a delicious meal in ten minutes, so that you can return to your chaise lounge in […]

If you are starting with flour and butter, making croissants is a time consuming art. It’s a worthy skill to master… if you have the time and motivation. If you have all of 20 minutes, however, this is the recipe for you! Rolls of frozen puff pastry are available everywhere, in the frozen dessert section […]

Crowded Earth Kitchen followers will be familiar with Simple Bread as a made-from-scratch staple. For a Mediterranean twist on an old favorite, here is a recipe for Simple Foccacia Bread. It’s delicious with a variety of dipping sauces (think olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or even pizza sauce) and also delicious as a base for […]

Few foods are more distinctly Portuguese than sardines on bread. Today we enjoyed a simple, delicious, healthy sardine bruschetta on homemade foccacia (next on Crowded Earth Kitchen). Any variety of canned sardines will work; we used sardines packed in tomato sauce. Simply remove the sardines from the can and, using two forks, gently pry them […]

First things first. The word paella is like the word soup – it conjures a thousand different but equally delicious flavor combinations in the minds of a thousand different people. This simple version of a Spanish classic does not require a special pan, and requires only about 30 to 40 minutes from start to finish. […]

For food travelers, grocery shopping in new countries is an EVENT. Today we made our first trip of the year to a Continente in Southern Portugal. Continente is a supermarket much like many in the US – think big carts, discount cards, long aisles, fluorescent lights, fair prices, and occasional bargains. However, there are a […]

Meandering through historic Porto in Northern Portugal with another agenda entirely, we happened upon Mercado do Bolhão. As would be expected of any devoted foodies, we set our prior plans aside and spend the morning at this amazing outdoor market. Enjoy the photos below!