Theresa's Cooking Blog

Panaeng Neua (Thai Beef Balls in Peanut Sauce)

2011-05-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

I made Panaeng Neua today. The recipe is here I write about it here

Bogracs Gulyás

2010-12-29T15:14:00.000-08:00

Bogracs Gulyás is Hungarian for Cauldron Goulash. I posted the recipe here in case you are still coming to this blog instead of my regular blog.

Theresa's Cooking Blog RIP

2010-07-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

I exported the cooking blog to my regular blog ¿What Do I Do All Day? I may end up deleting this blog but either way, I am done blogging on it.

2nd hand Stir-fry cookbook!!

2010-03-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

While I was NOB I didn't do much shopping. I did however get to go to Thrifttown with my sister and her granddaughter. While I was there I picked Sunset Magazine's 1989 edition of their Stir-Fry Cookbook for ninety nine cents American!
Somewhere in Mérida, I managed to find Chinese 5 spice powder. I don't really know why I bought it, it isn't like I can't make my own. Maybe it's the same thrill that a ~~hunter~~ wildlife photographer gets when he sees a rare tiger in his ~~sights~~ viewfinder. I am sure that I justified it somehow. Unfortunately, about the only thing that I know how to make with 5-spice is char sui or Chinese Barbecued Pork. The cookbook that I bought had a recipe for a pork stir-fry with 5 spice, here is my version. I never would have thought to put potatoes in a Chinese dish, but then again Indian cooking uses lots of potatoes, so why not? I really liked the anise taste with the pork and potatoes, who woulda thought it?
While I was thumbing through the book, the photo of Sweet and Sour Carrots caught Husband's eye. Okay, he saw it upside down and exclaimed "what the heck is that?" because it looked like orange muntant shrimp from across the table and upside down. I had carrots so I made it too. It is now my new favorite way to cook carrots.
Speaking of mutant vegetables, the cabbage that I had bought a month ago was still in the crisper drawer. I cut off the ugly parts which left about a pound or so of cabbage that desperately needing eating. Right next to the carrot recipe was one for Spicy Cabbage. It called for Napa cabbage but the last time I saw anything resembling Napa cabbage at the supermarket here, it was in even worse shape than the poor abandoned cabbage that I salvaged from the fridge.
I am really excited, so far I've made 3 really easy and tasty dishes from this cookbook. I am on a roll!

Sweet and Sour Carrots

2010-03-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

This is my new favorite way to cook carrots.
serves 4

combine in a small bowl:
1/4 cup vegetable (or chicken) broth
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Heat a wok over high heat;when wok is hot, add 1 tablespoons vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add 4 medium size carrots (sliced diagonally into 1/4 inch slices) and1 small onion (cut in half then cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices) stir-fry for 1 minute.
Add an 3 tablespoons water, reduce heat to medium, cover and cook until carrots are cooked but still crisp.
Stir the cornstarch mixture, pour into wok, stir until the sauce thickens.

Spicy Cabbage

2010-03-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Serves 4

In a small bowl combine

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Heat a wok over high heat;when wok is hot, add 3 tablespoons vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add 1 pound cabbage cut into 2 inch pieces and stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes until the cabbage begins to wilt. Add the seasoned vinegar and mix well. Serve at room temperature or warm.

Five Spice Pork and Potatoes Stir-fry

2010-03-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

This recipe came from Sunset Magazine's Stir fry Cookbook that I bought in Thrifttown for 99c, yup not even a dollar!

Makes 4 servings.

2 tablespoons salad oil
1 pound lean boneless pork, cut into thin strips
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups water
3 large russet potatoes (I used 1 1/2 lbs of papas chambray instead)
The recipe calls for peeling the potatoes and cutting crosswise into 1/2 inch slices. Instead I just scrubbed and washed the small potatoes and sliced them into 1/2 inch slices.
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons Chinese 5-spice powder*
1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions (including the tops) for garnish.

Place a wok over high heat;then the wok is hot, add oil. When the oil is hot, add the pork and garlic. Stir-fry until the pork is browned.
Add the remaining ingredients (except green onions). Bring to a boil; then reduce heat,cover and simmer.
Garnish with green onions.

*or make your own 5-spice powder

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and anise seeds
1/8 teaspoon each ground allspice and cloves

Cauliflower steamed with whole spices

2010-02-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

Cauliflower Steamed with Whole Spices

3 pounds cauliflower (1 medium head) broken into small flowerettes
4 to 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 dried red pepper
1 medium onion diced
8 cloves of garlic diced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric (cucurcima)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/4 cup water

Heat a 12 inch skillet or saute pan over a medium high flame. When hot add enough oil to coat the bottom. Add the whole spices (cumin,coriander,nigela and mustard) when the mustard seeds begin to pop add the dried chili. It will brown immediately, turn over quickly so it browns on the other side.Lower the heat, add the onions and garlic. Stir and fry until the onions are brown but not burnt.
Add the cauliflower, ground coriander,ground cumin, turmeric,salt and the cayenne (if you are using it, I don't). Stir to mix. Add 1/4 cup water, it should start to simmer. Cover and lower the heat. Steam the cauliflower for 15 minutes on low heat, stirring every 5 minutes until all the water is evaporated.

Oh, so yummy

2009-10-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

I checked out Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking from the Mérida English Language Library and now I want a copy of my own! Her World of the East, Vegetarian Cooking is one of my favorites. This one has wonderful meat recipes too. So far I have made Sichuan Shredded Beef with Carrots and Chiles, Pork with Long Beans and Chives ,Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger, Miso Shiru (Pacsadelli has Aka miso in the refrigerated section) , Easy Beef Curry and Summer Soup with Pork and Cucumber.
The Sichuan Beef is really good, in fact I think it's good enough for company. The portions were very generous so next time I am going to use half the amount of meat, and maybe more carrot. Because I was feeling timid, I only used one green jalapeño rather than the 3 or 4 red or green chiles the recipe called for. I am going to search out some red serranos and use more. I think the red will look prettier. I generally use jalapeños when a recipe calls for chiles and doesn't specify the type.
Today we had the Summer Soup with Pork and Cucumber followed by Pork with Long Beans and Chives (except I used frozen string beans), Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger, instead of rice there was quinoa.
To be honest, I had my misgivings about cucumber in soup, but it is a lovely to look at, delicate tasting soup. We´ll be having it again.
Husband really liked the Easy Beef Curry. It is a Thai recipe, and every mouthful was a little burst of individual tastes. Since I had sour orange at hand, I substituted sour orange zest for the lemon zest that Madhur Jaffrey suggested as a substitution for kaffir lime leaves, someone more discerning might have tasted the difference, but I didn't notice. The recipe calls for fish sauce, and honestly, I think I would prefer it without but I am not a fan of fish sauce.
If you want to add some exotic dishes to your cooking repertory, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of this cookbook.

Making spring rolls

2009-06-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

I ran out of rice wine vinegar. Normally, I buy it at Megabalcones, which is part of the Mexicana Comercial chain. They were out, Walmart was out, Chedraui was out. Husband suggested Pascadeli. Pascadeli is a wholesale grocery outlet which stocks various foreign food ingredients. I now have what seems like a lifetime supply of whole cardamon seeds in my freezer.
The rice wine vinegar however was available in a normal size bottle. On the shelf were it was located were also some other interesting including Vietnamese Spring roll wrappers.
I looked in my cookbooks, I searched online, then I looked in the refrigerator. Here are my ingredients for Spring Rolls waiting to be combined, minus the soy sauce.
Here are the ingredients for the sauce minus the ginger. The cute little bowls came from the state fair, they have a large metal roofed building where they sell kitchenware and blankets.

I didn't have any bean sprouts, so I left them out. I also only had red cabbage, so I used that. The spring rolls came out a decidedly pink colour.

The results were delicious none the less. There are bean sprouts available at the supermarkets, they just don't appeal to me. I did make some lentil sprouts recently, and they were really,really good. Today, I am going to start some more sprouts. I have Thai Basil growing in the garden and it was a good touch, ideally I would have like to combine some mint, but I can't seem to keep mint growing and the bunches at the market were not worth buying. I'm thinking of using some purslane since it also grows well here and would add a nice crispness and a little bite.
The dipping sauce was okay, Husband thinks we should have had a peanut sauce, so I am going to do that next time too.

Dipping sauce for Spring rolls

2009-06-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Dipping sauce for spring rolls

¼ cup soy sauce
½ cup water
1 tbsp corn starch
¼ cup rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced and crushed
½ inch fresh ginger root, grated
¼ cup sugar

Combine all ingredients in small saucepan and simmer for 3-5 minutes, stirring, until sugar dissolves and corn starch is well mixed. Cool before serving.

Spring rolls

2009-06-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Fresh Spring rolls

12 Vietnamese Spring roll wrappers 9 inch (if you use 6 inch makes then you will need more rolls)
quarter of a cabbage shredded (I used all red, but you can use a mix of both or just green cabbage)
5 green onions, chopped
1 cup thin noodles, pre-cooked bean thread noodles*
1 cup fresh herbs (I used Italian parsley and Thai basil you can use cilantro,basil or mint too)
2 small carrots, grated
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

Toss together all ingredients together except wrappers in large bowl. Submerge wrappers in hot water until pliable, about 15 seconds. Place about 1/4 of mix on wrapper and wrap like a burrito or egg roll. Refrigerate until cold. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce

*to precook rice noodles (also called rice vermicelli),Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Boil rice vermicelli 3 to 5 minutes, or until al dente, and drain.

jocote de marañón

2009-04-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

If you want to know what fruit is in season, check out the guys who sell fruit on the street. I don't mean the roadside stands, I am talking about the brave souls who hang out at the stoplights on the major intersections, passing between cars like matadors slipping aside from the charging bull. Like matadors they entice, waving clear plastic produce bags bulging with colourful fruits.
We stopped, the vendor gestured with his bags, bored I started to look away, then, I spotted what looked like apples, no they looked like chiles, hmmm, what was that fruit? It didn't take long for him to notice my interest.

Husband asked "¿Que tipo de fruta es?
The answer was" mamey".
I leaned across Husband "No, no el mamey, el otro. ¿Que es y como lo usas?".
"Marañón, haces licuado" time was getting short so he added "treinta pesos".
I fumbled for the money, Husband passed me the fruit and off we went.
When he could take his attention off the traffic, Husband asked me what I had bought. I hemmed and I hawed and finally I admitted that I wasn´t sure. They looked really familiar and I thought that maybe they were mangosteen. I also had a second idea but I didn't want to admit it.So before I did anything I looked those puppies up. If you click on the link, you'll learn all about the mangosteen, including the fact that these aren't them.
Look at the little thing on top of the fruit, it looks like a cashew. It is a cashew! I bought fresh cashews! The red psuedo fruit is called a cashew apple or in Spanish jocote de marañón. The nut shaped thing is the actual fruit.
The fruit doesn't ship well, but you can buy the bottled juice. I am off to make my licuado de marañón.

Caldo Tlalpeño

2009-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

This recipe originally came from Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless. I added more vegetables and changed it a little.

2 quarts chicken broth
1 large chicken breast*
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed**
1 teaspoon dried epazote
salt to taste
1 to 2 tablespoon(s) chile chipolte en adobo diced and seeded***
1 ripe avacado,peeled,pitted and diced
1 lime or sour orange cut into wedges

If using chicken breast, place chicken breast and broth in a 4 quart saucepan,bring to a simmer. Skim off any gray scum that rises to the top. Add the parsley and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the breast, skin and de-bone it, shred the meat and set aside. Strain the broth and skim off any fat that rises. If you are using canned chicken, combine the broth with liquid from the chicken and parsley, reserving the meat, bring to a simmer.
While the chicken simmers, heat a frying pan over medium heat,add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the diced onion and carrots. Cook until the onions and carrots begin to brown, add the garlic and cook an additional minute.
Add the vegetables, garbanzos and epazote to the broth. Bring to a simmer, cook at a low simmer for half an hour.
Add the chile chipolte and the reserved chicken to the soup. Serve in bowls topped with diced avocados accompanied by lime wedges.

Notes:
* I have used canned cooked chicken breast successfully, in which case, I skipped the simmering
** I have left the garbanzos out before, it's better with!
*** I buy chile chipoltes en adobo that is pre-seeded and already chopped

I made jelly!

2009-01-16T05:33:00.000-08:00

Not being able to sleep I started making jelly last night around 10 pm and I finished this morning at 7am. I did go to bed around 11pm, so I really can't say that I stayed up all night making jelly.
I did my internet research, I also looked at every cookbook that I own and finally settled on a recipe for Jalapeño Jelly to adapt. This recipe for Pinapple Habanero Jelly looked really good too but it called for pectin which I haven't found or made yet. I did a cross between the two. My recipe can be found here.
I didn't have any fresh cranberries so even though I was making a half recipe I used almost as much water as the original recipe called for, I also used an entire bell not a half,so my recipe still yielded almost 4 cups of jelly. I wasn't sure if my granny smith apples were tart enough so I still used an entire cup of the dried cranberries.
I think that I might use one more habanero next time, but it's hard to say. The thing about chiles is that the amount of heat varies from chile to chile.
I haven't found any canning jars so I recycled a jar. I am not trusting it to seal properly so I am storing my jelly in the refrigerator.
Now I need to make some bread to go with that jelly.

Habanero Jelly

2009-01-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

Ingredients

2 lbs of tart apples (e.g. Granny Smith), unpeeled, chopped into big pieces, including the cores
2 bright orange peppers, sliced in half lengthwise, the seeds and ribs removed from 3 of them (for mildly hot jelly. If you want a hotter jelly leave the seeds and ribs in all of them.)
1 orange bell pepper , seeds and ribs removed, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
3 1/2 cups sugar (7/8 cup for each cup of juice)

Combine habaneros, bell pepper, and vinegar in food processor or blender process until well mixed, pour mix into large pot. Add the apple pieces, apple cores (needed for their pectin content), cranberries , and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low, simmering for about 20 minutes, or until the apples, cranberries, and peppers are soft. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan where it might burn.
Spoon the mash into a fine mesh sieve, muslin cloth, or a couple layers of cheesecloth, suspended over a large bowl. Leave to strain for several hours (even overnight). If you want a clear jelly, do not squeeze or force through the mesh. Just let it drip. If you want a fuller flavor jelly and don't mind that the result won't be clear, you can force some of the pulp through the mesh. If your pulp is too thick, and nothing is coming out, you can add an extra 1/2 cup or cup of water to it. You want to end up with about 4 cups of juice.
Measure the juice, then pour into a large, wide, thick-bottomed pot. Add the sugar (7/8 a cup for each cup of juice). Heat gently, stirring to make sure the sugar gets dissolved and doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
Bring to a boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes, using a spoon to skim off the surface scum. Continue to boil until a candy thermometer shows that the temperature has reached 220-222°F (8-10°F above the boiling point at your altitude). Additional time needed for cooking can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or longer, depending on the amount of water, sugar, and apple pectin in the mix.
Pour jelly into sterilized jars* to within 1/4" from the top and seal.
Makes approx. 4 half-pint jars.

Bread and jam

2009-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

I made bread yesterday using as my basis the savory vegetable bread but I think I've changed it enough that it needs it's own recipe and name, how does Italian Garden Bread sound to you? It came out perfect, so perfect that I went ahead and baked off two loaves (I normally divide bread into small loaves and freeze half). We ate the smaller loaf and I took the larger one to the IWC potluck afternoon tea.
I added the guar gum to the recipe, I really like how the texture was improved by it. I am going to try it in some sourdough bread later this week.
I also found a recipe for jalapeño jelly that I am going to adapt to make a habanero jelly. I think I have everything that I need. I can just taste this with some cream cheese on the sourdough bread.
I'll post the jelly recipe after I make it.

Italian Garden Bread

2009-01-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Filling
2 large onions diced
3 cloves garlic diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup olives chopped (I used a mix of green and rinsed kalamata)
fresh black pepper to taste
1 cup all purpose flour

In a large pan, heat the olive oil , add the onions and garlic. Cook until transparent. Remove from heat. Combine with remaining ingredients. Reserve.

Dough
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 to 4 cups white flour
1 tablespoon yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon dry oregano crumbled
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 cup grated cheese (I used Costco Italian blend)
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon guar gum (optional)
1 recipe Filling

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water along with the sugar. Reserving the white flour, combine the rest of the ingredients except filling. Mix well.While using the dough hook (or kneading by hand) add the reserved flour a cup at at time to dough until it's smooth. Incorporate the vegetables into the dough, add more flour if necessary, you want a smooth dough not a wet one.
Once the dough is kneaded enough place it in a greased bowl to rise until double in size. About an hour. Once the dough has risen, punch it down, form it into a round loaf and place on a greased cookie sheet to rise again for about 30 minutes.
Bake in a pre-heated 350ºF oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the sheet and let cool on a wire rack. Let it cool completely before you cut into it.

What do I cook all day?

2009-01-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

With my renewed effort to get healthier, I bought chicken instead of pork at the supermarket. Husband is not really fond of chicken he says it tastes like cardboard at best. When I was pregnant with my first child all you had to do was say the word "chicken" and I would loose my stomach contents, but that was (wow) 30 years ago, so I think I am over it. That child, by the way, makes the most awesome fried chicken ever. One day she wanted fried chicken so I bought her chicken parts and handed her the cookbook and said have fun! My kids learned how to cook at an early age. The girls learned in 4-H and Son learned from us plus he attended a cooking school for a couple of semesters. He can read a recipe in English and Spanish! The secret to really good fried chicken is to soak it in milk before battering and resisting the urge to turn it in the oil, or so the kids tell me. I don't fry chicken.
Today, I followed another of the Crockpot lady's recipes, this one for teriyaki chicken. It's cooking right now. I was going to make an Indian cabbage dish, but discovered that I am out of dried coconut. So I made cabbage salad instead, and I'm reheating the red tomato rice that I made earlier this week.
I am definitely over the malaise, I am looking at cookbooks and planning stuff. I want to make some pineapple habanero jelly. One thing that I need to find is pectin, I looked up the word in Spanish, pectina, that seems too easy. I did find a couple of recipes online for making your own pectin out of apples. Actually crab apples would be best but I have never seen them here. I did seem some plums though and plums have a lot of natural pectin, plum cheese is really yummy. It's like cranberry sauce but made out of plums. Okay, back to the pectin, it looks easy enough, chop apples into eights, simmer in water, drain and boil down the liquid.
I guess I could make some apple jelly and then put the habanero in it? Hmmm, that might work! I no longer have a copy of Putting Food By, but I think I saw one at MELL.
Back to the chicken, I got some skinless breast and what I thought were thighs and legs, but was really a half a chicken. When I unwrapped the chicken half I found some chicken feet and other parts in a baggie. I don't know if I am up to using them to make stock.

This is for Fned!

2009-01-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Recently I was talking to Chicafeliz and she commented on how everything I cook is complicated. I don't think so, but I think that when she has been to over to eat, I have made complex meals. I don't usually serve guests sopa seca or macaroni and cheese, I try to make something special.
In fact, yesterday, lunch took me about 10 minutes and two pots to prepare. We had Polish sausages with sauerkraut, steamed broccoli and a salad made from chopped cucumbers and tomatoes.
Today, I went to MELL while Husband attended his Spanish class. While I was there I browsed the magazines. I copied down this recipe on a scrape of paper, Stir Fried Tofu and Eggplant, which I made today. I had a couple of boxes of firm tofu gathering dust on the kitchen shelf. I bought the tofu because I had this deluded notion that if I had tofu I would actually use it. After about 6 months (this stuff keeps forever in those little boxes) I finally substituted one box for panela cheese in Saag Panir but there was still one box sitting there. Yesterday, I bought 4 eggplants. We like eggplant, I make stuffed eggplant, eggplant Parmesan, caponata and I have a lovely spaghetti sauce recipe that uses eggplant. My big motivation was that the eggplants were $14.00 mxp a kilo! I also have a lot of Thai basil that I grew so I thought that would be even tastier than the regular basil. Good thing because all my regular basil died, I have no idea why, it just did.
Back to the stir fry, it was really good, it was simple and it used stuff that I had in my house. What more can you ask?
I just looked online and it was Sunset magazine! Click on the link for the original recipe, photo and nutritional information.

Stir fried Tofu and Eggplant

2009-01-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

I think I found this in Sunset Magazine. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper so I am relying on my faulty memory for the source.

Stir Fried Tofu and Eggplant

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 package firm tofu, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 eggplant cut into 1" x 3" strips
1 bell pepper cut into strips
2 diced garlic cloves ( I used a tablespoon of diced garlic)
SAUCE
combine:
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
GARNISH
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves (I forgot to add these, it was still good!)

Heat the pan. When the pan is hot, add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the tofu. Brown the tofu. The secret to browning soft things like tofu is to leave it alone. I know you want to stir it around, but don't, just wait. Brown the tofu on all sides. Remove the tofu from the pan.

If you need to, add more oil. Cook the garlic, eggplant and bell pepper strips until soft (about 10 minutes). I add a little bit of water to the pan if the eggplant absorbs the oil rather than adding more oil.
When the vegetables are done, add the sauce. Heat until the sauce is warmed. Gently add the browned tofu, stir to coat all the ingredients with sauce, try not to break up the tofu chunks (if you do, it's still okay but the dish won't look as pretty).
Remove from heat. Add the basil leaves and serve over rice.
We ate it without rice, this makes 4 generous servings.

Getting your dollar's worth of food!

2009-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Following on the One Dollar Diet Project's footsteps, Amy and Karla of Hope Heals:"Dollar-A-Day Challange" are attempting to eat on a dollar a day for a month in order to raise money for a trip to Africa with Habitat for Humanity.
One point raised in the $1 Diet Project's comments is that a dollar a day buys you more in those very countries where people live on that amount of money or less, countries such as Mexico. I was curious so I took Amy and Karla's shopping list and compared it to the prices listed on Profeco's website Quién es quién en los precios (who is who in prices) where they comparison shop a wide list of items.
Here is the blog post for Hope Heals' first shopping trip
Here is their list and the comparable items I found. I used the least expensive prices for comparable items. They didn't give weights for most items but I have. I used $13.00 peso per dollar as the exchange rate and 2.2 pounds to the kilos.

bag of red delicious apples $2.79 Starking apples which look like red delicious to me are $24.90 p/k or $1.92 usd
head of iceberg lettuce $.99 $1.90 or $.15usd
package of ground turkey (no weight given) $1.19 Turkey is a luxery meat here in Merida, so I compared it to ground beef at $36.00/k $1.26 usd p/ lb
instant corn masa (no weight) $2.39 a kilo of Maseca brand is $6.20 or $.18 *prepared tortillas run from $5.38 to $11.00 a kilo or $.19 to $.38 usd a pound.
canned corn (no weight given) $.49 225 gram can of corn is $5.90 or $.45usd
hot sauce $.79 Salsa picante La Costeña 370 ml $6.10 or $.47 usd
30 eggs $2.99 or 2.9c each the tienda across the street has the best price on eggs $.10 each or $.0077usd each
pinto beans 64 oz $3.29 or $.0514 per oz $12.35 per kilo or $.027 usd per oz
rice 48 oz $ 1.99 or $.0415 per oz $12.90 per kilo or $o.0281 usd per oz
salt and pepper $1.00 salt is $4.10 per kilo and ground black pepper is $20.50 for 60 grams or a total of $1.89 usd for a whole lot of salt and tiny bit of pepper!
large can tomatoes $1.00 *the only canned tomatoes that I have seen are imported from Italy and probably cost more than $3.00 usd a can. Whole fresh romas are around $16.00 a kilo right now so a pound would cost $.56 usd.
ranch seasoning $.33 no comparable
taco seasoning $.66 no comparable
16 cheese slices $1.00 not on the list
bananas $.10 each $4.90 per kilo or (I weighed a banana it's about 8 to the kilo) or $.047 each

I totaled their expenses at $14.6429 (by unit) and my costs at $7.138 (leaving out the seasoning and cheese) So with the exception of some exotic things like apples (they are imported from other parts of Mexico or the USA), canned tomatoes (fresh are cheaper and available year round) and the spices and mixes. My dollar a day would buy at least twice what theirs does unless those apples are in a five pound bag then my total is $9.578 (one and half times more food) but if they really scored big on those apples and got a ten pound bag then my total would be $13.938.

How was yours?

2008-12-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely day yesterday. I hope you did too.
The first Christmas that we celebrated in our house in Mérida, Husband's mother came to visit. In order for her to meet some of our friends we had an open house. Now three years later it has become a tradition.
I cooked but nothing elaborate, some chilaquiles with green sauce, refried beans, fresh fruit and granola. One of our friends brought a lovely beet salad. Later in the day I added dolmas and a layered Sundried Tomato and Basil Spread to the offerings. Oh and we had juice. I didn't have the energy to bake bread and forgot to buy any, and I never did get any ice. It was lovely anyway, no one seemed to notice the lack. Later,another friend brought some cookies and cake. There was coffee and tea of course.
The spread is a recipe I found on Southern Living's website, it is an updated version of a Sunset recipe which I used to make that was called something like Pesto Torte, you layered a 50/50 cream cheese butter blend with pesto into a cheesecloth lined flower pot or other container. I used to call it a heart attack on a plate. I sometimes alternated layers of tapenade or even sun dried tomatoes, but didn't mix them with more cream cheese like the Southern Living recipe.
We spent Christmas day with friends and it was lovely. No Christmas tree, though I did decorate the circular staircase in the entry with some stars and a light rope, no gifts under the tree (no tree!) but wonderful conversation and good food (if I do say so myself) all enjoyed outside in the fresh air.
I love my life!

The Blender,Mexican Superstar

2008-12-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

Another of the 13 articles I wrote for Yo Listo:

When we first came here, I searched high and low for a food processor. Finally, my mother-in-law brought me one from the USA. I like having it, but it turns out that the essential Mexican cooking gadget is the ordinary kitchen blender. I have used my blender more here than I ever did in all the years before I moved to Mexico.

I have also gone through several spice/coffee grinders since moving here. The blade tends to break off, or the motor burns out. I started using a mortar and pestle to grind peppercorns and other hard spices. But, recently, in Megabalcones, I bought a mini-blender set. The kit costs about the same as a new spice grinder (around $121.00 mxp), but instead of having a small motor, the 3 small half pint jars screw into a cutting blade assembly which you then use in place of your normal blender container and blade assembly. The jars also come with lids so you can use them for storage, too.

I love this accessory. I used it to make some small batches of specialty flours today, by grinding barley, brown rice and oatmeal. I made Saag Panir the other day, and in the past, I have either used a mortar and pestle to grind the chiles, garlic and ginger into a paste by hand or used my regular size blender. The blender is faster and easier, but it's difficult to scrape the small quantity of paste out of it. It was so easy with the smaller blender base and blade.

I know that I sound like an infomercial, but I'm really excited. After selling so much stuff to move to Mexico, I vowed that I wasn't going to buy needless gadgets, and if I didn't use it, I was would get rid of it. So I am glad that it worked out.

With the hot weather, we are drinking agua frescas, and licuados con leche daily. I even bought an expensive juicer, but I use my humble blender more often.

The basic agua fresca recipe is simple. Chop up your favorite fruit, seeding as much as possible. Put it in the blender with a little sugar (if necessary; I don't always use sugar, and if I do, it's only a tablespoon or two). Now, fill the blender with cold water. Blend at high speed. Taste, if it's too weak, add more fruit, and if it's too strong, add more water. This is the time to add the sugar, and blend a little more. If you weren't able to seed your fruit and are concerned about it, take a moment and strain it before serving. If you can wait, the agua fresca tastes much better cold.

Here are some variations to get your started:

You can freeze the fruit before blending it, or
You can use ice cubes in addition to the water
Instead of water, you can use fruit juice.
One of our favorites is a peach shake. I open a can of peaches and place it in the freezer for half an hour, and then blend the entire contents of the can with milk. In this case, you probably won't need sugar unless you like things really sweet, since the liquid is already sweetened.

We especially like to make banana shakes. When bananas get too ripe, I pop them into the freezer. Once frozen, I peel and slice them to use in shakes. A tasty combination is banana and strawberry thinned with either water or milk.

I have even made mock ice cream this way; frozen bananas blended with fruit and yogurt. I don't think it's any less calories than ice cream, but it's pretty tasty. Most importantly, I know it hasn't melted and been refrozen like ice cream that I've bought here in the grocery store.

Cooking from scratch in Mexico

2008-12-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this article for Yo Listo under the name Comida Lista.

One of the things ex-pats often say about moving to Mexico, is that it's like moving back in time to the fifties, sixties or seventies (or whenever they experienced childhood). It's one of the reasons many people chose to move south of the border, the slower pace of life, the emphasis on family and the new and exotic foods.

When I was corresponding with Malcolm about writing this column, one of the things that occurred to me was that Malcolm and Jillian have probably never lived in a world without prepared curry paste, cake mixes and exotic spice blends like garam masala. If you are used to "time saving" recipes that call for prepared items, and for whatever reason never have made them completely from scratch, living in Mexico would certainly make cooking your favorite dishes a challenge.

I think the secret to cooking here, is to understand that even in the 50s you could bake a cake without Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker to provide you with a mix. Did you know that when they first introduced cake mixes, all you had to do was add water? These mixes made perfectly acceptable cakes, but the public didn't like them, it didn't feel like they were baking, so the mixes changed. Instead of just adding water, you were adding eggs, oil and water. Personally, I liked the instant ones better, if I am going to add all that other stuff, I'd just rather make my cake from scratch. It just isn't that much harder to sift a little flour, and cream some sugar. The cake mix people want you to think it's difficult.

I was stunned when I saw a commercial on TV for microwavable macaroni and cheese. It wasn't the product; I used to make Kraft Mac and Cheese in the microwave all the time. You just add less water and microwave the noodles. What floored me was the cute little girl talking about how hard it was to make Mac & Cheese the traditional way. By the traditional way, she wasn't even talking about grating cheese and making a cheese sauce, she was referring to the blue box! "All that boiling and stirring," I think is how she put it! I could just imagine her target audience listening and absorbing the lesson that cooking is tedious and difficult.

If anyone asked me how to prepare their favorite foods here, I would recommend that they bring with them a good basic cookbook like Fanny Farmers or Good Housekeeping. A cookbook that assumes that you don't know how to cook is essential.

If you really miss having mixes,(personally, I miss Bisquick) have someone bring you a copy of Make A Mix by Katine Eliason or Perfect Mix by Diane Phillips. I found that I would just rather make baking powder biscuits from scratch rather than make up mixes, but lots of people love mixes and prefer to cook that way.

Sometimes recipes call for a cup of some mix, instead of listing the individual items. In those cases, I turn to the internet and see if I can find the list of ingredients or even a recipe to duplicate the item.

For example, my favorite mix is Bisquick, and according to Wikipedia, you can substitute 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon oil or melted butter for one cup of the mix. So you can still make your favorite impossible pie even if you have used up that box of Bisquick your sister brought down for you in her suitcase.

Now, it's your turn, what are you jonesing for that you can't find here? What is your comfort food? Make a comment on this article, and help me find the topic for my next one!

Humidity as a hurdle

2008-12-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

I let the orange peels sit out for 8 hours like the recipe said. They were still too moist, I rolled them in sugar and they didn't get any drier. Fortunately, our portable oven as a dehydrator setting. I put half the batch in the convection oven on dehydrate for three hours, occasionally turning them around with tongs. They look ever so much better. So I know for next time to put them in the oven to dry rather than trying to have them air dry.
According to something I read online (I can't remember where) we average 72% humidity, no wonder my citrus peel didn't want to dry. Now you know why I don't need a humidifier!

My house smells like oranges!

2008-12-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

We have a sour orange tree. Every year I make Orange Marmalade. This year I am making candied citrus peel. Gosh our house sure smells good! I used 10 pounds of sour oranges, froze the juice in ice cube trays for later in the year when I don't have any oranges. It's really good in iced tea and essential to making the pickled onions Yucatecos put on cochinita and salbutes. I also marinate meat in it. You can substitute it for vinegar in salad dressing too. Best of all for me, it's free!

Being inspired to cook again!

2008-12-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

While I was surfing I found this blog, One Dollar Diet Project, via Yahoo news. It reminded me of my $3.00 usd a day blog posts last December and got me wondering how we are doing on our food budget. Actually, we don't have a food budget which may be the problem. It seems like when I get unconscious about food my weight goes up and so does the grocery bill. I still am ten pounds lighter than this time last year and Husband is twenty pounds lighter, so it isn't a failure, just not a rousing success.
I wrote about making granola in the crock pot last post.It's much tastier than just plain oatmeal but probably at least 3 times the calories. I may go back to oatmeal with dried blueberries for a while. I find that when I cook we eat better, and healthier most of the time.
Friday, I made Grantineé de Tomates (baked tomato and cheese custard) from the French Vegetable Cookbook by Patricia Bourne, it was a tad disappointing. When I took it out of the oven it smelled just like pizza! Probably due to the fresh basil I sprinkled on top, but the taste was too bland. The tomatoes didn't have enough flavor, it probably would have been better with canned tomatoes but those aren't often found here. I also think that I over cooked the onions.
Doesn't that look good? It smelled even better than it looked! I used fresh grated Parmesan instead of the Gruyére cheese, since that is what we had. Unfortunately, I made a lima bean dish that contained cream, the limas were dried and I over cooked them, I used too much cream so it became a soup. Probably a thousand calories, I may as well have just served straight media crema. The salad was good though, red and green cabbage, shredded carrot, craisens (dried cranberries) and chopped apple sprinkled with caraway seeds, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

What struck me about the dollar diet project was that they weren't in the habit of cooking so their diet was pretty limited. They complained about not being able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables on their budget, but frozen is sometimes better. They bought broccoli at the Dollar Store and it was mostly stems not florets, if they had a little more knowledge of Chinese and other Asian cuisines, they would have seen this as a plus. Also they discovered soup about halfway into the project.
They ate beans and rice a lot, but what about lentils? I love lentils and they are so versatile, dal would have been a good option for them or spicy lentil patties. They did make their own tortillas (probably flour) which is quite a savings. That reminded me of when I was making chapatis, definitely a savings and not much different than whole wheat tortillas.
I am going to be thinking about food a little more these days, what I eat and what I spend.

cooking and the economy

2008-11-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

If you read my regular blog, you know that my attention has been everywhere but cooking. Of course, I have been cooking but nothing really exciting. Sometime you just produce meals, you know what I mean?
I did however make granola in my crock pot. I have been wanting to make granola but with my Easy Bake Oven sized tabletop oven, it just didn't seem cost or time effective. Actually the maximum size pan my oven can accommodate is 9 x 12 inches. I had some coconut piloncillo filling hanging around from when I made Indian pastries, which I combined with 5 cups of oatmeal, and various other things that seemed to go into granola, like flax seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, dried fruits. I more or less followed this recipe but adjusted it to what I had on hand. We ate all the granola so I am planning upon making more.
I also made this crockpot falafel recipe , I followed the recipe exactly, except that I didn't have canned garbanzo beans on hand so I cooked dry ones in the pressure cooker. I love my pressure cooker, I can cook pre-soaked beans in less than 10 minutes! Unsoaked beans in half an hour. The second time that I made them, I doubled the recipe and didn't measure the seasonings, they weren't as good, so just follow the recipe, they are really good.
What does all this have to do with the economy? I was talking with a good friend who is originally from the east coast and mentioned that I thought food was at least 30% or more nob than here. She disagreed, she felt that food was a lot more costly here. It turns out while she is a good cook, she is more of a open cans and use boxed mix sort of person. Anything imported has gone up in price so her food budget has also risen. She mentioned hamburger helper as a standby that she missed. In my single mother, one step from welfare days,I remember picking up a box of hamburger helper and being shocked at what they were charging for just noodles and sauce. Unless I had a double coupon it was just cheaper to make my own food from scratch. Here is a recipe for "homemade hamburger helper" that I found on the web by the way. It might be convenient for someone who is in a hurry and likes mixes, but I think that scratch cooking may be easier.

Homemade Hamburger Helper

ingredients
2 cups dry milk
1 cup corn starch
1/4 cup bouillon powder
2 tablespoons onion flakes
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried tyme
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 tablespoon garlic powder

directions
Mix all ingredients and store in airtight container.
Use as a base for:

BEEF STROGANOFF: Brown 1 pound ground meat. Drain. Add
2 cups water, 1/2 cup helper mix and 2 cups uncooked egg
noodles and stir. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer
covered 15-20 minutes. Top with 1/2 cup sour cream.

SKILLET LASAGNA: Brown 1 pound ground meat. Drain. Add
1/2 cup helper mix, one chopped onion, 2 cups water, 16
ounces tomato sauce, 3 cups dry noodles, and 1/4 cup
parmesan cheese. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15
minutes until thickened. Top with 2 cups mozzarella cheese.

TACO HELPER: Brown 1 pound ground meat, drain. Add 2 cups
water, 1/2 cup helper mix, 1 taco seasoning packet, 2 cups
uncooked egg noodles. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and
simmer, covered 15-20 minutes. Top with 1/2 cup sour cream

The last time that I was at the supermarket, tomatoes were around $12 per kilo, yellow onions were about $10, juice oranges were 0.90 a kilo (less than 4 cents U.S. a pound!), and Hass avocados were $24 per kilo down from their usual $34. Hass avocados are a luxury item for us. Bell peppers were at their usual exorbitant $34 and $44 but chile poblanos were $12. Dry garbanzo beans for the falafels were $7 for 500 grams which yeilded a kilo cooked, I weighed them. Pita bread is $24 a bag but a bag contains 12 pitas. I can't remember how much tahini was since we buy it in liter containers. I think our felafels in pita bread dressed with tahini dressing, tabbouleh salad and soup lunch cost about $20 pesos each plus there were enough left overs for the next day!
There was a box of instant falafel mix at Baroudi's it was something like $35 just by itself!
I am a believer in scratch cooking over prepared foods or boxed mixes especially in these times when people are looking to save money.

Still Cooking

2008-09-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

Lin gave me a recipe for Balinese pumpkin soup. It looked so simple that I didn't write it down. It's pumpkin, a liter of water, a tablespoon of butter, 3 cloves garlic, an onion, a piece of ginger and a cup of coconut milk. Cook everything but the coconut milk together. I diced everything and the pumpkin that I had was already cooked, but I think it may taste even better if you cook the pumpkin in the water. I used about an inch of ginger root. I can't remember if it was supposed to be pureed but I did it anyway. Then add the coconut milk. It sure is pretty isn't it?

I prepared it today along with a cabbage salad and some fried rice. I had some left over red rice and that is why the fried rice doesn't look traditional. The Thai basil that I planted is doing really well so I put some in the cabbage salad for a more Asian flavour. The salad is red and green cabbage,Thai basil and some dried cranberries dressed with rice wine vinegar and olive oil.

I am still basically cooking vegetarian except the fried rice had some pork in it. Meat as a condiment is more my style.

Aruna's Dal

2008-08-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

This is the best tasting dal that I have ever had! Unfortunately, I have no source for yellow lentils so I use regular lentils.

1 cup lentils
cover the lentils with water and boil until soft
1 medium onion chopped
1 heaping teaspoon ginger paste
1 heaping garlic paste
fry until brown. Add
3 roma tomatoes chopped
blend the mixture and add to the lentils plus
2 tablespoons yogurt

Garnish
one small dried red chile
teaspoon mustard seed
teaspoon cumin seed
ghee

Heat the ghee or oil until hot, brown the remaining ingredients and garnish the dal.

Mexican Dal

2008-08-24T10:24:00.001-07:00

I have several dal recipes that I use, this is one that I adapted.

8oz lentils
1 large chile poblano, seeded, deveined and diced
1 large onion diced
3 tablespoons ghee (or vegetable oil, NOT olive oil!)
1/2 teaspoon tumeric (cucurcema)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 quart water
salt to taste

Cook the lentils in water until soft. I prefer to use the pressure cooker, if you have a pressure cooker use the directions that came with yours.
While the lentils are cooking, I saute the onions and peppers in a tablespoon of ghee until transparent. Add the tumeric and salt to the onions and chile, stirring to coat well. Carefully add the onions and chile to the lentils. Simmer for 5 minutes. In batches, puree the soup in the blender or food processor.
Heat the remaining ghee in a small pan until hot, the ghee is hot enough when you can put a mustard seed in it and the seed pops. Add the mustard seeds to the ghee, remove the ghee from the stove when the mustard seeds begin to sputter and pop. Garnish the dal with the ghee.

serve warm with chutney and chapatis (or whole wheat tortillas).

If you want to make this into a soup add water until it's thinned to the desired consistancy

Day 14 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

2008-08-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Where were we? Thursday, I had a salad, yup, nothing exciting here. Friday, we had dal, rice and finished off all the chutney except the green mango.
Saturday we ate out, I think it's funny that we have probably eaten out more in the last two weeks than we normally do. Anyway, we ended up at Sanbornes at La Fiesta Americana, Husband had caneloni stuffed with spinach and I had chile relleno. It was a thoroughly mediocre meal. Husband's said that the sauce on the caneloni was tomato thickened with cornstarch, it looked like tomato soup. His steamed vegetables were excellent though. My chile relleno was supposed to be stuffed mozzarella, it was stuffed with manchego. It was not good, it wasn't exactly bad, it looked nice but I have had much better chile rellenos. We both felt uncomfortable after eating, sluggish. I should have just had a salad.
Today, I was planning on making Syrian white beans but I seem to be out of white beans. We had omelettes for breakfast instead of our usual oatmeal so I am not feeling too anxious about lunch.
Right now I have dried habas (fava beans) and garbanzos quick soaking. I am going to make some hummus and a similar bean puree out of the habas. Half the of the beans are also going to get dry roasted for snacks. I need to have something to eat when we are out and about and I start to get hungry.
What is working well for me is having things like the chutneys and bean purees already made and waiting in the refrigerator. I can make a main dish or a side dish but most of the other stuff is ready. I have olives, chile en escabeche, artichoke hearts also so we can have a easy lunch, along with some pita bread.
I think I may have some bell peppers left so I can make some marinated bells to add to the plate.

How to make Chapati or Roti

2008-08-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

This is great, I was going to type up a recipe and then I found this video when I was looking for the tofu one. If you don't feel like making your own chapatis use whole wheat tortillas.
My recipe makes more chapatis and uses half whole wheat and half regular flour otherwise it's the same.

INGREDIENTS:
This recipe makes 4 Roti's:
1/2 Cup Whole wheat flour
Pinch of Salt
1/4 Cup and 1 tablespoon of luke warm water
1/4 teaspoon of Oil
1 teaspoon of Ghee or clear butter

This video was courtesy of Manjulas Kitchen

Tofu making video

2008-08-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is so cool, I watched it without sound since it has subtitles. Now I just need a source for soybeans (and a mold).

Day 10 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

2008-08-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

This has been an interesting experience. I have learned several things;

I cannot rely on just my memory for things like past menus
Typing recipes is not my thing
I need to plan our meals in advance and not wait until I am ravished by hunger to cook

On my last report I ended with Wednesday.
Thursday,we ate out, we ran around doing errands of some sort and by 1:30 I was hungry. Since I realized this while we were passing Platos Rotos new sign that said Comida Chilango, we ate there. In case you don't know, Yucatecos call people from Mexico City, chilangos. The old sign used to say comida Mexicana, which I understood to mean food from Mexico not Yucatan, but maybe this new one is clearer( or more tongue in cheek)? I had nopales rellenos and Husband had calabasitas rellenos. Mine was a cactus paddle split and filled with a slice of panela cheese, breaded and fried. Husbands little pumpkins turned out to be zuchinni, hollowed and filled with panela and covered with a tomato sauce. I think mine had tomato sauce too.
Friday, we ate something
Saturday,I think we ate left overs. I converted the dal into a soup by adding water and made a salad. I had baked some sourdough oatmeal bread and we had that too.
Sunday, I was busy and didn't cook until after 3 pm. I had other things in mind but by the time I got to the kitchen all I could think about was how hungry I was. I ended up opening a can of chicken breast and making a sopa seca. I combined sopa seca noodles with the can of chicken, a small box of salsa verde, some manchego cheese and about a quarter cup of media crema. It tasted like chicken enchiladas but was faster and not as pretty. I did manage to eat a small portion rather than a huge one.
Monday, we once again ate out, we had left the house around 9am to pick up the car and by the time we finally got on the road again, it was around 2pm so we ate at Platos Rotos. This time I had tortitas de ejote and Husband had calabasitas rellenos again. Tortitas usually means patties, so I was expecting a green bean fritter, but what I got was more like a tortilla española. An omelette made with green beans, onions and cilantro folded into the eggs and covered with a nice tomato sauce. I think that I might make some tomorrow for us.
Tuesday, we had company for lunch, I made another coconut curry but this one had a more pronounced coconut taste, some paranthas (a type of flat bread), lentil dal and all the chutney that I had in the fridge.
Today is wednesday and we ate the left overs from my lunch at Platos rotos combined with the left over chicken sopa seca.
So in conclusion, we are doing well in the no red meat department but not as well as I had hoped in the Indian food.

Garam Masala

2008-08-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Garam masala is a seasoning blend used in Indian cooking. I have seen many different recipes for it. I have always been able to buy it already premixed until I moved here. so here are three very similar recipes. The first one yields 3 tablespoons the second one, a huge quantity like 24 ounces and the last is somewhere between the other two

Garam Masala #1

1 tablespoon cardamon seeds
1 inch stick of cinnamon
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/3 of a whole nutmeg

Combine the spices in a blender or coffee/spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.

Garam Masala #2

8 oz coriander seeds
2 oz cinnamon
4 oz peppercorns
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 oz cumin seeds
2 oz cloves
4 oz large cardamon

Roast the coriander and cumin seeds separately. Peel the cardamons. Grind all the spices and store in an airtight container.

Garam Masala #3

2 tablespoons cumin seeds
8 cloves
2 tablespoons cardamon seeds
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
5 inches of cinnamon stick
1/3 of a whole nutmeg
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

Roast all the ingredients until lightly brown. Let cool. Grind to a fine powder in a coffee/spice grinder.

Personally, I would roast the cumin and coriander in all the recipes, but probably not the other spices.

Day 5 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

2008-08-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

I started on my month of Vegetarian Cooking on Monday.My plan is to have good healthy vegetarian food that I can combine with a minimum of effort. I am concentrating on Indian food because it's some of my favorite foods. Most of the ingredients are available here and since it's a hot climate the food is suitable for eating here.

Monday, I made dal, red chutney and pineapple chutney.
Tuesday, I made Saag Panir and another chutney, this one of ripe tomatoes.
Wednesday, I made naan, a pilau with nuts and fruits and a green mango chutney.

Wednesday, we were joined for lunch by la muchacha (she loved the pineapple chutney) and our friend who I will call da Wiz. Da Wiz was over to help us with our car woes. So I reheated the dal and added more spinach to the saag panir, I put all the chutneys on the table too. Lunch was a sucess.

Thursday, I added water to the dal to make a soup and also made a riata of tomatoes,onions, cucumbers dressed with yogurt and mint.
Today, I prepared mixed vegetable curry, a dish of spicy garbanzo beans (which I didn't really like much), and chapatis. There was also chutney on the table. I made another riata this time I added some of the thai basil and purslane growing in my garden.

So far this is going pretty well, I am hoping to have a variety of chutneys and pickles when I am done so I can add variety to meal of just dal and rice.

Saag Panir

2008-08-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

This recipe originally came from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East, Vegetarian Cooking, which I use a lot. I have done some minor changes. If you decide to buy your very own copy please us my Amazon link, I get a little money that way. Thanks!

Saag Panir

1 inch cube of fresh ginger,peeled and chopped
6 cloves garlic peeled and chopped
1 fresh hot green chili, sliced roughly (I use a whole jalapeno,seeded and deveined)
1/4 cup of water
500 grams of queso Panela cut into 1 inch cubes
1 1/4 teaspoon salt divided into 1 teaspoon and a 1/4 teaspoon.
1/4 teaspoon garam masala (link to recipe if you can't buy it already prepared)
1/4teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 packages of chopped spinach thawed
1/4 cup media crema

Heat the oil in a large wide sauté pan over a medium flame. Put the cheese cubes in the oil and brown them on all sides.
Remove the panela with a slotted spoon and place on a plate. Sprinkle with the garam masala,salt and cayenne pepper.
Put the ginger,garlic and chile into the container of a blender or food processor along with the water. I use my little mini one cup attachement for this. Blend until you have a smooth paste.
Keeping your face turned away, add the paste to the hot oil and fry it, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds.
Add the thawed spinach, 1 teaspoon of salt and stir until the paste and spinach are well mixed.
Cover and cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
Remove the cover and add the panela and cream stirring gently. Bring to a simmer, cover and continue cooking for an additional 10 minutes.

serve warm.

Crockpot bread update

2008-08-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

I have been making further experiments with the crockpot as bread oven. I made some sourdough oatmeal bread yesterday. Here are my findings.

I got the best results when I put the bread in a mold (since my crockpot is round, I used a spring form pan as my mold) that I placed on a trivet.
I also put a small quantity of water in the pot, around a quarter cup. Since I wanted the steam, I kept the pot lid tightly on.
Even though several sites recommend rising in the crock with the machine on low or warm, I wanted a slower rise so did it the conventional way. If I was using a regular bread recipe I might try that method.
I found that the bread was cooked with in 4 hours on high. I tested it by thumping (a hollow thump means cooked).
I need to set my timer, my crockpot goes automatically to warm after the timer. This resulted in a bread more suitable for a long voyage at sea or maybe building a wall.
It didn't always brown on top but according to my research this is common.
I tried using a smaller crock liner instead of a mold, according to my research on the web, it's better to have space all around the loaf. It's certainly easier to remove the bread if you do! But it seemed to work fine either way.

Here are some websites with recipes. The Crockpot: an Alternative Bread Machine, A year of Crockpotting bread links, Couldn't be Easier Slow Cooker Bread, and How to bake yeast bread in a Crockpot which calls for frozen bread dough, but I often freeze extra bread dough since most recipes make 2 loaves which is too much for just Husband and me.

I take up the challange

2008-08-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

Minshap, whose blog Both sides of the Coin, I keep meaning to add to my ever growing blog roll (along with several others), posted this blogger challenge for lack of a better name:

1 - For a period of 4 weeks, you must work and report your progress on a project of your own choice, documenting the results as they occur.
2 - You can take the time you need to decide on your project and then you write an opening "DAY ONE" description, with an introductory photo, and your expectations for the end-result.
3 - If you are "in" (oh please say you'll do it!), you need to leave word in the comments section so we all know who we are and then we can all keep track of each others' progress and offer support, advice, links that could help or whatever.
4 - Each week, you will post three times (whichever days you want, but three times a week) with photos showing progress. Or simply a description of what has developed since the previous post. You can give a shout out for help or moral support in these posts, or you can brag all you want, or whatever! If you post three times a week, you'll have a total of 12 posts showing the progress and final accomplishment, but hell, I'm no slavedriver; post only once a week if that's all you can manage - just keep it steady!
5 - At the end of the 4-week period, we'll have a documented chain of events that has led us each, in our individual projects, from point "A" to point "B"! Something we can later look back on with a sense of satisfaction! If our projects don't seem to be coming out right, we'll know early on, and we can take steps to repair the situation. Maybe we'll even need more than 4 weeks, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
6 - So are you in???? Let's do this!!! Pass the word so we can get a network of people working on something interesting for one month and sharing the outcome - as it happens - with others. Maybe someone will hit on a project that we can all contribute to from

Which explains my title, I am taking up the challenge, picking up the glove and I have a project to announce.
It is that I am going to try to cook at least 4 vegetarian meals a week, and those meals are going to be primarily East Indian cuisine.

Bread baked in the crockpot

2008-07-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

We don't have a real oven. When we moved here I couldn't imagine baking in 100 degree heat, then we were in a rental and unsure if we would be permanently staying in Mérida. When we were remodeling our kitchen we decided to put in a wall oven instead of buying a whole new range since we were happy with our Bosch stove top. At that time, I could not find a decent built in oven for less than $10,000 mxp, which was a great deal more than a entire top of the line stove would have been. Our compromise was to buy a tabletop convection oven, big enough to bake one loaf of bread or 6 muffins at one time.
As my last post explained, I have been reading a blog about crockpotting, and the Crockpot Lady actually baked in her crockpot. What intrigued me is that she advocated keeping the lid ajar so the steam can escape.
My friend had shared her sourdough starter with me. It's a great starter, but my sourdough bread has been lacking something. I researched sourdough bread, one thing that they do in San Francisco is use steam injecting ovens! There are work arounds for the home baker, putting water in a pan in the bottom of the oven (not possible in my oven) or spraying with an atomizer.
I decided to try baking one loaf of bread in the crockpot. Sourdough bread has several rises, I let the dough rise once for 2 hours. After punching down the dough I divided it into two loaves, one I set to rise again in the normal fashion the second, I put in the crockpot.
There were a few challenges since my pot is round, I decided that a round loaf would be best,for a mold I used a mini spring form pan. I wasn't sure if I wanted the bread to sit in the water, so I used the trivet from my pressure cooker to hold the loaf a quarter inch above the water.
Since this was an experiment, I decided to use already boiling water which I neglected to measure. The crockpot was set on low for 4 hours the lid was put tightly on, since the idea was to use steam.
Here is my result:
The bread was not as chewy as I would like, for a whole wheat loaf it rose nicely. I think the crust looked great. The taste was good but not San Francisco Sourdough good, I believe the lack of gluten in the flour plus the fact that the recipe I used contained milk and butter may have contributed to the consistency.
I will definitely do this again though.

Lemon Chicken

2008-07-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

There is this new blog that I am reading called A Year of Crockpotting. The blogger made a resolution to use her crockpot every day for a year. The Crockpot Lady doesn't pull punches, she tells you how the recipe worked out and I loved the recipe were she repeatedly told her readers not to make the dish! She has some non-food items on her blog. What's hard for me is that she uses condiments that aren't available here. What's great is when I wrote a comment asking what sort of chipolte to use, even though the recipe was from Superbowl Sunday (Sweet and Spicy Chicken Wings) she answered me right away. I still haven't bought any allitas but just wait, I am making these and having friends over for botanas and beer.
Husband's doctor told us to eat chicken instead of pork. Neither of us are great poultry fans but I bought boneless skinless chicken breasts at Megabalcones (I think they were $48 mxp a kilo about $2.25 usd a pound if you are interested in such things). I could have bought chicken for much less money, but I really don't like handling raw poultry. My aversion dates back to my first pregnancy some 29 years ago.
Okay, so I saw this recipe for making Chinese Lemon Chicken in the Crockpot. Unfortunately, we went out on some errands and didn't get home until 12:30 and I was tired so I didn't start comida until after 2:00. What's a girl to do? I converted the crockpot slow cooker recipe to a pressure cooker fast recipe. I also substituted a bunch of ingredients. I have never seen frozen lemonade concentrate here, just the Country Time type stuff. I was also out of brown sugar but I did have piloncillo en grano. (The Mexican cane sugar but in little balls instead of cones). So here is my recipe. I have balsamic vinegar but forgot to write it down on my list of ingredients so I didn't use it in my chicken.

Lemon Chicken in the Pressure Cooker

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts or equivalent
-4 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces or equivalent

--1/2 cup whole wheat flour

--1 T granules chicken broth (caldo)

--3/4 cup lemon juice

--1/2 cup piloncillo en grano (or brown sugar)

--4 T ketchup

--olive oil for browning chicken

cut chicken into strips or largish chunks
dredge in flour , shake off excess
brown chicken in the pressure cooker with a bit of olive oil, I browned it well, since I have a fear of raw chicken,
mix the rest of the ingredient in a separate bowl.
pour over the chicken and mix it until none of the piloncillo is on top and the chicken is coated with sauce.
cover and cook at 8 pounds pressure for 8 minutes. Quick release the pressure cooker according to your cooker's directions.

I felt that the sauce was a little thin,so I put 1/4 cup of corn starch in a bowl and slowly mixed some sauce with it until the corn starch was disolved. I returned this to the cooker and with out a lid brought the sauce to a boil, once it was boiled I lowered the heat and simmered until the sauce was thick enough about a minute.

I served this with chicken flavored rice pilaf and some rajas and carrots in escabeche.

I made this dish from start to finish in less time than it took the rice to cook.
tah-dah!
I can't wait to try the real version.

Enchilada sauce

2008-07-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

Enchilada Sauce

4 large cloves of garlic, unpeeled

4 medium dried chiles guajillo, stemmed, seeds and deveined

6 medium dried chiles anchos , stemmed, seeds and deveined

1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 cups any poultry broth (plus extra if needed)

1 teaspoon salt

Sugar, a big pinch if needed

Heat a heavy skillet or griddle over medium heat, lay the garlic on one side to roast. Tear the chiles into flat pieces and a few at a time, press them against the hot surface with metal spatula, flip them over and press again., you'll hear them crackle and see them blister and change colour. Remove to a bowl, cover with boiling water, weight down with a plate to keep them submerged, and soak for at least an hour, preferably 2 or 3.

Turn the garlic frequently for 15 minutes or so, until blackened a little and soft within. Remove, cool,peel and place in a blender jar. Grind the peppercorns and cumin seeds in a mortar or spice grinder and add to garlic.

Drain the chiles, squeezing gently. Add to the blender jar and measure in 1 1/2 cups of the broth. Blend until smooth and then strain though a medium mesh sieve into a large bowl. Season with salt and if the sauce is bitter or sharp,sugar. Add additional broth to the consistency of a light tomato sauce.

NOTES: if you are using powdered caldo you may want to taste the sauce before you add the salt, caldo can be fairly salty. One good thing about making your own sauce is that you control the amount of salt. Chile Ancho may also be called chile poblano or pasilla. Guajillos are very mild. If you want to substitute another type of dried chile to change the hotness you certainly can, but I would not use chipoltes since that would totally change the taste to a smoky one.

Balloon bread or Pooris

2008-07-02T14:49:00.001-07:00

I wanted to make Pooris today. I meant to make them, but I wasn't paying attention. Because of the humidity and insects here, we put all our dry staples in screw top jars as soon as the package is opened. I have more prudent friends who store things like flour in their 2nd refrigerator or who at least put those things in the deep freeze for a week or so to kill any insect eggs. My method is to not buy in bulk unless I can't help it and to be vigilant about using up stuff. Since I can generally tell what is what just by looking at it, I don't label the jars. Today it worked against me, or maybe I should say it made me invent a new recipe!
The pooris recipe calls for fine-ground semolina, which I remembered buying at Baraudi's Middle eastern deli and import. I forgot that the last time I cleaned out the pantry I had tossed out the semolina. As I added the "semolina" I realized that it was breadcrumbs! The recipe also calls for cake flour, the substitution for cake flour is to replace one to two tablespoons of all purpose flour with corn starch. Since I had already put in the bread crumbs instead of the semolina, I shrugged and used corn starch instead of cake flour. Since I was already winging it, I decided to use olive oil instead of vegetable oil (olives are really a fruit but hey, this recipe is already so far from the original that it won't matter!).
Some things are just meant to work out. My pooris which I will call balloon bread in deference to the actual stuff came out pretty tasty.
The trick to making them puff is to use a spoon and not let the bread bob up to the surface. It's fascinating to actually feel the bread puff up under the spoon. So here is my recipe for balloon bread.

Balloon Bread

2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup corn starch
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
apprx 3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt

vegetable oil for deep frying

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor. With the steel blade mix the dry ingredients well, add the oil. When the oil is well incorporated start adding the water a little at a time until you have a ball that sticks together.
Knead the dough by hand until smooth. Cover with a cloth, let sit for 30 minutes. Divide the dough into 12 small ball about the size of a walnut. Roll the balls into small thin 3 to 4 inch rounds. Let the round rest while you heat the oil in either a wok, frying pan or deep fryer.
When the oil is very hot but NOT smoking, gently lay the round in the oil.Don't let it double up, keep the round submerged until it blows up like a balloon,it only takes a few seconds. Flip it over and let it cook for a couple of seconds. I did 2 at a time, it's hard to do more because of keeping it submerged.
Drain and pat dry. Eat hot, if you don't eat them right away they deflate a bit but are still tasty!The ones in the photo had already deflated a bit before I remembered to photograph them.

The more authentic pooris recipe is:

Pooris

1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup fine semolina
1/3 cup cake flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
approx 1/2 cup water
oil for frying

Combine the dry ingredients. Slowly drizzle the oil over the dry ingredients, with your fingertips rub the oil into the mix until completely combined. Add enough water to make a ball. Knead the dough for about ten minutes or until smooth. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Divide the dough into 12 small ball about the size of a walnut. Roll the balls into small thin 3 to 4 inch rounds. Let the round rest while you heat the oil in either a wok, frying pan or deep fryer.
When the oil is very hot but NOT smoking, gently lay the round in the oil.Don't let it double up, keep the round submerged until it blows up like a balloon,it only takes a few seconds. Flip it over and let it cook for a couple of seconds.
Drain and pat dry.

Some more Thai food

2008-06-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

I still have some lemon grass and pork left over so I am making Thai pork and vegetable curry today. I just finished typing the recipe. I find that most of the Asian dishes that I make are easy if you prepare and measure all the ingredients ahead of time. The French call this mise en place and it's actually something that I try to do when ever I am cooking. It keeps me from forgetting to add some vital ingredient.
I also typed up the recipe for Red Fried Rice. That should give you a nice start on making some Thai food at home.
Cancun Canuck you might try the Pork and Vegetable Curry it's tasty and pretty easy. I have a wok but hardly ever use it, I use a large fry pan. First heat the pan, then add the oil, when the oil is hot (it will start to shimmer) then add the food.

Gaen Ped Moo- Pork and Vegetable Curry

2008-06-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

1/4 cup vegetable oil (preferably peanut oil)
3 tablespoon red curry paste
1 cup lean pork, loin or butt, cut into thin slices 1/2" by 2 "
2 tablespoons fish sauce or Worcestershire sauce (salsa inglesa)
1 stalk lemon grass (te de limon), chopped
1/2 cup cabbage,chopped and soaked in cold water
1/2 cup green beans, cut into 1 1/2" lengths,soaked in cold water*
1 cup dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in hot water, stemmed and cut into strips**
5 fresh,red Serrano chillies, seeded and cut into strips***
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
12 mint leaves, chopped

Heat the oil in a wok and fry the red curry paste for 3 minutes, stirring until the colour and odor change. Add the pork, fish sauce,and lemon grass. Stir fry for 5 minutes. Drain the cabbage, beans and mushrooms and add them to the wok. Fry another 3 minutes. Sprinkle with chili strips. Stir fry for an additional minute. Sprinkle with sugar. Mix well. Remove to a serving bowl and garnish with the mint leaves.

4 servings.

notes:
* I usually use frozen green beans that I have thawed if the fresh green beans don't look so good. Green beans are called ejote here, and habichuelas in Spain.
** I don't like shitaki mushrooms so if that is all that is available I use regular fresh mushrooms or portobellas
*** I buy the closest to ripe Serranos, when they are just turning colour, let them sit out overnight until they turn red. The red ones available at the grocery store are usually too ripe and fall apart.

I have made this with twice as much vegetable and it's excellent.

Kao Pad Tamada- Red Fried Rice

2008-06-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

3 tablespoons vegetable oil (preferably peanut oil)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 onion,finely chopped
1 cup cooked shrimp
2 tablespoons fish sauce (Nam Pla) or Worcestershire Sauce (Salsa Inglesa)
3 cups cooked rice, chilled
3 tablespoons tomato ketchup

Garnish
6 green onions cut into tassels
1 small cucumber,peeled and sliced
3 tablespoons coriander leaves, chopped

Heat the oil in a wok. Lightly brown the garlic. Add the onions and stir-fry until golden. Add the shrimp and the fish sauce and heat through. Stir in the rice and toss until everything is well mixed. Pour in the ketchup and stir well.
Remove to a platter, garnish with the green onion tassels (sometimes the green onions here aren't very pretty so I just garnish with either green onion slices or chives), ring with cucumber slices and sprinkle the coriander leaves over the top.

The recipe says it makes 3 servings, I have halved this recipe and still had left overs when serving 3 people!

Steamed chinese buns

2008-06-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

I had a can of red bean paste in my pantry getting old so I made steamed buns filled with red bean paste last week. Today I was reading the back posts on Rachel's incredible food blog called Coconut and Lime and I found a recipe for red bean buns. Since I'm lazy, I'm going to just link to her recipe.
I have two recipes for steamed buns, one with yeast like Rachel's and another one made with baking powder. I like them both equally well.

Changes in eating habits

2008-06-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post about our eating plan, I don't want to call it a diet, since it's really a lifelong change, and who wants to spend their entire life on a diet? not us!
Prevention Magazine has an article online called Top 10 Cholesterol Fighting Foods, I like Prevention Magazine, they have always struck me as practical and sensible. So two of the changes that I have made is that I am incorporating a cup of beans into our daily food regime. It's been easy so far. I have been adding more spinach to our diet, we already enjoy it in Saag Paneer, and of course Spinach Salad. I cooked spinach with lemon juice and garlic the other day.
I tend towards using a lot of garlic as a matter of course in my cooking, but I'm thinking that I need to roast a few heads to use as a spread.
Of course, my post on the Thai food that I made makes it seem like a lie, but I really only ate a little of everything. The pork that I used happed to already be in my freezer, it was lean tenderloin, so I don't feel too badly. The shrimp are a no-no, but once again we really only had a few, since they were mixed in the Pad Thai and the Red Fried Rice.

Thai food extravaganza

2008-06-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

La maestra had mentioned that she loved Thai food and missed eating it. Lindi had mentioned that she loves Thai food and missed it too. Thai is Husband's favorite food.
What does that mean? We had Thai food today. It was a lovely group, La Maestra, her lovely granddaughter Gita and our neighbors and friends Lindi, Pablo and of course Husband and I. Mr. Dog was very interested too, but he only got a tiny taste of the satay. We had starting with the bowl in the upper right (one o'clock) pickled cucumber salad, chicken satay, peanut sauce for the satay, green banana curry,pork and vegetable curry, a small bowl of chopped peanuts to add as needed, pad thai, and red fried rice.
Here is a closer look at the table.

Here is a close up of the pad thai.
This is the red fried rice. Ketchup is what makes it red.
This is the pork and vegetable curry. Those red strips are serrano peppers that I bought at the supermarket and let riped to red. I picked the ones just showing a little colour and left them out for a day to ripen.
Here is the chicken satay. I love how Husband lined the dish with a fresh banana leaf.

Husband was really involved in making this feast. I don't know if he meant to be, but he grilled the meat, made a lovely Thai Limeade, and prepared the pickles. He also did a lot of other stuff, it was so nice working together in the kitchen.
We also had some nice wine and tropical ice cream supplied by our guests.
Pablo and Gita had never had Thai food before so I told them that was perfect because they had nothing to compare it to. La Maestra remarked that it had been years since she had any Thai food, and come to think of it Husband hasn't had any since we moved here. So I had their memories of great Thai food to compete with, I think Lindi and I have had Thai food the most recently. It was a lovely meal. I'll type up the rest of the recipes this week

Green Curry Paste

2008-05-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

8 fresh green chiles (serranos, jalapeños etc)
2 tablespoons minced lemongrass bulb
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1 large shallot, minced
1 teaspoon fresh shredded ginger root
2 medium cloves garlic
a few slivers lime zest
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon caraway seed
10 peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt

In a small skillet roast all the ingredients over medium high heat for 2 minutes. Turn off heat, leave in pan for one minute more.
Using a blender or food processor grind to a thick paste.
Stays fresh for one month if kept covered in the refridgerator

Pad Thai

2008-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

2 quarts water
8 to 10 ounces dried flat-sided rice noodles or fresh noodles

PAD THAI SAUCE
1 1/4 cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 fresh green chile, seeded and minced

GARNISHES
2 eggs scrambled (optional)
1 cup mung bean sprouts
1/3 cup chopped unsalted peanuts (optional)
lime wedges
sliced scallions

Bring 2 quarts water to a boil, remove from the heat. Soak the noodles in the hot water for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside or make fresh rice noodles.
In a bowl, blend the vinegar, tomato paste, water and sugar
Heat the oil in a frying pan, fry the garlic and chili on medium heat for 3 minutes.
Stir in the tomato-vinegar mix continue to simmer the sauce until very thick 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the noodles to the sauce, mix well.
Place the noodles and sauce in large serving plate
Serve with garnishes

Fresh Rice Noodles

2008-05-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

I found this video and recipe on line. Enjoy!

Making Fresh Rice Noodles
Makes 1 Lb.

1 1/4 cups uncooked long-grain rice
1 1/4 cups water
Vegetable oil

1. Soak the rice overnight in the water. After soaking, grind the rice and water for 5 or 10 minutes in a blender to form a very smooth thin batter, (A food processor won't work for this.) When done grinding, you should be able to feel no more than the slightest hint of solid particles if you rub the batter between your fingers. Better too smooth than not smooth enough!

2. Lightly coat an 8" x 8" x 2" baking pan with oil and heat it for about 3 minutes in a steamer. Pour in 1/2 cup batter in an even layer and replace the steamer lid. Steam for 5 minutes. From this point on, check to make sure there's water in the steamer. Add boiling water as necessary if it's low.

3. After 5 minutes, coat the top of the first layer lightly but thoroughly with vegetable oil and pour 1/2 cup of batter in an even layer on top of it. Again, steam for 5 minutes. Repeat with the remaining batter. After adding the last layer, steam for 8 minutes. When sliced, the layers will separate into thin noodles.
Making Fresh Rice Noodles
Makes 1 Lb.

1 1/4 cups uncooked long-grain rice
1 1/4 cups water
Vegetable oil

1. Soak the rice overnight in the water. After soaking, grind the rice and water for 5 or 10 minutes in a blender to form a very smooth thin batter, (A food processor won't work for this.) When done grinding, you should be able to feel no more than the slightest hint of solid particles if you rub the batter between your fingers. Better too smooth than not smooth enough!

2. Lightly coat an 8" x 8" x 2" baking pan with oil and heat it for about 3 minutes in a steamer. Pour in 1/2 cup batter in an even layer and replace the steamer lid. Steam for 5 minutes. From this point on, check to make sure there's water in the steamer. Add boiling water as necessary if it's low.

3. After 5 minutes, coat the top of the first layer lightly but thoroughly with vegetable oil and pour 1/2 cup of batter in an even layer on top of it. Again, steam for 5 minutes. Repeat with the remaining batter. After adding the last layer, steam for 8 minutes. When sliced, the layers will separate into thin noodles.

Comida Listo

2008-05-24T11:22:00.001-07:00

I just realized that I never announced that I am writing a weekly article about food for Yo Listo, it's called Comida Listo, which actually is not correct Spanish since the gender doesn't agree. I've written three articles so far, you can read them on the home page. They come out on Tuesdays.
Where this blog and Comida Listo differ is that here I write about what I am cooking at home, while Comida Listo is more aimed to people missing foods or conveniences from "home".
Please stop by my column and tell me what you think.

Nopales and me

2008-05-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

Since Jonna mentioned nopales, I did a little internet research, if you google nopales cactus+ cholesterol, you will find a whole range of articles. I'll let you have the fun of doing that search for yourself.
By an interesting coincidence, when I was a the supermarket stocking on vegetables for our TLC (total living change) I bought some cactus paddles. A nice thing about living in Mexico is that you can buy already scraped (to remove the spines) nopale paddles, already cleaned and chopped nopalitos, canned nopales, or even fresh frozen nopalitos. The nopalitos are nopale paddles that have been diced.
I had heard from several people that they are really tasty grilled. I already had planned to grill eggplant and zucchini,so why not?I've had them boiled (to remove the "slime") and they were okay,I had heard that they were nutritious so I was interesting in finding a way to prepare them that we would enjoy.
Somehow,after I put them away in the refrigerator, I promptly forgot about them. Jonna's comment was doubly helpful, since it nudged my memory. So today when I was preparing lunch,
I heated my griddle and simply laid the paddles on it. As they were cooking, I decided to consult my copy of Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico, he recommended scoring them first and then sprinkling with lime and salt. He advises about 15 to 20 minutes grilling time.
I figured better late than never, so I scored the paddles and seasoned them. We ate one each that way and I reserved 2 more to use in a salad.
They were much more to my liking grilled than boiled,so with all the health benefits in mind, nopales look to become a staple in my kitchen. Another benefit is that I didn't need to add any oil to the paddles to cook them, this is where their sliminess was a positive attribute.
The photo at the top of my post is courtesy of Wikipedia, the photographer is pro_bug_catcher.

Dietary changes

2008-05-23T16:32:00.001-07:00

Husband had his cholesterol counted or what ever it is that they do. Dr. Duran looked at it, and was not happy. Then he said to me in a conspiratorial tone, you do realize that if his is like this, then yours is probably not too far behind.
The doctor is confident that just a few changes and everything will be better soon. He has banned pork! He isn't too happy about beef either which leaves chicken and fish. Husband isn't fond of chicken and I have never learned how to cook fish.
There was some mention restricting the consumption of chocolate, dark beer and yellow cheese. I must be the only woman on the planet Earth who would rather eat Gouda than Godiva, but there you are. The really sad thing is that I think cheese is the culprit.The upshot of all this is that for the next three months we're being primarily vegetarian.
Today we had whole wheat flat bread, it was supposed to be pita, but I learned today that you can't make pita bread in a tabletop oven. Grilled eggplant, zucchini and spring onions.
I also made couscous, tabbouleh and a garlic tahinni dip.
It was all good and we ate moderate amounts. Maybe this won't be so bad after all?

Commenting

2008-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have heard from various people that it's hard to leave a comment on my blog. I want comments,I encourage comments, I enjoy the comments. So in an effort to make life easier for everyone, I have disabled the verify comments. If it turns out that I am getting a lot of spam, I will start moderating all the comments before they post. I hope that makes it easier for you.

Is that a real recipe?

2008-05-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

yup, that is what Husband asked me last night! I would be insulted if it wasn't for my tendency to veer from recipes. I made vegetable filled bread for the IWC coffee held at my neighbor's house this morning.
I indignantly informed him that it was indeed a real recipe, that I was making a savoury bread, thank you very much! Then proceeded to adapt it and make it my own.
Actually, I was out of onions, zucchini and tomatoes. Even if I had them I had decided not to include the tomatoes and onions because I was pretty sure that one of "the girls" is allergic.
If you already know how to make bread this should be easy, so I am just going to hit the high spots.
In a large pan saute in oil until soft:

1 eggplant diced into quarter inch cubes,
3 large cloves of garlic minced,
6 large mushrooms, diced
1 carrot peeled and diced.
1 jalapeño seeded and diced

Remove from the pan to another container. Set the container in cold water to cool. When cool, toss the vegetables with half a cup all purpose flour. This keeps the veggies from sinking down in the bread and from sticking together.

For the bread dough:

1 cup whole wheat flour
3 to 4 cups general purpose flour
1 tablespoon yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon dry thyme
1 teaspoon dry tarragon
1/4 cup dried basil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated cheese (I used Costco Mexican blend)

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water along with the sugar. Reserving the general purpose flour, add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl. Mix well.While using the dough hook (or kneading by hand) add the reserved flour a cup at at time to dough until it's smooth. Incorporate the vegetables into the dough, add more flour if necessary, you want a smooth dough not a wet one.
Once the dough is kneaded enough place it in a greased bowl to rise until double in size. About an hour. Once the dough has risen, punch it down, form it into a round loaf and place on a greased cookie sheet to rise again for about 30 minutes.
Bake in a pre-heated 350ºF oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the sheet and let cool on a wire rack. Let it cool completely before you cut into it.

Please pass the ear.

2008-05-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

The other day, Husband and I met some friends at Las Ruinas which is a bar familar within walking distance of our house. When we arrived the table was stacked with all sorts of little dishes of food. Botanas or snacks. As long as you are drinking, the food keeps coming. The variety is amazing, there was pig's ear in adobo, chunks of liver, bulgar wheat, calabasa (a small green pumpkin similar to the a patty pan) in tomato sauce, elbow macaroni in tomato sauce, guacamole, ceviche, thick corn chips, ceviche and I don't remember what else. The elbow macaroni which was cooked in the sauce,sopa seca style was tasteless, the rest of the food was good. The pig's ear was spicy, and chewy, I tasted it, decided it was too picante, and then found myself eating more. Spicy food is like that, I think chiles are addicting. The guacamole was excellant and the liver was pretty good too. I never did get any ceviche but I heard that it was up to the same standards. The waiter also passed around a list of specialties, we each got to choose an entree for themselves. I ordered the queso relleno and Husband got kibis.
As the party slowed down the waiter started putting dishes of mango and jicama on the table, with the ever present chili and lime.
After two hours the party broke up, and we walked home, well satisfied.

An abundance of green mangoes

2008-04-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have an abundance of green mangoes, about half a dozen of them. Jonna wrote on her blog that the mango tree under which their RV is parked is literally raining green mangoes on them. When life gives you green mangoes, you can make green mango chutney, green mango pickle and of course just slice them up and serve them with chile and lime. I once made a pilaf that called for green mango, it was pretty good, but I don't remember where the recipe came from. I also saw a recipe for flatbread that called for green mango, but I don't feel like making bread right now.
Eventually I decided to make green mango chutney and green mango pickle. I find it amazing how you can take basically the same ingredients and make two very different but equally tasty things. Don't worry the recipes are coming, just not today.
Now ripe mangoes are wonderful too, don't get me wrong,I love ripe mangoes. At the grocery stores there are several types of mangoes available, the Yucatecans like the little yellow manilas the best, but I usually buy whatever is the least expensive, I don't have a developed enough palate to be able to tell the difference.
Usually, when you come across a reference to a mango, it invariably notes that mangoes are messy and difficult to eat. I remember a children's book that had a drawing of a proper looking gentleman in tails sitting in an old fashioned bathtub to eat mangoes. One of the many advantages to having a Cuban mother, is the fact that I grew up knowing how to prepare and eat mangoes. When I married Husband the mango preparation became his job, his knife skills are superior to mine. Husband even taught my comadre had to fillet a mango. Recently, Yucatan Living came out with this article called How to Eat a Mango,Yucatan-style. I recommend it for those of you who have up to now thought that mangoes are messy eating.
For some more mango recipes check out La Gringa's blogicito (in Honduras) post called Lounging Mangoes for more mango cutting advice.

Chinese food in Merida

2008-04-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

I be you all think that I haven't been doing any cooking lately. Not so, I just haven't been blogging about it. We've been having some crazy weather, one day hot and muggy and then a long spell of cooler weather,just when I thought the heat was here for good, it rained yesterday!

As you might know, Husband and I have put on a bit of weight, so we've been revising our eating, and (boo hiss) exercising, actually, the exercise has been walking, we've been getting up early and walking in our neighborhood.

While we don't eat a lot of junk nor do we drink much soda, it the quantity of food that has been our down fall.

Eggplant seems to be the vegetable that I have been concentrating on. Recently, I had a craving for Chinese food so I made Szechuan Eggplant with pork. Try it out, even if you don't like eggplant you might find that you like this one.

Speaking of Chinese food, we recently had dinner with another expat couple,while she was born in Hong Kong, he is the one who stir fries. One of the dishes he prepares was a simple bell pepper stir fry. It was perfectly done,crunchy and tasty. Unfortunately, they have headed north already, but when they get back, I am eager to have him fine tune my stir frying technique. There is nothing like getting instruction from someone who knows what they are doing.

I have never had what I would consider good Chinese food in a restaurant here in Merida, and coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, I realize that I have high standards. My oldest daughter spent a summer in Missouri when she was 13, she went with her best friend. She came back and announced that one evening they went to the next state for Chinese food. While they were choosing the food, my daughter made comments like "My mom makes that" or "My mom taught our 4-H cooking group how to make that". They would look at her in amazement and ask her "Your mama cooks Chinese food? You know how to cook Chinese food?".

Seriously, I think stir frying may be a really good technique for me to start using more of,now that the weather is getting hot again. Or should be getting hot again.

Cuban Food Night

2008-04-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

We got together with our friends Jonna and Mimi at Tom and Debi's house to socialize,drink mojitos and eat Cuban food. Jonna makes great mojitos by the way. I volunteered to bring ropa vieja. Debi says that ropa vieja is JLo's favorite food by the way. While I was at the grocery store buying the ingredients for the ropa vieja, I spotted rabo de res. I haven't seen ox tails in any of the supermarkets and have been considering going to the meat markets in search of them. Well, beef tails seem like a close enough name. I bought several kilos of it to store in my freezer to make things like ox tail soup and Rabo Encendido. Which translates as tail on fire. The heat is supplied by black pepper and Spanish chorizo. Not wanting to disappoint everyone, I decided to make the ropa vieja but also bring along a bowl of Rabo Encendido, after all we all want to broaden our culinary horizons don't we. This photo is of the Rabo.

What is a Cuban meal without black beans or rice? Debi made this Cuban classic Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians). She also made some really yummy appetizers, a brushetta with tomatoes, cheese and balsamic vinegar, but I forgot to photograph it. I wish I had remembered because it was a lovely looking dish.
These are bolillos, Jonna said that she got to have the Mexican experience of buying lots of rolls at the panadería. She was referring to the fact that often at the bakeries you see people buying dozens and dozens of these rolls. I think they are either making tortas or molletes.
Now we come to the ropa vieja. Not only JLo's favorite but Husband's too.
Let's face it, you have to have bananas with Cuban food. These were baked with rum and butter among other things. It's not a dessert but a side dish, like candied yams.
This is the fixings that Jonna brought for the mojitos. The rum is called Flor de Caña, a Cuban rum now made in central America. I can't remember where, but maybe Jonna will remind me.
Here is a filled plate, showing all the food. Looks pretty good to me!
Husband is clearly enjoying himself. You can't really tell but he has on a guayabera over his swim trunks, just another Cuban touch to our Cuban food night. In the background is T&D's lovely backyard and swimming pool.

Rabo Encendido

2008-04-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

3 pounds ox tail (rabo de res)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
juice of 2 limes
1/4 cup olive oil
2 white onions diced
1 large green bell pepper,or 1 large chile poblano or 3 chile dulce, seeded and diced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 cup tomato sauce (puré de tomate)
1/2 cup sherry (jerez)
1 cup red wine (vino tinto)
2 cups beef stock (caldo de res)
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (comino)
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (or more)
1 bay leaf (hoja de laurel)
1 large dry imported spanish chorizo or 2 chorizos españoles, sliced into 1 inch rounds
6 white potatoes (papa blanca), peeled and cut into large chunks

Sprinkle the oxtails with the salt,pepper and lime juice. Let marinate at least 20 minutes.
In a dutch oven or other heavy pot, heat 1/4 cup oil, when the oil is hot, brown the oxtails. Remove the oxtails from the pot, discard the oil.
Brown the chorizos, remove from the pot saving as much grease as possible. If you would rather not use the chorizo grease, heat up another 1/4 cup of olive oil.
Cook the peppers,onions and garlic until transparent, stirring constantly. Add a teaspoon or more of water to the pan if it gets too dry.
Return the oxtails and chorizo to the pan. Add the rest of the ingredients except the potatoes.
Bring the stew to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 2 hours.
Add the potatoes and cook until the potatoes are done.
Serve hot with bolillos, or plain white rice

Plantanos Machos baked with rum and sugar

2008-04-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

6 large plátanos machos (plantains) as ripe as possible
1/4 cup unsalted butter cut into pieces
1/2 cup rum
1/3 cup sherry (jerez)
1/3 cup piloncillo*
1/4 teaspoon salt
ground nutmeg (nuece mascada) and ground cinnamon (canela) to taste,

Slice the machos into chunks, I like to roll cut them. Put machos in a single row into an ovenproof baking dish.
Pour the sherry and rum over the machos.
Evenly distribute the butter and piloncillo over the machos
Sprinkle the salt,nutmeg and cinnamon over the machos.
bake covered in a preheated 350ºF oven for 30 minutes
Uncover,stir the machos and bake an additional 30 minutes until brown and soft.
Serve warm

Notes:
I buy the granulated piloncillo in bags at Walmart and Comercial Mexicana, if you can't find it, you will need to grate the piloncillo. You can also substitute a 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar.
Here is a video I found on how to roll cut.

Cochinita and a new cooking blog

2008-03-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

If you check out the links you will see that I have added a link to Belina's Adventures, this is a relatively new cooking blog. Belina has been posting recipes on Merida Insider for some time, I am thrilled that she now has them in blog form.
When she posted a recipe for Cochinita Pibil,the lazy way, I was thrilled. Cochinita is one of Husband's favorites, and unlike mole (another one of his favorites) I like it too. I faithfully followed the recipe. Until I got to the part where she says to cook it, she suggests a pressure cooker or pot and says to cook until it's done.
I lined the pressure cooker with the banana leaves, layered the lovely achiote marinated pork on top, folded the banana leaves over the pork. So far so good. After I had put the top on the pressure cooker, I realized that there was no liquid to provide steam and pressure.
I admit it, I panicked. I opened the pot and without measuring or thought poured an entire tea kettle of water into the cooker.
As it got up to pressure, I realized that I didn't know how long to cook it! The website says until done. It's a bit hard to check doneness in a pressure cooker. Luckly, the Rick Bayless cookbook I have has a recipe for Pollo Pibil with a note on cochinita. Ah ha, 2 and half hours is the normal lenght of time. So I decided on 30 minutes.
While the cochinita was cooking, I read the instruction manual for my pressure cooker. Most of the meat recipes called for a minimum of 49 militers of water, which is a scant 1/4 cup.
The texture was great, the taste wasn't quite right, but I put that down to the copious quantity of water that I added.
The next time that I do this I am going to use my crockpot and cook the meat slowly without the addition of water.
I am going to ask Belina for her suggestions and recommendations so that my cochinita comes out perfect the next time.

Coconut popsicles

2008-03-17T11:20:00.001-07:00

We like paletas, which is what popsicles are called here. But I think most of them have added sugar.
Yesterday, I decided to try making my own coconut ones. What I did was take the dried coconut that I had in the freezer, you can buy dried coconut in the vegetable section of the supermarket. It isn't the sweeten and moist kind you get NOB, it's dried coconut with no additives.
I added 1 cup boiling water to the approximately 200 grams (1/2 lb) coconut in my blender, and allowed it to cool. I pulsed it until the coconut was well mixed. I poured the mixture into a plastic container. After about an hour, I stirred the coconut mix so it wouldn't become a giant chunk.
When my girls were little, we made popsicles using dixie cups and popsicle sticks. Later I bought reusable plastic molds. I have seen the molds at the store,so I think I am going to invest in some.
Basically, What I did was make coconut milk but skipped the step where you drain it since I wanted the little pieces of coconut.
My coconut ice cream was perfect!

The death of a microwave and menu Spanish

2008-03-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

I seem to be on an eggplant binge. We had eggplant parmigiana yesterday. I won't bore you with the recipe, because you should be able to find it anywhere. I used the Fanny Farmer Cookbook recipe as my starting point, but I used bread crumbs instead of flour and added some tomato sauce to the chopped tomatoes.
Now, what I like to do with left over eggplant parmigiana is make sandwiches. I think that they taste like meatball sandwiches without the meat. Not that I am against meatballs, I just never seem to think about making them when I am at the meat counter. Maybe I will remember now that I have blogged about it.
As you probably noticed from the title another one of my kitchen appliances has bitten the dust. When we returned from our vacation, our microwave went on the fritz. It's fairly new so instead of a dial for the power and another one for the timer, it has a touch pad. Some of the buttons on the touch pad stopped responding to my touch. No matter if I delicately ran my finger over the pad or poked as sternly as I could, one row of buttons refused to respond. Then magically, the microwave ( or giant square digital clock as Husband newly christened it) started to work . The other day it stopped again. We went grocery shopping and when we returned it was microwaving away with 40 minutes was left on the timer! Good thing that nothing was inside. Now it is sitting outside, unplugged while I ponder what to do. Husband is all for getting a new one, I am thinking that maybe I don't really need one at all.
I have been keeping track of the things that I routinely use the microwave for, it isn't a very impressive list.

I use it to make oatmeal, making oatmeal on the stove doesn't take much longer, it just requires a little more mindfulness on my part.
I use it to reheat left overs, once again, using a pan on the stove works just fine.
I melt butter in the microwave...see above
I bake potatoes in the microwave, I can do it in the oven instead, but that does take more planning on my part since it takes much longer.

So except for the potato baking, I haven't so far really missed the microwave. Honestly, who needs a 800 peso potato baker even if it also melts butter and reheats left overs?

I like to read other people's blogs, and while I was surfing I came across one from San Miguel de Allende and the blogger was writing about menu Spanish. In particular about ordering something called enmolada and getting something really different from what she thought she had requested. I sent her an email about my take on Spanish names for dishes, and I thought maybe some of you may be having the same problems.
Generally the prefix en means in, so enmolada means in mole, or covered in mole , enchilada is in chili or covered in chili, entomatada is in tomato or covered in tomato , the only en*ada that seems to be the exception is ensalada because that translates as salad, but following my examples would be covered with salt?
Also, if you eat too much chili and get over heated they say you are enchilado. Which is a memorable experience if nothing else.
I seem to be rambling here, but one of Son's first Yucatecan eating experiences resulted in him becoming muy enchilado. We were eating next door at the cocina economica my neighbor used to run. Son's plate included a chile habanero, which he had never seen before but recognized it as a pepper of some sort. He asked our neighbor if it was hot.
Now if you want to know if something is physically hot you ask if it's caliente, but if you are asking if it's mouth searingly spicy hot, you ask if it's picante or if it picas (¿se pica?)
Son eyed what looked to him like a mini-bell pepper and instead of inquiring "¿Es picante?" He asked "¨¿Es caliente?".
Food is never ever served at anything above room temperature here,so of course, Katy answered in the negative. Son took a tiny nibble, it didn't seem particularly hot,so he took a big bite and ate it in 2 swallows. I am not exaggerating when I say his ears turned maroon. He also got to try every remedy that anyone could think of for being enchilado.
Like I said, a memorable experience.

Tomato paste update

2008-03-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

I just got an email telling me that tomato paste is available at WalMart and Superama. It's even in a tube, which I think is the perfect way to keep it. So next time I go to either of those stores, guess what I am buying?
It's amazing what tiny things can make your day when you are an ex-pat.
My readers are so great! I am doing the snoopy dance of joy.

Eggplants

2008-03-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

I never expected to find eggplant in Mexico. It doesn't seem like a Mexican ingredient, but none the less they are available and usually quite inexpensive. The Spanish name is berenjena. One of the ways you find it prepared here is in salsa de berenjena, which means eggplant sauce, but I know it as Babba Ghannouj. We like eggplant grilled and in sandwiches but it also lends itself to appetizers.
Today, I made couscous and served it with warm caponata. Caponata is supposed to be served chilled in order for the flavours to marry. The last time I made caponata, I served it with bread rounds at a dinner party, it was so popular that I was afraid that no one was going to want dinner.
Another tasty eggplant appetizer is eggplant caviar, I am not sure why it's called that since it doesn't taste or look like caviar to me. I've served both of these as side dishes or even main dishes,they are pretty versatile.

Caponata-Cold Eggplant Appetizer

2008-03-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

This recipe comes from The International Appetizer Cookbook by Sonia Uvezian

2 small eggplants (about 3/4 pounds each) berenjena
5 tablespoons olive oil aceite olivo
1 cup finely chopped celery apio
1/2 cup finely chopped onion cebolla
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pound tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste *
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped green olives aceituna
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained alcaparras
2 flat anchovy fillets, rinsed and mashed to a smooth paste**
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 1/2 tablespoons pine nuts piñon

Remove the stems and green tops from the eggplants but do not peel them. Cut the eggplants into 1/2 inch cubes. Sprinkle the cubes generously with salt and place them in a colander to drain for 30 minutes. Rinse under cold running water and dry with paper towels. Set aside.
In a large, heavy skillet heat 2 tablespoons of the the oil over moderate heat. Add the celery and onion and sauté, stirring frequently, about 10 minutes or until they are soft and golden. With a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables to a bowl.
Add the remaining 3 tablespoons oil to the skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant cubes and sauté, stirring, 5 minutes or until golden brown, adding more oil if necessary.
In a small bowl combine the vinegar with the sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the sweetened vinegar to the skillet along with the celery onion mixture, tomatoes, tomato paste, olives, capers, anchovies,salt and pepper. Bring to a boil,reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered, 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the pine nuts. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Remove the skillet from the heat and coll the caponata to room temperature. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
makes 6 servings

NOTES:
* I brought the tomato paste from NOB, I have never found it here.
** I don't use the anchovies, but they are available here.

Gastronomìa Mexicana 2.0

2008-02-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

I just found this great cooking blog for Mexican food, Gastronomìa Mexicana 2.0 written by a Yucatecan named Elizabeth. It doesn't have a lot of recipes in spite of having been around since 2006. It's also written in Spanish which may be a problem for some of you. What makes it worthwhile is that the cooking directions are well done with step by step instructions and clear photos.
There is a recipe for Spaguetti Verde a la Mexicana (Mexican Style Green Spaghetti). When our neighbor's 16 year old son had to cook dinner to pay off a bet, Spaguetti Verde is what he made using chile poblanos. Check it out, it will give you something different to cook when you are in a hurry.
She has a recipe for Jalisco style Pozole which I am planning on trying out soon.
If you have a sweet tooth there is also a recipe for Pastel de Nutela (Nutella Cake). Nutella is big here in Yucatan, you can buy it in any supermarket. Some of the marquesita vendors offer you a choice of Nutella and or cajeta in addition to the cheese filling. Marquesitas are a cheese waffle, the vendors pour a batter onto a hot marquesita iron, they then close the two halves to cook it. What emerges is a giant cookie, similar in taste and texture to a waffle cone. Gouda cheese is sprinkled on and it's rolled up into a tube. If you want to try to make your own, here is a recipe courtesy of Rick Bayless. When I first came to Mèrida, marquesitas were 10 pesos each, the last time I had one, they were 15 pesos. Still they are my favorite street food treat even at that price.

Just what is a Gougère anyway?

2008-02-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

The Cook's Enclyclopedia of VEGTABLES by Christine Ingram caught my eye when I was at MEL looking for more reading material. The pictures are eye candy and the recipes are interesting. I made several things including the Cauliflower and Mushroom Gougère , a gougère according to Wikipedia is a savory choux pastry with cheese. This recipe was extremely tasty and I am planning on making it again.
I think Ms Ingram is British or at least she isn't American, because some of her cooking terms confused me or at least amused me a bit. She uses African terms for things like yucca and malanga, but if you already cook with these items they are easily identified.
Unfortunately, I think her proofreader either missed a few things or isn't a cook. The Borscht recipe, for example, she specifies one large onion in the ingredients section but the next time she mentions the onion she tells you to "add the onion, fry for 2-3 minutes". Umm, shouldn't the onion be diced, chopped or sliced before you fry it? Surely, she doesn't want you to fry a whole onion? How would you do that, roll it around in the pan? I've made Borscht before so I chose to grate the onion in the food processor before frying it.
I probably would never buy this book because there aren't enough recipes included, but it is pretty and the recipes that I made were tasty including the Borscht. If you find it in your library you might give it a try, especially if you are trying to add more vegetables to your diet. If you make one of the recipes for loofas, I would be interesting in knowing how they taste.

Cauliflower and Mushroom Gougère

2008-02-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

This recipe is from The Cook's Encyclopedia of VEGETABLES by Christine Ingram
There are a bunch of notes, so please read my notes before you make this. I made it without the ham, but I think I would dice it before I added it to the filling.

serves four to six
INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cups water
4 ounces butter or margarine*( mantequilla)
5 ounces all-purpose flour (harina de trigo)
4 ounces Gruyère or Cheddar cheese, finely diced **
1 teaspoon French mustard***(mostaza Dejon)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE FILLING
14 ounce can tomatoes **** (tomates pelado y picado)
1 tablespoon sunflower oil***** (aceite de girasol)
1/2 ounce butter or margarine* (mantequilla)
1 onion chopped (cebolla)
4 ounces white mushrooms, halved if large (champiñon)
1 small cauliflower, broken into small florets (coliflor)
sprig of thyme****** (tomillo)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC) and butter a large oval ovenproof dish******Place the water and butter together in a large saucepan and heat until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat and add all the flour at once. Beat will with a wooden spoon for about 30 seconds until smooth. Allow to cool slightly.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and continue beating until the mixture is thick and glossy. Stir in the cheese and mustard and season with salt and pepper. Spread the mixture around the sides of the dish, leaving a hollow in the center for the filling.
To make the filling, purèe the tomatoes in a blender or food processor and then pour it into a measuring jug. Add enough water to make up to 1 1/4 cups of liquid.
Heat the oil and butter in a flameproof casserole and fry the onion for about 3-4 minutes until softened but not browned. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes until they begin to be flecked with brown. Add the cauliflower florets and stir-fry for 1 minute.
Add the tomato liquid, thyme and seasoning. Cook uncovered over low heat for about 5 minutes until the cauliflower is only just tender.
Sppon the mixture in the ovenproof dish, adding all the liquid. Bake in the oven for about 35-40 minutes, until the outer pastry is well risen and golden brown.

COOK'S TIP
For a variation, ham or bacon can be added. Use about 4-5 ounces thickly sliced roast ham and add to the sauce at the end of step 5.

MY NOTES:

*I used butter, yuck, I don't use margarine, who are they kidding? If you want to use margarine you can look up the translation for yourself, but don't blame me if it doesn't work out., or tastes like plastic.

**I used Costco grated Mexican cheese blend because it has Cheddar. You can find Gruyère at Costco and most Supermarkets in Mèrida.

*** The recipe didn't specify prepared or powdered mustard, but since it said French, I assumed it was prepared mustard used Maile brand Dejon which I bought here.

**** The next time I make this I am going to just use tomato puree,I don't remember if tomato sauce is thinner NOB or not.

*****I have never seen sunflower oil here, I used canola.

******I didn't have any fresh thyme so I used a dash of ground thyme.

*******The photo shows a knife alongside a square baking dish with rounded corners, so I used a 8inch baking dish with rounded corners, next time I am using smaller dish.

Fahrenheit and Celsius Temperature Chart

2008-02-20T10:54:00.001-08:00

I have this posted on my refrigerator.

Fahrenheit Celsius

155------------70
165------------75
185------------85
200-----------95
275-----------135
300-----------150
325-----------160
350-----------175
375-----------190
400----------205
450----------230

Pizza day

2008-02-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

Actually today isn't pizza day, but I am feeling nostalgic. When I was doing Renaissance Faire, well actually, Heart of the Forest Faire in Novato, Husband started Pizza Day. My friend, Harry and I ran the Monger's guild and we used to ride to Faire together, along with our sons and occasionally other participants. Since we were in charge, we were the first to arrive and the last to leave, which when you factored in commute time made for a long day, even if it is supposed to be a hobby.
So getting back to the pizza, even after Faire ended for the season we continued the Pizza Day tradition, infact, Harry was inspired to learn to make pizza too, so I have to assume that Pizza Day lives on.
So you can start your own pizza day tradition here is the recipe for pizza dough and to start you off, I also wrote out the plain cheese pizza recipe.
Usually we topped one pizza with pesto, either store bought or homemade, and another with tomato sauce. The easiest thing to used is canned spaghetti sauce. One of the tricks to really good home made pizza is a hot oven, as hot as it will go, at least 400º, and make sure you preheat it.

yummmmm.....Pizza Day!

Pizza recipe

2008-02-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

CHEESE PIZZA

1 recipe pizza dough (or frozen bread dough defrosted)
2 cups mixed Italian Cheeses (or plain Mozzarella or Queso Oaxaca) shredded
1 recipe pizza sauce or 8 oz prepared spaghetti sauce or Pesto

Prepare Pizza dough. Press it out into a 14 inch greased pizza pan.
preheat oven to 400º ( 205º C).
Spread the sauce evenly over the pizza dough
Sprinkle cheese evenly over the pizza sauce.
Bake pizza in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until pizza dough is brown and the cheese has melted and is also browned.
Let pizza cool. Remove pizza from pan and cut into wedges.

PIZZA DOUGH

1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon dry yeast (levadura)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon olive oil (aceite olivio)
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour (harina)

Put water in mixing bowl of heavy duty mixer. Dissolve yeast in water. Let it stand until stand a few minutes until it becomes foamy.
As salt and oil. Mix on low speed with dough hook.
Add 2 1/2 cups of the flour and knead with dough hook until the dough clings to the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. Add more flour if necessary.
Place dough in lightly greased bowl and let it rise until double in size.
Punch down the dough. Press it out into a greased 14 inch pizza pan.

Variations and notes:
Replace one cup of the flour with whole wheat flour (harina integral) for a whole wheat pizza.
You can also add some Italian herbs, such as oregano and basil to the flour if you want.
You can easily double or triple this recipe. If you triple it don't triple the yeast.
I use the canned spray to grease things, for this recipe I use Olive oil spray.

PIZZA SAUCE

8 oz tomato sauce (1 small box puree de tomate )
3 teaspoons Italian herbs*
2 cloves garlic minced

Combine the ingredients in small pan. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. Cool.

* you can combine oregano, basil, cumin and cilantro instead. I use more oregano than the other herbs.

Garbanzos cooked with chiles and tomatoes

2008-02-19T09:02:00.002-08:00

This is a middle eastern dish that I have adapted. In the photo I have added some more liquid because I didn't cook the garbanzos enough and they were a little hard. It should be a dry dish. The original doesn't use bacon. If you don't eat meat, leave it out and cook the vegetables in a tablespoon of olive oil instead. I started with a cup of dry garbanzos and cooked them in plain water, you can use canned garbanzos instead, just rinse them first. If you are looking for garbanzos in Mèrida, they are in canned vegetable section not the canned bean section, I have noticed that some brands have sugar, so you might want to check the labels first. I buy bacon in chunks for cooking. Ask for un trozo de tosino , rebanado means sliced.

100 grams diced bacon
2 cups of cooked garbanzos
6 roma tomatoes diced
1 white onion diced
2 jalapeños diced (I also seed and devein them)
4-6 cloves garlic diced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground cilantro seeds
salt to taste
pepper to taste

In a large frying pan, cook the bacon until it's done, but not crispy. Add the onions, garlic, jalapeños, ground cumino and cilantro seeds to the pan. Fry until the onion is limp but not browned. Add the remaining ingredients. Turn heat down to simmer and cook uncovered until the pan is dry.

Check out the links menu!

2008-02-17T11:56:00.000-08:00

I received a request for a Spanish English list of cooking and food terms. Which made me realize that maybe some of you haven't checked out or (maybe even know that it exists) the links list on the right side of the blog. The heading says Websites and blogs of interest to people who cook. I have a link to Rolly Brooks amazing list called The Mexican Spanish-English Food Lexicon which has more words and terms than you can imagine. I also have a link to Barry Farms How many cups in a pound of which I think is pretty helpful. I discovered the Cook's Thesaurus when I wanted to know when to pick eggplants off the plant, and I have found it an handy resource ever since. There are also some links to a few good cooking blogs .
If you have a website or other cooking link you think I should add please let me know.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 I just added a new link! It's a website with a calculator that converts from metric to imperial (and of course from imperial to metric!) .

Making yogurt

2008-02-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

I made yogurt last night. It came out really good, we had some over our cereal this morning. Making yogurt is something that I haven't done for quite awhile, but we like plain yogurt, and there only seems to be one brand here that actually has plain. Several brands say plain but those usually have sugar and the ones which say no sugar have things with chemical names to sweeten them. One thing about living in a tropical climate, making yogurt is as simple as it gets.

1 tablespoon or more of yogurt
1 liter or quart of milk

Scald the milk.
Cool the milk to about 100º or less. (I just pretend it's formula and put some on my wrist, remember those days?).
Blend the yogurt with a cup of the warm milk.
Add the blended yogurt and milk to the rest of the milk.
Place in a sterilized jar of the appropriate size. (I have a crock with a lid that is perfect).
Seal the jar and set out in a warm place overnight. Or until it becomes yogurt.

You can make more or less yogurt, if you don't want an entire liter or need more. I like whole milk because it's creamier, but you can use whatever milk you normally use. Some people thicken their yogurt with extra powdered milk, but I don't. When we had goats and made yogurt pretty regularly we lived in a much colder place, so I would put the yogurt/milk mixture in a wide mouth thermos but eventually I bought a yogurt maker at a yard sale. Actually, I bought 2 one worked and the other provided me with extra containers, I think I spent like five bucks total.

You actually don't even need the tablespoon of yogurt, anyone who has left out a glass of milk overnight in a warm climate can attest to that. Oh don't get discouraged if it doesn't come out the first time, yogurt is like that, just use the thinner yogurt in a smoothie or feed it to the chickens.

Cooking and posting

2008-02-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

I am having major problems with my internet connection. I can't seem to post to Blogger when I use my Internet Explorer. I can't even make comments on other people's blogs! It started yesterday, today it seemed repaired but that was just a momentary thing.The spell check no longer works either. I guess the universe is forcing me to slowly but surely switch to Firefox. One nifty thing about Firefox is that has a built in spell check so I don't have to depend upon Blogger and Husband for that anymore.
I posted two Panamanian recipes today, I haven't made either one yet, but the recipes seemed straight forward. I have eaten both things so I at least know how they are supposed to taste.
They are fried bread or hojaldre and stuffed yucca fritters or carimañolas.

Carimañolas (stuffed yucca fritters)

2008-02-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

This a dish we ate in Panamà which I couldn't remember the name of. This recipe is also from Cocina Panameña. I changed the recipe a little for clarity (the filling instructions used to be in the middle of the fritter instuctions) but the original was translated into English from Spanish so some of the wording is still awkward. Please read the notes before you make this for the first time.

3 pounds yucca

3 teaspoons* oil (aceite)

1 tablespoon salt (sal)

oil for deep frying

Peel yucca, cut into pieces and cook in water until slightly soft. Do not over cook.
Grind while warm and knead with oil and salt until the batter is soft but firm.
Form balls with the yucca, flatten it, add one tablespoon of the filling and close it, giving it an elongated form (cylinder shape).
Heat the oil and fry the fritters until brown.
Remove from oil and drain excess oil by placing them on a paper towel

Filling
1/4 cup oil (aceite)
1/2 cup finely chopped onions (cebollas)
2 finely chopped garlic cloves (dientes de ajo)
1 chopped bell pepper (pementòn or aji)
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped hot pepper**
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (cumino molido)
1 pound ground beef (carne res molido)
2 tablespoons tomato paste*** (pasta de tomate)
1 teaspoon salt (sal)

Heat the oil and fry the onion, garlic and bell pepper.
Add the hot pepper, cumin and meat.
Mix the mixture with a fork until the meat is loosened.
Add the tomato paste and salt.
remove from stove

notes:

*the Spanish says teaspoons the English says tablespoons, I'm betting the Spanish is correct

** probably serrano or jalepeño, I only saw those and poblanos in the supermarket in Panamà, the food is not hot at all there.

*** I have never found tomato paste in Merida, the tomato paste that I have came from NOB.

Hojaldres, Panamanian Fried Bread

2008-02-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

From Cocina Panameña edited and distributed exclusively by Distribuidora Lewis, S.A.

2 1-2 cups flour ( harina)
2/3 cup milk (leche)
1/3 cup vegetable oil (aceite vegital)
1 teaspoon salt (sal)
1 tablespoon sugar (azucar)
1 teaspoon baking powder (polvo de hornear)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Combine the milk and oil and with a fork mix well into the dry mix. Knead for 5 minutes until the dough is elastic. Cover and let sit for an hour. Cut in to pieces (2" - 3") and stretch them with you hands and then fry in hot oil until brown. Sprinkle sugar on top and serve hot.

This recipe is in Spanish and English in the cookbook, the English translation leaves a bit to be desired. The hojaldres that I was served were about the thickness of pita bread and the same general shape but about half the size. I am assuming that you test the hot oil by dropping a small piece of dough in it, if it rises and browns the oil is hot enough.

Let's drown our sandwiches!

2008-02-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

Mari (pronounce Mar E) who runs the beer store with her husband Luis is rumoured to be quite a cook. I had some of her red sauce one day, and it was perfect. She told me her recipe for tortas ahogadas before we left for our trip. Tortas ahogadas means drowned sandwiches. I didn't write anything down, so I thought that I would see if I could find a written recipe. While I was researching , I found this lovely article called Savouring Guadelajara which also includes some other interesting recipes (I'll pass on the sardine sopes, thank you).
What my surfing revealed was that generally tortas ahogadas are made from a "salty" bolillo (french roll) and are stuffed with either beef or pork then either served with the sauce already drowning them or with a choice of sauces so you can drown your own. All the sources seemed to agree that you have to go to Guadelajara for the real deal.
None of these discriptions matched Mari's mouth watering version. While she also started with a roll, she didn't specify what kind. If the roll isn't already sliced, open it half way (like a hot dog bun). Fill it with beans or meat or both.Now here is where her version is different, take the sealed roll and dip it in an egg batter, like if you were making chiles rellenos. Fry the torta, again just like in chile rellenos. The battered torta is now placed on a plate and covered in a red sauce.
I'm thinking this might be a fun dish for lunch on Friday as La Muchacha is observing meatless Fridays during Lent.

Cookbook rescue

2008-02-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

I have an old, worn copy of Sunset's Chinese Cooking. I especially like it because it is from the era when exotic ingredients weren't as readily available in the USA as they are now. Unfortunately, the softcover cookbook, while still a good source for recipes and ideas, is falling apart. I've even lost the cover and some of the pages.
I concidered taking it to the local copy shop and having it rebound in a spiral binding, but I thought that might make difficult to read some of the printing. When I was NOB, I looked for a copy in the used book stores, but didn't find one.
Yesterday, when I was looking for my errant recipe, I had a moment of inspiration. I have a binder of recipes either photocopied from library cookbooks or torn from the pages of magazines and put into a binder. Before I place them in the binder, I put them into a plastic sleeve, a page protector. Then if I use the recipe and spill something on it, I can wipe the cover clean. It's a great system, I really should use it more.
My idea was, to separate the remaining pages and place them in plastic page protectors. It took about half and hour. Now I need a better binder for them, I used a clear notebook with a clamp but the plastic is slippery and the pages are escaping, so I need to buy a ring binder when I am out and about again.
But over all I am still happy because I saved my cookbook. Now for some steamed pork buns to celebrate!

Raw Carrot and Beet salad

2008-02-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

Have you ever bought the ingredients for a dish and then couldn't find the recipe? I remember making and eating a tasty raw carrot and beet salad. The beets looked good when I went grocery shopping so I bought several, some for soup and some for the salad.
Today, I searched through my cookbooks and could not find the recipe! I think it had vinegar, but I can't remember.
What's a girl to do? In my case, I adapted my usual carrot and raisen salad recipe forgoing the raisens and using sour orange instead of lemon. Yeah, I use sugar, you can use less but honey doesn't taste the same, and I don't use artificial sweeteners. I think you can use a mix of lemon and sweet orange juice if you don't have sour oranges laying all over your yard like we do.

2 small beets (betabel)
4 carrots (zanahoria)
3 tablespoons sugar (azuacar standard)
the juice of two sour oranges (naranja agrida)

Peel the beets and carrots.
Shred them (I used the food processor).
Mix the shredded vegetables with the sugar and pour the sour orange juice over them.
Refrigerate.
Serve cold.
Serves 4

ps. if your sour oranges are really juicy you may want to drain the salad before serving it.

Sourdough bread starter and other bubbling thoughts

2008-02-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

After my post the other day about food differences, I had some after thoughts, which I wrote about in this post on my regular blog. I also have been thinking about diet alot, primary our diet. Since I seem to have assumed the responsibility for what we eat, I am trying to be more conscious about what gets put in our mouths.
One of the additions to our diet I am making is fermented foods and living foods, but that will require more research.
Happily for me, Husband is an early riser, he generally makes the coffee and prepares breakfast. Sometimes, he brings me my coffee in bed (just wanted to make you all jealous). Our normal breakfast when we are home is fruit and yogurt. I buy unflavoured yogurt, nothing added, not even sugar. The plan is to start making our own yogurt again. I used to do it when we had dairy goats, so it isn't anything new. If you don't know how to make yogurt and are interested, I'll post the recipe.
I miss sourdough bread so I made sourdough bread starter Thursday night. Sourdough is another type of fermented food, I think. Anyway, I want to have bread that is a food,not just empty calories.
For such a simple thing like the starter there are so many different recipes, including potato starter. I used to have a thick paperback that had an entire chapter of starter recipes, but it is long gone now. After looking at various variations, I settled on the one using yeast, the simplist sourdough starter recipes use just water and flour and depend upon catching wild yeast to make the starter, but I opted for the certainy of yeast, even if it isn't as "pure".
So accordingly I mixed 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon yeast, 1 tablespoon sugar and enough warm water to make a thin batter, in my case enough water was almost 2 cups, but my measuring wasn't exact. All this was done in a plastic container, I left it open to the air until I noticed some little insects flying about, so I covered it with a papertowel that I clipped to one end of the container to keep it from flying off in the breeze from the overhead fan.
The hardest part for me is waiting, periodically I checked on the starter and stirred it as the liquid has a tendency to separate out.
Last night I poured 1 1/2 cups of the starter into another plastic bowl (it's important to use a non-reactive container and utensils when making sourdough), added 1 1/2cups of flour and 1 1/4 cups of warm water to this starter, covered it with a papertowel and set it aside.
The remaining original starter went into a quart size crock (I found the crock in Megabalcones, it was being sold in the salt aisle) from which I removed the plastic seal, as I am not fond of stuff exploding in my refrigerator, to this starter I added another 1 1/2 of flour and 1 1/2 cups of warm water.
Both of this batches of starter immediately bubbled up in a very gratifying manner. At least I know that my yeast is still alive!
The crock of starter is in the refrigerator between my sundried tomatoes and marinated artichoke hearts and the "primary batter" is happily bubbling away on the kitchen counter. Now the real work begins, I have to decide what to make, since this is really an experiment, I think I am going to opt for a simple white bread. I am going to add some sugar and oil to the primary batter and enough flour to make a stiff dough then knead it and let it rise.
Hopefully lunch will consist of bread and left over chilli!

Cultural food anomolies

2008-01-31T13:39:00.001-08:00

I have been catching up on my internet reading today, including reading comments on other people's blogs. Sometimes the comments are even more thought provoking than the original post.

What does this have to do with food? Well, as Eddie Willers often does, a post of his started my brain whirring. Then the comments sent it off into outerspace!

I like ethnic foods, I love pozole, tinga poblana, falafels, samosas, springrolls, gnochhi, all sorts of interesting foods. But some things weird me out, and the hot dog comment made me think of some of the foods here that I don't understand nor like very much.

What is with sandwichon? For my 50th birthday, (long ago kiddies, almost in the last century), Husband threw a surprise party. Actually,he gave money to Son and Son and the neighbor girls put it together. One of the delicacies was a sandwichon. I don't blame Son, he probably thought it was a giant submarine sandwich from Subway, instead it was a loaf of white bread sliced horizonally and filled with ummm, various, ummm, let's call them..... pates! and frosted with miracle whip or some equally vile substance. It was garnished with pimento and peas and looked delicious, infact it looked like a cake.

Sadly,Memories of a Cuban Kitchen, also includes a recipe for Cake de Bocadito or ribbon sandwich loaf, but at least it's frosted with cream cheese and mayonaise. I cannot be responsible for inflicting this attrocity upon ciberspace, so if you want the recipe, you'll have to buy the book, or at least check it out of your local library. The only defense I can offer is that Cuban cooking seems to be frozen in pre-Castro time, a ribbon sandwich cake would have been so modern and fashionable in the 1950s and 60s! What is Mexico's excuse?

And then there is the hot dog. I pretty much like hot dogs, in a bun with ketchup and onions. Inspite of having been a carhop at A&W and having survived many a twentyfive cent coney dog Tuesday, I still like chilli dogs. I even have a fondness for corn dogs, but deep fried hot dog flowers are not a treat for me and I will eat just about anything if you deep fry it. Speaking of treats,when we was in Panamà, we went to a bakery, in the section with the empanadas, choripàn! It didn´t look a choripàn, which is a sandwich made from (Spanish) chorizo and a small baguette but more like a bagel dog, that should have tipped me off. Imagine my surprise when I bit into it and it was contribed from half a hot dog and a very heavy bread dough. I ate it anyway, and felt like I had eaten a stone. sadly, all the emapandas had the same dough, more like a bread dough that had never risen than a pastry dough. Maybe choripàn is Panamanian for bagel dog? naw, bagel does taste better.

Back to cooking at home!

2008-01-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

I missed our kitchen. Three weeks of eating out every day is too much. Panamà is into meat. I love tostones, or patacones as they are called in Panamà but I do like a little more variety in my veggies.
After being gone from home for such a long period of time I didn't think I would find anything at all in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. Amazingly enough there were 2 apples and a head of napa cabbage still in good shape rolling around in the almost empty compartment. Husband walked across the street and bought a few other staples and I managed to make lunch without going to the supermarket. The Mayo Clinic Williams Sonoma Cookbook, has a recipe that combines cabbage, onion, carrot and apples with some dried cranberries to make a tasty dish called Carraway Cabbage and Cranberries. Try to say that 3 times fast.
I also made a vegetarian chilli and some fry bread and that was lunch! Except for the fry bread, lunch was pretty healthy, high in vitamins and fiber.
Since our mixer isn't fixed yet (the only authorized Kitchenaide repair shop is in Mexico City), I used the Cuisinart to knead the dough. Before this, I had only used it to make pastry. Oh, I use it to chop and do the food processing stuff too, but this was my first experience using it to knead dough. Pretty easy.
Fry bread is pretty basic, 1 cup warm water, 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon fat, the original recipe called for lard or shortening, I used butter. The leavening agent is 2 teaspoons baking powder. You roll out the dough, cut it into pieces and fry.
The best fry bread that I ever had was in Arizona at the Indian Powwow.
In Panamà, they make a version of fry bread that they call hojaldres, I found a Panamanian cookbook, so I will post the recipe for that bread tommorrow.

Slacking in Panama

2008-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

Since we arrived in David we´ve been eating in fondas, the Panamanian version of a cocina economica and breakfasting in a cafeteria style restaurant where our breakfast is included in the price of our hotel room, it´s been interesting. The food is tasty, heavy on fried and lots of meat. I am not into french fries for breaking my fast but the smoked pork chop and side of papaya which I ate was pretty good. There were other choices including fish and fried chicken!
Every place where we´ve had breakfast from the beach to the city has offered bisteak, which means beef steak, but in reality is strips of beef sauteed with onions and bell peppers and served with a beef gravy, beats eggs any day, in my opinion.
Apparently Panamanian tortillas are more like sopes than the thin Mexican variety, they also serve holjaldra which is similar to Navajo fry bread.
I have been looking for a Panamanian cookbook, but no luck so far.
My only other culinary thing to report is that just like Cuba and Spain, omelets are also called tortillas here, tortillas de huevo.

Food in Panama

2008-01-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

We have had Panamanian, Colombian and Italian food since we have been here. All of it good.

Panamanian is very simular to Cuban, we went to a restaurant called El Trapiche (the sugar mill) and shared a "Panama Platter", for starters a soup called Sanchocho,made with chicken and yame, a root like yucca. The platter had arroz con pollo, ropa vieja, patacones (tostones), fried yucca (cut like french fries) all very similar to the Cuban versions. They also gave us tamale in olla which was like tamale in casuela but made with masa harina instead of corn meal. One thing we really liked and the name escapes me unfortunately was a yucca fritter stuffed with ground beef. You boil yucca and mash it, make patty, fill it with seasoned ground beef, fold over the edges and fry it. It sounds like tortitas de papas rellenos or stuffed croquettes of mashed potatoes which we´ve had in Mèrida. The Columbian restaurant served papas rellenos as an appetizer which were delicious and similar to the stuffed yucca.To drink had lemonade sweetened with raspa, which is grated sugar cane, I highly recommend it.

Platanos!!

2008-01-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

Yucatan Today has an article about bananas! You can read it here. The range and variety of bananas really is incredible. We eat the tabasco or rotan bananas almost every day. Since fruit ripens so very fast here, we usually only buy a small hand (bananas come in hands!) of bananas, but the tienda that our neighbor's have across the street almost always has bananas for sale.

I already blogged about my love for platanos machos when made into tostones. But you can also use them like you do potatoes, in stews. A favorite meal in our house is carne guisado con platanos. I have decided that guisado means "stewed", you see cocina economicas offering 3 guisos, which means 3 entrees, but things that are guisado seem to always have some sort of sauce in which they were simmered or stewed.

Another way we also like machos is baked with rum and sugar, yum.

Then there are the lovely little bananas, cute and delicious, there are ones whose skins look reddish and others that just look like mini-rotans.

I have 3 banana plants, they were free from the Palm nursery when I bought the Phoenix roebelini (pygmy date palm) , they are supposed to be 2 "regular" bananas and 1 macho, since it takes 18 to 24 months for bananas to bear fruit, it will be awhile before I find out. The high winds that we have been having have totally shredded the leaves, rendering them useless for cooking purposes (sigh). Oh, here is an online nursery that sells banana plants so you can get an idea of the diversity of the fruit.
Oh, I was surfing the net, reading cooking blogs and I found this recipe for Banana Stuffed French Toast, I had some left over rolls and of course some bananas, so I made it, I used more eggs since I had them. Since I was using rolls instead of a loaf of french bread, I also removed most of the crust which I then fed to the doves outside. We ate it with mermelada de naranja agrida, yum! so good!

Carne guisado con platanos

2008-01-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

This recipe is from Memories of a Cuban Kitchen by Mary Urrutia Randelman and Joan Schwattz

1/2 cup olive oil
2 1/2 pounds (1 kilo) boneless chuck, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 large onion, thickly sliced
1 large green bell pepper, seeded and diced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 to 6 medium-sized ripe tomatoes coarsely chopped (1 kilo of romas)
1 cup dry sherry (Jerez)
1 cup beef stock
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon paprika (the recipe recommends Spanish paprika, I just use the pimentòn dulce I have on hand)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed in a mortar
pinch of dried oregano
1 bay leaf
3 medium size plantains (platanos machos) of medium ripeness (yellow with black spots)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley (perejil)

In a large, heavy-bottomed casserole, heat the oil over medium heat until fragrant, then brown the beef on all sides. Reduce the heat to low, add the onions, bell pepper, and garlic, and cook, stirring until the onions are lightly browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients except the plantains and parsley, cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring frequently. Add more stock if necessary. (I sometimes use my crock pot, draining the tomatoes first and using half as much liquid).
Cut the tips off the plantains, peel and slice 1 inch thick. Add them to the casserole and cook over low heat, until the plantains are tender, another 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer the stew to a serving bowl, sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.

Clean the fridge pita bread sandwiches

2008-01-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

I admit that doesn't sound the least bit appetizing. We are going to be going to Panama on vacation and are leaving next week, so I have been trying not to buy much food. The eggplants at Mega looked really good though and were only $13.00 a kilo so I bought one, and 2 little zucchinis which were some cheap price like $6p/k. So what I did was fire up my grill. I have a cast iron grill that I bought, complete with the ridges so you get those nice sear marks.
A couple of weeks ago, I got the brilliant idea of making flavoured olive oil so I have a bottle of garlic flavoured olive oil, the criteria that I used for the oil was it had to be virgin and the bottle had to be attractive. I also made some rosemary flavored oil but I didn't use it this time. After tasting the garlic oil, I decided it wasn't quite garlicky enough, so I poured some in a custard cup (I use custard cups to hold small portions of ingredients, I thought about buying some cute little cups at Galaria made for that function, but really the custard cups are perfect and I can also use them when I make flan.) and added more chopped garlic.
I sliced the eggplant, zucchini, an onion, a green bell pepper and a yellow one. I brushed everything with the garlic oil and grilled them over high heat. Because I like the pattern made by the ridges, I turned the eggplants more often I strictly needed to, brushing them with more olive oil (eggplant will absorb all the olive oil you want to put on it).
After the vegetables were done I also grilled some pork cubes. Cubes of pork that had been marinating in sour orange, black pepper and salt, to cover, for about 4 hours. I drained the marinade and replaced it with olive oil and a handful (okay, 1/4 cup?) of fresh ground cumin. The pork marinaded in the olive oil while I grilled the vegetables.
I simply dumped the pork (I'm sure there is a more elegant way to say this) on the grill, and cooked until brown. After I removed the pork, I cooked the garlic that had been sitting in the olive oil. I deglazed the grill with about a half cup of white wine. I scraped up any brown bits and this "sauce" got poured over the pork.
Everyone got a pita bread that had been warmed and cut in half and made their own sandwiches.
Because of the quantity of olive oil (probably a cup in total), I don't think this was really healthy but it was tasty, and you can of course be more moderate.
I think the best pita bread available in Merida is from panaderia El Fenix just across from Office Depot on Calle 23.

You know you live in Mexico when....

2008-01-03T15:09:00.001-08:00

The meat substitute contains meat. This is the Guten, that I used in the Ropa Vieja, the first ingredient is chicken and the second is beef.
Tortilla chips are in the bread aisle.
You can buy toast in the bread aisle, both wholewheat and white.
Papayas and mangoes are cheaper than apples and pears
There are 5 types of fresh chiles and 6 types of dried chiles for sale
You don't buy anything in a pre-pack because the fruit in the bottom is almost always rotten or moldy
There is a great deli selection and they give samples
You can not buy corn meal except at the special import store (Pescadeli).
Canned goods come in boxes rather than cans (I love this packaging!).
The pasta is imported from Italy and Argentina and is still inexpensive.
Pickles are an exotic ingredient.
Mayonnaise has lemon juice in it.
They replace the fat in milk with vegetable oil because it's healthier (???).

Old clothes and New Years

2008-01-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

One of my comfort foods is Ropa Vieja (literally old clothes), it's meat that has been simmered so long it falls apart and then is stewed with tomato sauce and spices. You serve it it with rice. I have had variations of Ropa Vieja here, not bad, but not the Cuban kind. Another dish which is a family favorite is black beans and white rice, Moros y Cristianos, yum. Neither of these are pretty dishes, but really tasty. My daughter got my mom's recipe for ropa vieja when we went up to visit my parents last May, it's almost the same as the one I use. I also have a Cuban cookbook called Memories of a Cuban Kitchen by Mary Urrutia Randleman and Joan Schwarth which has a very similar recipe, I guess there are only so many ways to combine meat and tomato.
I found a product in the grocery store called Guten, carne y soya (Tu alternativa para preparar una comida completa) which is made from a mix of meat, wheat gluten and TVP so it isn't really a meat substitute, it comes in strips, shreds and chunks, so I bought the shredded (deshebrada) and used it in Ropa Vieja, not bad and certainly faster than simmering the meat and shredding it by hand. I recommend cooking the meat the night before and letting it sit in the refrigerator before shredding it.

1 kilo carne para deshebrar (flank steak works great)
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 large bell pepper, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
500 grams of pure de tomate (about 2 cups tomato sauce)
1/2 cup Jerez (cooking sherry)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup finely chopped, drained pimientos for garnish
1 small can of peas

Place the beef and 1 bay leaf in a large saucepan, cover with salted water, cook over low heat, covered, until the meat is tender, about 2 hours. Let the meat cool in the stock (preferably overnight in the fridge), or at least until room temperature. Remove the meat from the stock (reserve the stock for another use), then shred the meat with your fingers or a fork.
While the meat is cooling, heat a large skillet, add the oil, heat until it shimmers, then cook the onions,peppers and garlic until the vegetables are tender. (If the pan needs more oil, add a little water instead). Add the tomato pure, the Jerez, and the remaining bay leaf and cook uncovered an additional 15 minutes.
Season the shredded meat with the salt and pepper and add it to the tomato mixture. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Remove the bay leaf, garnish with the pimientos and green peas.
This dish improves with being prepared in advance and then reheated.
serve with white rice

Not much cooking happening here

2007-12-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

I haven´t been cooking the last few days, yesterday, we went to the fish restuarant just south of La Ermita and bought lunch. Actually, we got more than lunch, La Muchacha requested a shrimp cocktail, Husband got one too (they are pretty big and the price is reasonable at $50 for the medium and $30 for the small), we got about a half pint of ceviche mixto for later (it's $100 a kilo, the container cost $33.00 it was 330 grams) and my lunch was camarones empanizados, breaded shrimp, they were just okay, a little too brown for me. Our friends who live near La Ermita say that the fish is good there too, it's just that we forget the place is there.
Thursday, we went to the movies, the movies are affordable here, $35 pesos on weekdays and matinees. We saw the Golden Compass, it was nothing great, I think you need to read the book to really enjoy the movie and we hadn't. So we had mall food for lunch. I concidered Burger King but we ended up at Los Trompos, which we knicknamed "all meat, all the time", but our favorite is to share a plate of Alambres de Res (or Al Pastor), which is thin slices of meat pan fried with bell peppers and onions and served with little flour tortillas. Once we ordered the platter for 2, and almost fainted, which is why we gave the place the nickname. The platter for 2 is chops, arrancherra,al pastor, some melted cheese, guacamole, some other meat, a cooked onion, some beans, and tortillas. It's enough for 4 or more, infact that is what we had at the State Fair and shared with La Muchacha and her daughter, we still brought home some scraps for Mr. Dog.
Today, we decided to go to the movies again, think we are feeling housebound, but don't really want to be around a lot of people, so we saw something called The legend of the lost treasure with Nicholas Cage, I don't know the name of the movie in English, but if you around 13 years old you will probably love it. The kids in the theatre did. Oh, since it was Saturday, the movie was $40.00 instead of $35.00 each. Still way cheaper than NOB. We shared a plate at Kalifornia something or other, it was Pollo in Salsa Baracoa, nothing like any barbecue sauce we'd ever had, maybe it was supposed to be terriyaki? But it was tasty enough, we got the entree and 3 side dishes, which in our case was mixed vegetables, fried bananas and fried potatoes, plus some "french" bread that was more like croutons. We also got green juice at La Michoacana, so that was virtuous.
This brings me to my food spending diary. I pretty much spend between $30.00 and $50.00 a day to eat. Even when we are out and about, though a few days ago we went out to breakfast for our anniversary and that was $110 each, but that is not our normal.

Vegetarian Cookbook Recommendation

2007-12-28T14:40:00.001-08:00

Teresa asked me to recommend a vegetarian cookbook. I am stumped. Husband was a vegetarian for 15 years until we moved here, he decided to come join me as an omnivore simply because he didn't want his life to be about what he couldn't eat. I have a friend here who does mostly raw and living foods, which is pretty easy in some ways and difficult in others.
There are so many styles of vegetarians, for me it has always meant, you don't eat meat. By meat I mean beef, poultry, rabbit, game, fish, pork, mutton, goat, insects, crustaceans, invertebrates, fish and anything else that once was alive and breathing. If you chose to further restrict your choices by avoiding dairy, eggs and honey that means vegan to me.
It used to make me nuts, "oh, yeah, I am a vegetarian except I eat fish, or poultry or whatever", well, then you aren't a vegetarian cuz you eat meat, you are on a restricted diet for whatever reason. Okay, enough, just gripping and it doesn't make any difference what I think anyway, but I just thought I would clarify my terms.
Most people make pretty much the same stuff day in and day out, those books on simplifying your life tell you to toss all your cookbooks because you aren't going to be making more than one or two things from them and they take up space and clutter your life. Wow,maybe I want to simplify my life to free up more time to cook and experiment? So really, if you aren't interested in cooking as a process, you don't really need any cookbooks at all do you? Just a notebook where you write the five recipes you don't know by heart!
I just stopped and counted the cookbooks in the bookcase, there are 60 of them, I used to have more, but we foolishly got rid of them. I have been known to read and re-read them looking for ideas or just because they are interesting.
If I was only going to have one, it would probably be LaRousse Gastromonique , that pretty much covers all cooking situations, but that doesn't help if you want a vegetarian cookbook does it? I have a pretty nifty French vegetable cookbook called The French Vegetable Cookbook by Patricia Bourne, the directions are easy and the photos are pretty and the food is good.
In the 1970s in my hippie-dippy days I had Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet and Recipes for a Small Planet and of course, Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson. I'm think that Laurel's Kitchen is like the Fannie Farmer's for the novice vegetarian cook. The Small Planet recipes are not all that healthy or particularly tasty, the emphasis was on getting enough protein more than anything else, not a bad way to learn about complimentary proteins but no great shakes as cookbook.
Since it has been my experience that all the nifty things that make it easy to cook vegetarian aren't readily available here, I am talking about stuff like tofu, gluten (seitan) and TVP products other than the granules, the faux meats, one of the earlier versions of Laurel's Kitchen would be good, it doesn't assume that you have much choice, that Whole Foods or Trader Joe's doesn't exist yet, and generally you're on your own.

English Muffin Bread

2007-12-26T07:21:00.001-08:00

I had a Christmas brunch at our house yesterday, it was nice and lowkey. A couple of egg casseroles, some cut up fruit,beans and bread with marmalade. Actually it was English Muffin bread, it's easy, really does taste like English muffins and is made in the microwave.
This is the perfect bread to make with a mixer and dough hook, the dough isn't really kneaded, it's a big return for a little time.

From James Beard's Beard on Bread

5 cups all purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water

In a large mixing bowl combine 3 cups of the flour, the yeast, sugar, and salt. Heat the milk in a saucepan until warm (100º to 115º) and add to the flour mixture beating by hand or in a mixer until quite smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff batter, add in more flour if needed. Cover the bowl, place in a warm place, and the batter rise until light and doubled in bulk, about an hour.
Stir down the yeast batter and thoroughly blend in the dissolved soda. Divide the batter between 2 oiled 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 pans (I use silicon loaf pans) or 1 1/2 quart soufflè dishes. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Cook each loaf, uncovered, in the microwave oven for 6 minutes and 30 seconds, or until no doughy spots remain. Cool for 5 minutes, then loosen the edges and remove from the pan. Cool completely. To serve, slice and toast.

Making sour orange marmalade

2007-12-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

When life gives you sour oranges, make marmalade. Actually, sour oranges are also known as Seville oranges and make great marmalade. Canning fruit, making jams and other preserving type stuff is something I know how to do, but never did it much. I am not a big jam eater, but I have all these sour oranges and so there you have it.
It's pretty easy, pick the 6 or 7 nicest naranjas agridas you have, wash them well. Slice them thinly, seed the slices, and put them in a heavy pot with about a quart of water. The seeds go into another smaller pot with a cup of water.
The small pot goes on the boil, for about 5 minutes, strain the liquid and add it to the big pot, discard the seeds.
Bring the large pot to a boil, let it simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the pot, cover, go to bed, or whatever you want for about 8 hours or more.
Return the pot to a boil, reduce heat, simmer until the peels get tender.
If you are scientific, measure the liquid and add a cup of sugar for every cup of liquid, if you are me and lazy, dump in sugar until you feel that you have enough. Now cook until it's thick enough to jell. You may want to watch the pot, sugar water if it over boils makes a bit of a mess.
That's it.
I use azucar standard