Eating Raw Foods

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So, it's like this.

I've been having some health issues - my hip is messing up on me, and worse, my heart is acting wonky.  Nothing too serious, but on top of all that, I'm feeling tired and having a general lack of energy.  So, I've decided that (along with seeing my doctor) I'm going to try to make some changes with my diet.  I don't really eat the healthiest of foods, most of the time.  I don't eat 'fast food' as a general rule, but we do have a Tuesday night pizza night, and I do love fried foods and lots of sauces.

I'd been doing a lot of research on gluten free and raw food diets recently.  While I don't think that gluten is an issue for me, I do like a lot of the more natural foods that are promoted on a gluten free diet.  And while I'm not sure that I can switch to a completely raw food diet, I do LOVE fruits and vegetables, and don't eat nearly enough of them. 

So, I'm switching to a 'mostly' raw food diet.  That means eating food that's as close as possible to its natural state.  So I'll be eating lots of fruits and vegetables in their uncooked states. And the foods that aren't raw, I'll be making a big effort to eat in more organic forms - things like switching to brown rice, whole grain bread and the like.  And I'll still be eating beans/lentils.  No white sugar - or as little as possible, anyway.  And I'll throw in some fish and chicken - but not fried, and no sauces or gravies.

I really don't expect switching to be a problem - I was 'mostly' vegetarian for about 3 years, and that was easy for me.  I ate the occasional turkey and fish. I think the most difficult thing for me is going to be going without my Sunday morning 'chicharron' (fried pork sandwiches) - but I think I can just switch it up for ceviche, and I'll be fine.

Today I had a delicious smoothie for breakfast.  Yesterday, I bought a bunch of fruits and veggies, and spent the afternoon cleaning and cutting up the fruit.  I put it in the freezer in containers, so in the mornings, all I have to do is pull out the fruit I want and pop some in the blender.  Today, I went with strawberry/mango/ cantaloupe/watermelon/spinach.  Yes, you heard me - spinach!  It made the smoothie a funny brown color, but the taste was delicious - like a light sorbet.  I added enough apple juice (100%, not from concentrate!) to make it 'blendable'.  And ate it together with a small handful of pecans and walnuts for fat/protein.

I'll keep y'all posted on how it goes, and how I feel.  But don't worry - I'm still going to be posting regular recipes - Peruvian, and otherwise!

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I make the BEST roast chicken

If you live in Peru, you have the secret to absolutely delicious roast meats right in your grocery store.

In the section of the supermarket where they sell seasonings and mixes, you'll find some sauces under the brand name Piki. I've been using the rocoto molida for cooking and my husband likes to put in on his food. One day, I'm in Plaza Vea trying to figure out what I want to do different with the chicken that week, and I notice this 'Piki Aderezo para Pollo'. I figured, what the heck, and bought it.

Oh my. It made the most delicious chicken I've ever had. I put 4 leg quarters in a glass baking dish, and just poured the sauce on top and spread it around. Then I covered it and let it marinate for about an hour. Later, i cooked it in the oven at 350F for about 40-45 minutes. It came out with perfect seasoning, juicy, tender - my guys LOVE it. That with some potatoes, rice and salad, and it's a perfect meal.

This week, after such success with the chicken, I decided to try one of their other products - Aderezo para Cerdo - and used it to marinade a pork tenderloin. Now, tenderloins are very lean, so I usually wrap them in bacon to make sure they have enough fat cooking with them to stay juicy. It was not necessary with this marinate! I did add about a half cup of water, since I was cooking it uncovered, so that it wouldn't cook out completely. They cooked absolutely delicious and tender and juicy. It was hard to get the boys to leave enough for their Dad to eat when he got home!

So, if you're in Peru, I highly recommend giving the Piki line a try. And as an added bonus, if you aren't in Peru, it looks like you can buy it online - InkaProducts.net.

Arroz con Pollo

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Today I cooked arroz con pollo for my guys - that's rice with chicken. It's a staple of pretty much every Latin American country, although they've all got their own special take on it. In Peru cooking style, it's sometimes called 'arroz verde' or green rice, because it contains a LOT of cilantro (also called coriander). It's usually served with papas a la huancaina, and often an avocado salad. Here's how I make my arroz con pollo.

4 chicken thighs (you can remove the skin if you like)
3 cups of rice
vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup of aji amarillo (yellow chili pepper - check your Latin market) finely chopped or liquefied
1 cup of cilantro/coriander - liquefied (see the recipe for seco de pollo for directions on doing this)
2 large handfuls of green pea pods - shell them, and use the peas, not the pods!
About a half a cup of carrot cut up into cubes
2-1/2 cups of chicken stock/bouillon.
1/2 cup of beer
Salt and pepper

Put about 1/2 cup of oil in a dutch oven or stew pan.
Salt and pepper your chicken thighs, then brown them in the oil.
Remove them from the pan, and then add the onion, garlic, cilantro and aji.
Stir it around a bit until the onion starts to turn golden and translucent.
Add the chicken back in and pour in the beer. Let it cook until the chicken is cooked through.
Take the chicken back out and set it aside covered where it will stay warm - in a very low temperature oven or on the back of your range top is good.
Put the rice, shelled peas, carrot and chicken stock into the mix.
Add salt and pepper as necessary here, then cover tightly to cook the rice.

Serve the rice together with the chicken.

Ok - now for the truth - I can NEVER cook rice right on the stove top, so I do my chicken on the stove top, then throw everything into the rice cooker at the end and let it all cook together there. It comes out perfect every time.

If you are opposed to cooking with beer, just replace it with chicken bouillon. If you're short on time, don't feel bad about using a small can of peas and carrots instead of fresh. For more Peruviness, (that's like grooviness, only Peruvian) throw in a handful or two of Andean corn (choclo) if you can find it.

You might also want to add a little bit of thinly sliced red bell pepper. I don't because everyone in my house just picks it out - but if you look around on the internet, you'll find that a lot of recipes and pictures show it.

provecho!

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And I'm Back!

Sorry about the looooong absence. I had family visiting from the US, as I said below. Then - my keyboard stopped working. I can't begin to tell you how annoying it was to not have a U, I, O or P on the computer. Nearly impossible to type, unless 1 wanted everyth1ng t0 l00k l1ke th1s. (that's ones and zeroes thrown in - and there's NOTHING that substitutes for P!) So anyway... On with the eats!

I haven't been cooking much lately, as the boys aren't spending a lot of time here at home during summer. But I have gone back over my small amount of archives, and been reminded of a few things I wanted to talk about. So today - let's talk about plantains.

Plantains are called platanos in Spanish, and that's how I'll be referring to them here. There are many different types of platano available in Peru from the small, silky bizcocho to the larger, orange-fleshed platano isla. Here, the typical American style of banana is called a platano de seda - silk plaintain. My favorite cooking platano is the platano isla - it's very sweet when ripe, and has a firm flesh that holds together well when frying.

There are many different cooking styles for plantains - boiling, frying, baking. If you've had fried plantains in a Cuban or Puerto Rican style restaurant, you probably had tostones which are green platanos sliced in rounds, and fried, then flattened and fried again and sprinkled with salt. What is more popular here in Peru is a style called platanos maduros which is a sweet dish made of very mature plantains. You can see them in my earlier post on Arroz a la cubana.

So... the how do you cook them? Well, nothing could be simpler! All it takes is a large skillet, oil and very ripe platanos. The riper, the better - some people let them get completely black-skinned. I prefer them at the stage where they're starting to get some large black spots - I find it makes them easier to handle while frying. I use soybean oil for most of my cooking, but I'd love to try peanut or sunflower oil for this sometime.

First, peel the platanos, and cut them length-wise in planks. If the fruit is very ripe, I'll just cut it once, in half. If it's a little firmer, I'll cut it in quarters. Add enough oil to your skillet to come halfway up the slices of platano. Get the oil very hot, but not smoking and carefully put your sliced platano in. When it starts to get a little brown around the edges, flip it over - I find it easiest to do with a fork. When both sides are brown and caramalized, take them out of the pan and drain on a paper towel.













That's it! They're delicious as a side dish, especially alongside rice. But I've also found they make a delicious desert, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some manjar*.

Tip - If your fruit is very long, you may want to cut the planks in half, so you have shorter pieces to work with - makes it easier to flip while cooking.

*What is manjar? It's a thick sauce made of cream and sugar - like a very cooked down version of sweetened condensed milk - with a slightly caramel flavor.

And that's what we're eating. :)

Arroz a la Cubana

What is it? It translates to 'Cuban-style Rice' and it's my kids' favorite meal. I could cook it 3 or 4 times a week, and they'd never get tired of it.

It consists of a healthy-sized serving of rice, eggs fried over easy, and fried plantains. That's it! It's great for when we've got a lot of leftover rice. Plantains are plentiful here, so that's never a problem.


It's a very popular dish in Spain, from what I understand, although they serve it with tomato sauce over the rice.

Add a small fried steak to it, and it suddenly becomes 'Bistek a la Pobre' - 'poor man's steak'.

I use a rice cooker to make my rice. Before I moved to Peru, I never really made regular rice - I always bought Minute Rice. But the Peruvian diet consists of massive amounts of white rice, so it was necessary for me to be able to cook large quantities. I got a 4 qt rice cooker, and after a lot of experimenting, I got the 'Peruvian style' down pretty well.

I usually cook 1 kg of rice at a time. Put the rice in a strainer, and wash it under running water until the water runs clear (or mostly clear). Let as much water as you can run out of it, then put it in the rice cooker.

Next, I add about 2 tbsp of oil - a little extra won't hurt. I use soy oil, but you can use whatever you want. You may want to leave the oil out - it won't hurt the flavor. However, I find that the grains don't clump and stick with the oil.

Next, add in your seasonings. For Peruvian style rice, it's important to add salt and garlic. I add 3 large pinches (maybe 1 tbsp or a little less) and about 1/2 tbsp garlic powder. HOWEVER - I found a new product from Maggi made just for seasoning rice, called 'SazonArroz' in Spanish, and I use that now. You can also put in about 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion.

Finally, the water. In the rice cooker, I find equal parts rice and water work fine - so 1 Kilo of rice = 1 Liter of water. But, if you're cooking a smaller amounts of rice, sometimes all the water evaporates before the rice is fully cooked - so, i usually add a couple tbsps extra of water. Dump the water in, and mix it with a wooden or plastic spoon, so as not to scratch up your non-stick coating.

Turn on the rice cooker, and let it run through it's cycle. I've got a simple one, with just a on/off switch, that pops up like a toaster when it's done. When the cooking cycle finishes, I use my wooden spoon to 'fluff' up the rice some, stir it around a little. Don't stir too vigorously, or you'll get broken rice that clumps and sticks. Just enough to scrape the bottom and move it around a little. Put the top back on, and leave it about 5-10 minutes. After that, it's ready to serve.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about cooking plantains.

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