Dogs and Boys

As I mentioned on my earlier post, we have 3 dogs now. The first two, Reina and Bisou are both females. Female dogs - in general - have a tendency to be more of a one person dog, and that has really been the case with my two girls. They play fetch with the boys, and like to wrestle around some with them, but generally, you'll find them by my side.

Now, my mom has brought Chance the Sheltie down to stay with us. He's just awesome, and has fallen in love with my oldest son David. I'm so happy about it. Chance is a bit of an old man, going on 8 years now. I bought him with my grandfather, back in the days long ago when I lived with my grandfolks. Grandpa Bill and Chance (or Champ, as he was called back then) were a pair, and my grandmother and Chance were both devastated when Grandpa died 3 years ago. Grandma and Chance couldn't stay alone, so they both went off to live with my dad. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very happy time for Chance - they had a bunch of other dogs that treated him mean, and some of the people living there didn't treat him too well either.

Well, it was only about a year and a half later that my grandmother followed my grandfather, and poor old Chance was left alone in a family of strangers. My mom caught one look of him when we all came down for my grandmother's funeral, and it just about broke her heart - his hair had been cut down to about 1 inch long, he was very overweight, and covered with flea bite dermatitis. So, my mom told my dad, 'Gee, you've got so many dogs... would you like me to take him off your hands for you?' She took him back to Gainesville (Florida) with her, and that's where he's spent the last two years. She renamed him, from Champ to Chance - a new start, and a new opportunity at a good life.

This past June, she came down with my nephew, Nick, to stay for a few months, and decided to bring Chance down to stay with me. It's taken most of the 3 months for the 2 brats (Reina and Bisou, not the boys!!) to accept having this new dog in the house, but things are going pretty well now. And the best part is, he and my 12 year old David have taken to each other the way a boy and a dog should. Chance follows him around, plays chase in the yard, and sleeps at the foot of his bed at night. David is so thrilled to have a dog that loves him.

Win win and win for everybody.

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Being Poor Sucks. Discuss Amongst Yourselves.

I'm really tired of being poor. We're trying everything we can to dig out of it, though! I'm publishing more articles all the time, and Johnny's doing everything he can to get more work. Things won't be so bad once I get my house rental back on track. I've gone almost 2 years without making anything on it - every time one thing gets paid off, something else comes up. The only thing left to go wrong is the roof, but I think that's still got a few years left on it. Knock on wood!

Anyone with more advice on making money on the internet, I'm all ears. I'm trying to get more people reading this blog, and reading my articles, and I've also done some freelance writing that helped some. I know I need to get a real blog on my own site started, Blogger's great, but it's not really enough for what I want to do. I'd like to have a site where I can do a lot more travel Peru type articles, and sell some Peruvian jewelry. Maybe put some affiliate ads on there, and try to get some money rolling in! The kids need to eat, y'all.

Speaking of eating, we had grilled chorizos, rice and black eyed peas today. Super yummy.

Black eyed peas -

Chop up an onion, very fine. Get your stock pot out and put enough oil in the bottom to start sauteing your onions. As they cook, drop in a bay leaf, some basil(tsp) and garlic(another tspof the powder, or a minced clove). Let it all simmer together a couple minutes, then drop in two Maggi Bacon bouillon cubes. (Chicken or beef will do if you don't have bacon, but tsk, tsk) Add a couple tablespoons of water, and stir it all together with a wooden spoon until it's all dissolved. Dump in 500 gms of black-eyed peas and 3 liters of water (16 ozs of beans, 3 quarts of water). Cover and bring to a boil, then cut it down to simmer... Let it cook about 3 hours, checking that the water doesn't get too low - add a little more if you need to. THEN - add a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, stir it in and THEN taste - maybe you'll need more salt. And some black pepper.

Vegetarians can use vegetable bouillon cubes in place of meaty ones.

Serve with alongside meat and rice, and optionally top it with some chopped raw onion or Louisiana hot sauce. Or if you're my mom... ketchup. Anyway you like, it's good - Eat it up!

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Seco de Pollo - Peruvian Chicken Stew

Image by AIBakker via Flickr

Like a lot of people, we've been having to pull our belts tight lately. And eating cheap means eating a lot of chicken. I mentioned in the last post that I can usually get three meals out of one chicken. The first meal is usually something that uses chicken parts - typically the legs and thighs. Today, I cooked one of those meals, a delicious Peruvian dish called seco de pollo. "Seco" literally means 'dry', and signifies a stew, as opposed to 'aguadito' (meaning watery) for soup (that's aguadito in the picture).

I start with a whole chicken, which I wash thoroughly, pat dry with paper towels, then cut up into parts. I cut up into quarters, then separate the legs from the thighs, and use those 4 pieces for this meal. Finely chop up an onion. Take a bunch of fresh cilantro and stick it in the blender with enough chicken broth to make it paste-y, maybe 1/4 to a half a cup. Clean the cilantro first - make sure it doesn't have any large stems or icky pieces in it. I don't know if it's available in the US, but here in Peru you can buy cilantro in a jar, already pureed. If you can find it - maybe try a Latin market? - that takes some of the work and clean up out of the recipe.

In a large pot or dutch oven, heat a little oil, then drop the chicken in to brown. You don't want to cook it through, just lightly brown it on both sides. While the chicken is browning, I get my peas ready - a large handful of pods. By the time I'm done cutting up the carrots, the chicken should be done browning. Take the chicken out, set it to the side, and put the onion in the pot. Add in a couple or three cloves worth of minced garlic, and if you want, some aji amarillo, and saute it all together for a couple minutes. Aji amarillo is a Peruvian chili pepper, which you should be able to find at the Latin market - if not, use a little finely minced jalepeno or similar pepper.

When the onions start to turn translucent, add in the cilantro mix and about 4 cups of chicken stock. Add in the peas and carrots. Peel 4 medium to large potatoes, cut into quarters and add them to the stew. Put the chicken parts back in, and cover and let it cook until all the vegetables are soft and the chicken is cooked through.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve with a big pile of white rice.

Sit back and enjoy the compliments. ;)

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Making Chicken Soup

Image via Wikipedia

Last night, I made chicken soup for dinner. When it's just the four of us, I can get 3 meals out of a good sized chicken. The first night, I'll use the legs (for the boys) and thighs (for the grownups!) in something that calls for parts - fried, or in Peruvian chicken stew. Or, I'll roast the whole thing and just eat the leg quarters the first night. Moving on, I separate the wings from the breast, leaving a good amount of meat at the joint of the wing. I'll use the breast for something that calls for cut up or shredded chicken. Aji de gallina or maybe a stir-fry. Finally, I'll use the wings, feet, neck and liver to make soup.

Yeah, you heard me. Feet.

Don't you judge me!

So - long intro later, with my mom and Nicky visiting, I can only get 2 nights out of a chicken. We had fried chicken Wednesday night, and last night I made chicken soup. This is how I did it.

I had a half breast and a wing left over from frying, plus the feet and neck. I put all of that in my stock pot with a whole onion and a whole carrot and a 4 finger pinch of salt. (That's where you use your thumb and and three fingers to grab salt out of the bag - it's about a tablespoon in my case) Covered it with water, and brought it to a boil, then let it simmer for about an hour.

Once the chicken was done, I ran it through a strainer into my OTHER stock pot. You can use a large bowl or whatever you've got - the point is to get the stock clear and clean. I don't like little bits of unknown chicken parts and skin and stuff floating in my soup. Toss out the onion, cut up the carrot. Put your broth back on the stove. Now at this part, I do what some people might consider cheating - I toss in a couple of bouillon cubes. I like my soup really chicken-y. I also added about a teaspoon of poultry seasoning(I used a spicy one), 2 minced garlic cloves and a bay leaf.

This is when I added another chopped up raw carrot to the broth and let it start cooking. Save the already cooked carrot to drop in at the end - you don't want it over cooked. I also cut up a couple potatoes in bite size pieces and put that in. While the veggies are cooking, I worked on getting all the meat off the chicken carcass. I set the feet aside -- if you cook them too long, they start falling apart, and I know not everyone wants pieces of chicken feet in their soup. But my boys love them, so I saved it aside for them. Dump the meat into the soup. Let the veggies cook for about 20 minutes, and then add the other cooked carrot from earlier AND about 150 grams of spaghetti. Well, that's what I usually add - last night I used up a pack of alphabet noodles that I had hanging around. Let it cook until the noodles are soft, then give it a taste. Add salt and pepper to your taste.

Yum.

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Since my mom's here, we've started taking the dogs for a walk every day when the boy's leave for school. Now that we're living in this nice new neighborhood, I can take them out without being threatened by a bunch of strays. So, here we are, me with Reina and Bisou, and my mom walking Chance. Oh, the stares we get! Poor Reina.. no one pays much attention to her - but people are nuts about Bisou and Chance. Bisou of course, just so tiny and dainty; and then Chance, with his gorgeous coat and the elegant way of walking. People yell out 'Lassie! Es Lassie!!' when we pass. He really does look like a very short Lassie.

In other news, I've been publishing as fast as I can on AC, and doing some work for Expat Peru. I suddenly went from having no job, to having more work than I can do in a day! But all this writing is good for me.. and it brought me back to my blog, right?

If you get the time, check out my newest post on AC - it's about the newest items available in Pet Society - the big craze on Facebook.
Facebook Pet Society - New Items

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A Recent Article

I've started doing some writing over at Associated Content, and thought it might be a groovy idea to link my articles there with my shtuff over here on the blog. I know! There hasn't been anything new on the blog in months - I'm a very bad person, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if no one was paying attention anymore. But I'm really going to work on changing that, so I hope maybe one or two of you have stuck around to call back the rest. ;)

Desperate to Lose Weight? Don't Try This!
Tips for Step Parents: One Stepmom's Advice

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. :)

Hiatus

I'm on a short break (in case anyone missed me ;) for the next week as I have family visiting from the US. We have been ON THE GO! with absolutely no time to blog about all the delicious food we've been eating. But I'm taking notes and I'll be back soon!

Beets Are Awesome!

Day after Christmas, we had... you guessed it, Christmas Leftovers. Yum! My mother-in-law left quite a bit of turkey and salad here, so I cooked up a pot of rice and we made a meal of it. The turkey had been roasted, plus re-heated in the oven here, and I was worried about it being a little dry if I stuck it in the oven again. So instead, I followed an old trick taught to me by my dear old grandma that also stretches your leftovers a little. I took all the meat off the bone and cut it into small bite-size pieces, then put it in a large sauce-pan. I had about a half cup of leftover 'juice' - drippings from the roasting pan - and I added that to the pan also. While that warmed up, I got down a handy packet of 'instant' turkey gravy mix and whisked it with a cup of cold water (following the directions on the packet). When the stuff in the saucepan was nice and hot, I dumped the gravy mixture in, and stirred just until it came to a simmer, then cut it off and let it sit while I finished up the salad. It was great over the rice, and very filling.

I mentioned the salad - we call it Ensalada Rusa, or Russian Salad. Russian salad is generally any salad made of a mixture of cut up veggies, and sometimes meat, bound with a mayonnaise dressing. Here's the low down on the Peruvian version of it, which ALWAYS contains beets:

4 medium sized beets
4 medium sized carrots
4 medium-small potatoes (around the same size as the beets)

You need to roast or boil all the veggies until soft, but not mushy. I do the potatoes and beets in the microwave and the carrots on the stove. You can peel and cut up the carrots before cooking, then it's easier to test the texture and how done they are.

Beets - trim the tops down to about 1", then put them in an inch of water in a 2 quart casserole and stick in the microwave. It takes me about 25 minutes in my microwave. I cook ten minutes, then roll the beets over. Once they're tender (you can stick a fork in easily and the skin should be loose) put them into cold water to cool down. Once they're cool to the touch, you'll find that the tops/skins slide right off.

Cook the potatoes the same way - unpeeled. They cook much faster, of course, cook them 5 minutes at a time and check. Poke a few holes in the skin with a fork or knife before cooking, so they don't 'explode'. Once they're cooked, again, the skin will peel off very easily.

Once all your veggies are cooked, you want them all cut up into small, bite-sized pieces.

Put your cut up veggies in a large bowl, and mix with your favorite dressing. Typically, mayonnaise is used for this. I like to make ranch dressing and use, others like with Miracle Whip (which I find disgusting!). The quantity of dressing is pretty much a matter of taste, feel free to play around with it. Just start with about a cup, and if that's not enough, add a little at a time.

This is another one of those things you don't want to stir real vigorously, or you'll end up smashing your potatoes and it just won't be as pretty. The juice from the beets mixes with the dressing and gives this a lovely color that perks up a plate in winter when served on a lettuce leaf.

My mother in law adds chopped up, tender-crisp green beans to hers, and a lot of people throw in a couple handfuls of peas.

(Yukon golds are good potatoes for this, as they don't get mushy - you can also use new red potatoes, if they're very small, use a few extra. You want basically equal amounts of the three veggies)

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What a great Christmas Day

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Probably the best since I was a kid myself.

We had Peruvian style Christmas, which means roast turkey and fixin's at midnight - fairly simple this year, roasted potatoes and ensalada rusa. Of course, in true Peruvian fashion, we also had some thinly sliced red onion to go with it.

Afterwards, we drank hot chocolate and watched TV while the kids opened presents. The radio-control cars were a big hit with everyone, as was walking down to the end of the street and lighting some firecrackers. We finally got to bed around 3am, after going through a bit of 'some assembly required'.

This morning, we woke up and had paneton and hot chocolate for breakfast - around 11am. The boys woke up at 7 (!!!!) eager to play with their new toys again. Paneton (also spelled panettone) is a bread that originated in Italy. It's a sweet bread, the good one's are moist, that has dried fruit and raisins - like fruit cake. Most everyone picks out the fruit, of course, but the bread itself is awesome.


After we relaxed and got fully awake, we got dressed and everything together to go to the park. We bought a rotisserie chicken with fried potatoes, some ceviche (a Peruvian staple I'll discuss some other time) and some snacks and had a lovely picnic in a park that was once an olive orchard. Huge, old olive trees in rows (in fruit!!), a lovely fountain and kids with new toys made it the perfect place to be today. The weather was perfect, as Christmas here always seems to be, and it was just amazing, laying in the shade under the trees.

The olive trees, as I said, were heavily laden with fruit, and the ground was covered. We laid our blanket down, and it wasn't long before olive oil started seeping through! It smelled so good. Unfortunately, all the branches low enough to reach had been picked clean. The doves and pigeons seemed to have made pretty quick work of all that hit the ground. I would have loved to have been able to get a couple dozen of those olives to take home and use!

We stayed at the park for about 3 hours, until the sun went down enough that it started to feel a little cool. None of us wanted the day to be over though, and we walked slowly through the side streets, looking at the lovely old houses, and daydreaming about one day being able to buy one.

I hope everyone had a Christmas as perfect as ours, filled with peace and love.

Candy for Christmas

Image via Wikipedia

Money's tight in the Borda household this Christmas, as I'm sure it is in many households this year. So, I'm going the home made route with some of our gifts. My favorite candy to make is a 'no cook' fudge that tastes nearly as good as something you'd slave over for hours, but all it needs is a few minutes in the microwave.

Basic Recipe -
2 Cups chocolate chips (milk chocolate, semi-sweet - whatever you like)
1 can condensed milk (and again, make sure you've got condensed milk, not evaporated milk!)
1 tsp Vanilla (this can be left out if you don't have it, and still be just as good)

Line a 8x8 cake pan with wax paper.

Put the chocolate chips in a 2 qt glass casserole, and put it in the microwave. Time will depend on your oven, but stir it every 30 secs or so, until they're 'mostly' melted. Add the can of condensed milk and the vanilla, stir thoroughly. Microwave again, no more than 30 seconds at a time, stirring until everything is smooth and well blended.

And that's the recipe, basically!

Now comes the fun part - what do you like in your fudge? Here are some ideas:
Crushed pecans or walnuts
Peanuts 0r a Tbsp of Peanut Butter
Mini-marshmallows
Tiny M&M's
Crushed pretzels

Any combination of these!

The quantity depends on you - 1 cup is a good starting point, depending on what combination you use - if you like it chunkier, use more.

Use your imagination - there are so many directions you can go with it. Some other ideas - try peppermint instead of vanilla. Substitute Butterscotch, white chocolate, or peanut butter chips for 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips.

If you go with mini marshmallows, the heat of the mixture may melt them when you stir them in. If you like it that way, great! If not, let it cool just slightly before you add them.

Anyway - once you have all your add-ins, um, added in, turn the mixture out into your lined cake pan, and put the whole shebang into the refrigerator. In a couple of hours, your fudge will be ready. Take it out of the pan, peel the wax paper off, and cut or break into pieces. Packaged in a pretty little bag or box, you've got a great gift for the mother-in-law or landlady.

Or.. eat it all yourself!

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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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Apologies

I must apologize (only to myself, most likely) for the lack of posts in the last week. We had a death in the family and so I had other things on my mind. I'll be back up to speed tomorrow, with some Christmas cooking.

Nothing to see here, Move along. ;p

We had leftovers yesterday. I cooked up a pot of rice, fried up some more sausage, and served that with the remains of the lentils from the day before.

Today, we had eggs and toast. And mango, grenadilla (passion fruit) and oranges. We're having Chinese take-out (which they call chifa here) for dinner tonight. It's been sort of a catch-as-catch-can weekend, as far as food goes.

More home cooking tomorrow, though - I think we're going to have arroz a la cubana. What is it? Do you know? Find out tomorrow!

Peeling Tomatoes

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I live in Peru, and a lot of things I took for granted when cooking are either not available or are so expensive they just aren't always worth buying. One of those things is canned tomatoes. They're here, but they're too expensive to use as a regular ingredient. So, I started using regular ripe tomatoes a lot more often, and it's actually so easy, I've come to prefer using them over the canned for most things. Here, then, is my way of preparing my tomatoes.

I start with a glass casserole dish (2 quart). Add water to nearly fill, then put the top on and stick it in the microwave long enough to get the water just to boiling. CAREFULLY remove it from the micro! While the water nukes, take your tomatoes and cut a X-shaped slice in the bottom of each one. (Of course, you can always do this on the stove top in a saucepan- I prefer the microwave because I have a super tiny stove, and am usually cooking other things while I do this)

Again, very carefully, using a spoon, lower the tomatoes into the water and leave them for about 30 seconds or so. Doesn't matter if you leave them longer, since usually you'll be cooking them later anyway. Take them out, run them under cool water so you can touch them, and then peel the skin off, starting at your little X-slice. You'll find the skin will slip right off.

Once you've got your tomatoes peeled, it's a simple matter to just crush them by hand and clean the seeds out of them. If you want, once you have the seeds out, use a knife to cut up the bigger pieces.

And there you go, fresh tomatoes, peeled and deseeded and crushed, ready to add to your recipe. You can add this to soup recipes in place of canned tomatoes. Just remember that you'll need to adjust seasonings, because this won't have any of the salt or other seasoning that canned tomatoes often have.

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Soup is Awesome.

Image by cowfish via Flickr

Despite waking up late, I made grill cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate for the boys for their breakfast. I thought with exams starting today, they needed something a little more substantial than cold cereal.



Even though it's full on late spring here in Peru, my family loves eating home made soup. I decided to nourish that love today with some Lentil Soup. Man, is it tasty. All the 'flavor' ingredients here can be tweaked as you see fit - use more bacon if you like! I don't use a recipe or measure, so all this stuff is 'pretty close'. Nothing has to be exact! Close enough is close enough. ;)

1 tbsp olive oil
4 slices Bacon, cut up in 1" pieces
1 lb kielbasa or similar smoked sausage (1/2 Kilo)
1/2 cup diced onion
3 carrots, diced
1/2 tbsp basil
1/2 tbsp garlic (or crush a couple of fresh cloves)
2 bay leaves
2 cups of dried lentils
6-8 cups water
3 italian (plum) tomatoes - peeled, deseeded and crushed or coarsely chopped.
2-3 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup spinach, in thinly sliced
Salt/Pepper to taste

Around 6 servings
It's a good idea to have everything cut up and ready before you start.

1) Start with a 5-6 quart soup pot or stock pot.
Mine looks similar to this:
2) Over medium high heat, put in the olive oil, the bacon, and your sliced up sausage. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the bacon starts to look 'cooked'.

3) Add the onions and carrots, then cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions start to become transparent.

4) Toss in the basil, garlic, bay leaf and cook for another 2 minutes, making sure to stir everything together.

5) Dump in the lentils and tomatoes, and enough water to cover everything + a couple of inches extra.

6) Cook on high heat until it comes to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Leave simmering for at least an hour. I cook mine a couple of hours, because I like my lentils sort of disintegrated. Add more water if needed.

7) Add the tomato paste, and gently stir to blend it into the soup.

8) Taste it - add salt as needed. I don't want to give a specific amount, because it depends on your taste and how salty your bacon and sausage are. Here in Peru, the bacon isn't super salty, and neither is the sausage I use. I ended up using about 4 tsps of salt. Add pepper if you like that sort of thing. ;)

9) Right before serving, add the spinach and stir until it's wilted.

Enjoy this delicious soup! And don't eat the bay leaves ;)


Some changes you can make:
-Try using bacon flavor cubes (like chicken bouillon cubes) instead of bacon to cut a little fat.
-Instead of tomatoes and tomato paste, stir in 1 can of diced tomatoes. Hunt's has some good flavored diced tomatoes that can make some really subtle but tasty changes to the flavor.
- Leave out the meat completely and use vegetable bouillon cubes for flavor to have a really hearty vegetarian meal.
- Cook it down to a thicker stew consistency, and serve over your favorite rice for a complete meal.

I'm really sorry I don't have pictures of this, but my camera has decided to stop working. Sometime after the new year, I'll get that taken care of and start putting pictures of all the food we eat.

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Home Cooking today

Image via Wikipedia

My husband cooked up some bacon this morning, and woke me up with a yummy bacon sandwich on potato bread. With a glass of fresh made lime-ade. Yum, and that limaid sure felt good on my sore throat.


For lunch today, I made what I consider 'white trash' cooking. My definition of white trash cooking includes anything where the majority of the ingredients come from boxes or cans - quick and easy, tastes good, not always low-fat/low-sodium ;) My boys love mac n cheese, (like most kids their age) so I decided to make a meal based around that. Armed with two boxes of regular Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and a 1/2K (appr. 1lb) of very lean ground beef, I set to making some cheeseburger macaroni.

(enough for a family of 4)

2 boxes Mac/cheese dinner
1/2K ground beef
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp seasoned salt
1/3 cup ketchup

1) Start your water boiling - you want want to use a large pot, since you'll need to boil 2 boxes of noodles. I used about 4 quarts of water - don't forget to dump a big pinch of salt in, and about a tbsp of oil. Put your noodles in when the water starts to boil. Remember, DON'T cover a pot of noodles while it's cooking, it'll make it boil over.

2) While the water's coming to a boil, put your hamburger in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add seasoned salt and chili powder and stir with a wooden or nylon spatula, breaking it up into small crumbles as it cooks. Drain the grease if there's a lot, then add the ketchup and stir well. (If you use a very lean ground beef, there's not going to be enough grease to worry about)

My skillet looks like this:


3) Noodles should be done or near done by now - you want them 'al dente', not mushy - about 8 minutes at a full boil. Drain the water out using a colander or strainer.

4) Dump the noodles on top of the cooked ground beef. Dump in both packets of cheese powder, 3 tbsp butter, 1/2 cup of milk.

5) Using the flat side of the spatula GENTLY mix everything together until the cheese powder is all incorporated and everything is well mixed. You don't want to stir it too vigorously, you'll smash up your noodles and make it all mushy.

That's it - and it tastes pretty much like a cheeseburger.

I served it with corn on the cob via the microwave. If you have fresh corn, break the ears in half, put them in a glass casserole with about an inch of water. Put the top on, and stick it in the micro for 5 minutes. Turn the corn over half way through the cooking. After the 5 minutes is up, check - depending on the size of your corn, you may need another minute or so. Usually, leaving it in the casserole with the top on is enough steam to finish it up.

And there you go - that's what we ate today.

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A Not-so-auspicious Beginning

Image by jumbledpile via Flickr

Of course, my first day of blogging my food, and it's a day we went to the restaurant. :D However, I also did some shopping, so we'll talk about that a bit, too.

The boys got out of school early today, so we walked to Alex's restaurant together. I actually don't know if this restaurant has a name - there's not one posted. But, the cooks name is Alex, so I'll call it Alex's restaurant - not to be confused with Alice's. ;) Actually, it's a family run business - Alex and the two servers are brothers. They have a lot of kitchen help, and the place is always packed. It's only open for lunch - they open around 11:00, and close when the food is gone, usually around 3pm. I love going there. All the meals include soup or an entrada, and then a main course (segunda). The entrada is often papas a la huancaina or papas ocopa. I'll have more information on these another time, when I either cook them, or have them at the restaurant.

Prices at Alex's are extremely reasonable, even by Peru standards. A full meal of soup/entrada, main course and drink runs from 3.50 soles to 5. soles. Today's exchange is about 3.10 to a dollar, so we get each meal for well under $2USD each.

To start, we all got the soup, which was a chicken soup with semolina (sort of like grits, but made from wheat - like cream of wheat). It's mostly broth, with giblets, neck and feet, and a little bit of celery, carrots and potato. However, we didn't eat it - we had it packaged to bring home. It keeps for a couple days, and I often give it to the boys for their 'lonche' in the evening.

David had pollo frito. This is his favorite meal from this restaurant. It consists of a single piece of chicken (usually a breast or thigh) that is flattened, seasoned and pan fried (frito means fried) - not breaded. The plate includes a good salad (romaine, tomato, beets, carrots, onion, broccoli with a lemon vinaigrette), rice and french fries. He ate every bit of it today.

Franco prefers the suprema de pollo, and that's what he had today. It's the same meal as David, except the chicken is in the form of a breaded cutlet. He didn't eat all of his rice today, but did pretty well with the rest of it. Not bad, considering they had a bunch of junk food today at school - it was a party day.

I opted for the lomo saltado today. 'Lomo' is loin - in this case, beef loin. It's a Peruvian/Chinese fusion dish. (There is a very large Chinese community in Peru, and they've had a big influence on the food) It's basically a stir-fry, with finely chopped beef, potatoes, chopped tomatos and onions quickly sauteed together with soy sauce. Cilantro is added at the last moment. This is one of my favorite Peruvian dishes to eat AND to cook. The next time I cook it at home, I'll take pictures and post the recipe proper.

After we ate, it was time to hit the supermarket. I didn't buy much, just enought to get us through the next few days - about $25 worth. I bought the boys a frozen pizza, and some bacon to put on it. Bacon here is leaner and not as smoky as bacon in the US, but it's still pretty good. I saved some of the bacon to use for the lentil soup I'm making on Friday. I don't usually buy bread at the grocery store because the bakery is cheaper. But today I was tempted by the sight of fresh potato bread. It is a delight - thick crust, and super chewy with a heavy, earthy flavor. Super stuck in the oven for a minute and then served with a little butter. That with some of the soup we brought home is what I had for dinner tonight.

So there it is - a day in the food. ;)

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A Little Background

I've been blogging for a few years, but have never really been good at keeping up with it. I've been thinking what I really need is a topic that will give me something new to talk about every day. It's not really a matter of trying to get readers, as much as having some sort of record of my life and days. So I thought - what do I do every day?? Shop for food, cook and eat! I love reading cooking blogs, I like finding new recipes - so, I'll talk about my shopping in the markets here in Peru, how I cook and share recipes. Now, to be honest, there are many days when I don't do any of that. See, there's a super tasty yet super inexpensive restaurant about 2 blocks from my house, and we get food from there several times a week. But - I can talk about that too, right? And this will give me the excuse I need to try lots more new things. So... to start!