good eats.

It has been a busy week or two since I last posted about Thanksgiving, and it seems that time is only going faster and faster as the holidays approach. Not that I am sad about that prospect! I am glad to have weeks that are busy and weekends that are full of activity and social events.

This past weekend I was able to host 4 MCC friends in Santa Rosa~ our connecting people's coordinator plus the 3 SALTers. It was a busy time, making sure they knew how to get around and figuring out meals and taking them here and there, but it was fun. I enjoy showing people around town and sharing the people who have become important in my life in Santa Rosa.

In showing off my mad baking skills to my MCC buddies (yep, I made brownies in my toaster oven), I realized that I have not shared my latest cooking adventures with my blog readers.

warm apple crisp...a little more "crisp" than intended...

carmelized onion, spinach and olive oil bread
...good til the spinach started to smell funky

my most colorful meal yet!
my own version of un-stuffed pepers and stir-fried zucchini

brownies in the baby oven! even made portion-controlled brownie cups

fresh squeezed orange juice, anyone? the fruit was from ladies in the community where we work.
soooooo sweet, no sugar needed

I have also been excited to begin advent season, though I greatly miss the traditions of the church that I have become used to as part of advent preparation. I will share some thoughts on advent things in the near future.

Hope you are enjoying the anticipation of the holidays wherever you may be.

adventures in tiny cooking

As you saw from my previous post, my kitchen is nothing if not grand and imposing. Also, it is fully stocked with any kind of kitchen implement one could want...
Well--almost.
Let's just say, my tiny apartment in New Cumberland, PA and hand-me-down kitchen was great preparation for living solo in Honduras.

Since I finally started feeling like eating real food again in the last few days, I decided to see what could be done with what I've got.

Meal 1: Pancakes!
A simple meal, you are probably thinking. And you are right...it's nothing worthy of a Food Network show...
but let me remind you, I made all of this happen
without measuring cups, a flipper (plastic, metal, or otherwise)
and using a burner that I could take camping.

You know, an amateur start...but I felt pretty good about it.

Then last night I was on my way back from aerobics class (which, almost rendered my legs useless) and was craving something more substantial. Since I had been to the grocery store and stocked up on veggies, I threw caution to the wind and...

Meal 2 = Pizza!
This was a more impressive feat than the first. I made half of my mom's pizza dough recipe and even used yeast! Then I decked it out with all kinds of veggies and baked it in my toaster oven.
Pretty excited about how this turned out.

The only thing that could have made it better would be some shredded mozzarella, but since super Target is not just down the street, you take what you get :)

plato tipico

In fitting in with the last post about mangoes, I thought it might be appropriate to write about what I eat on a regular basis in Honduras. I have tried to take photos of some food, but realize I lack photos of the day-to-day stuff. Mostly because I forget to take them, but also because my family would think it weird. Here's a rundown, to give you an idea:

Breakfast: Always coffee...made with WAY too much sugar. I was almost able to drink coffee w/o sugar before I came, but that has gone out the window. Coffee is made by boiling water on the stove and filtering it through a cloth sieve thingy. Not great coffee...apparently Honduras exports all the quality stuff and sells the overpriced crappy stuff to Hondurans. But let's not get into that now.

Most days I eat tortilla con quesillo which is 2 tortillas with melty, salty cheese in the middle, fried til crispy. Some days its just sweet bread and rosquillas (salty, hard bread) with coffee. Randomly we have pancakes (or panqueques in Spanish) or occasionally "plato tipico" for breakfast, which will be explained in the dinner section.

mini watermelons!

Lunch: This is the main meal of the day. I am lucky I live close to my office and I go home for lunch every day. We usually have some kind of meat, rice, a side of veggies or potatoes and tortillas. Some days, my host mom will make tacos or enchiladas, which are my favorites. On the not so lucky days (and always the hottest days) we have soup. Sometimes with beans and eggs, sometimes with large pieces of meat and lots of startchy add-ins: yucca, potato, green banana, rice...yes, all 4 at the same time.

kitchen stove with tajaditas and pork

Dinner: Our dinners are pretty standard at my house, so it's called plato tipico (rough translation: typical plate). We usually have scrambled eggs, beans (red, of course :), queso seco (salty, dry cheese) and tortillas. Most Hondurans will eat all of this with "mantequilla" which is basically runny sour cream. I'm not such a fan, so I usually leave it for the rest. Occasionally we'll have fried plantains or fried green banana...or some variation on the beans/cheese/eggs theme. I really love it and have gotten used to having this almost every night. When I am away for a few nights, I really miss my plato tipico.

Then there are Honduran specialties and snacks...

Baleadas: These are one of my favorite things...a flour tortilla (freshly made!) with liquified beans (think refried, but better), cheese, mantequilla and occasionally scrambled egg. These are eaten any time of day...breakfast, mid-morning snack, dinner, late evening snack...you get the picture.

Pupusas: These are also popular. More for when you go out to eat or for a special event. It's dough with melted cheese in the middle, some times with beans or a bit of sausage added in. Also delicious. I helped make these to raise funds for our church (see previous post about pupusas).

Tajaditas: Fried green banana. Sounds weird, but kinda turns out like a potato chip. Can be thin and crispy or thicker and more like potato wedges. Often served with a tomato sauce and cabbage salad. The downside is, when not made at home, they come with chicken feet!!! It totally grosses me out. I pick those out for my brothers and then eat the rest :)

 <--yes, thats a fried chicken foot on top of my snack. g-ross.

sushi boat!

My Honduran diet is also made complete by other random treats now and again...this could be a sushi splurge with my girlfriends, pizza out with the family (they love Little Caesars!), frozen yogurt at the mall, or bumming a meal from MCC friends who have their own kitchen and can decide what to eat.

Let's just say, I do not lack for good food...but I am looking forward to some home cooking when I get back.

mango loco

In the last week I have rekindled a love for mangoes. I thought for a long time that I did not love mangoes, and for the most part, I was right. If not eaten when perfectly ripe, they have a pretty nasty aftertaste, or even a fermented bite to them. The strings are always caught in your teeth, and there is no graceful way to polish off this beloved tropical fruit in front of other people. Of course, Hondurans do it all the time, but, lets just say it's not pretty.

There are several varieties of mangoes...the first ones of the season being small, green mangoes. These are peeled and often served with chile sauce (like hot sauce). Let's just say, I've been scared of these for a long time.

Then, later on come the larger, reddish, sweet mangoes. I was not too impressed with them...until my host mom went to visit family in Comayagua who have mango trees on their property. She brought back about 5 buckets full of the sweet, perfectly ripened tropical delicacy, right from the tree!

I ended up downing 2 in about 11 minutes. It was glorious. When a mango is perfectly ripe, there is pretty much no better fruit. I was dripping with juices and getting bits of peel over everything, but it was delightful.
The thing is, even though we live in a country rich in fruits, many are exported, and many others are kind of expensive for the average family...so I get surprisingly minimal variety of fruit in my diet. Sad for me.

My host mom was also giving out mangoes right and left to anyone and everyone who passed by the house. My siblings were freaking out that she would give them all away, but we had so many, they have to be eaten when they are ripe. Because of her generosity, and because she was seen eating a mango at all hours of the day, my older brother started calling Lucia "mango loco" which means "crazy mango" :)

al mercado

One of my favorite things to do when I visit other countries is check out the grocery store. This may seem weird, but I have a theory that you can learn a lot about a culture from their grocery store.
The second best thing (or maybe even better, haven't decided yet) is to visit a local market. I have had the chance to do this with my host mom on 2 different Saturdays and it has been a good adventure.

First, there is a big market on the other side of the river, in Comayaguela, where you can find pretty much anything cheap...from bike helmets and car parts to underwear, nail polish and fresh baked goods, it's the place to go. The downside is, its a pretty long bus ride and also it's not very safe. I was excited to go and check it out a few weeks ago with my host mom--it was just the 2 of us! She took good care of me, always grabbing my arm before we crossed the street and making sure I was following her quick pace. We were on a mission to find a scarf as a present for my coworker and we walked through the entire market, without success. However, it was fun for me to see the whole thing, and we did find some other treasures along the way.

The other big market in Teguc is known as the Mayorero (I think that's how you spell it). This market is mainly just for produce and basic household staples. We took our big canvas shopping bags and headed down there last Saturday. Of course, the 3 year old wanted to come along, so that added a new dimension. Now we had to make sure he didn't run off, and half the time he wanted to be carried too. I have minimal patience for this...
Anyway. First stop was the line up for bean, rice, sugar and other kitchen supplies. Apparently the price of beans has gone way up, but we were able to get them much cheaper here in the central market. The line was about 15 people long, and we waited for about 25 minutes. We bought 5lbs of bean, 10 lbs. of rice and 5 lbs. of sugar...plus cooking oil, coffee, seasonings, soap, and fruit juice. Ok, so, I thought at this point my bag was pretty heavy...

Then we head to the street of meat. How neat! Actually, it was pretty gross. I think I would rather not know how unsanitary the meat I consume really is...the butcher has it all laying out in the window, so you can size it up...then he cuts it up for you (without any kind of gloves)...puts it in a plastic bag...then takes your money (with the same hands that cut the meat) and sometimes will give you another bag (with some remnants still hanging on the outside). You then put this meat bag in your shopping bag to await refrigeration for about 2-3 hours. Nice!
Ok...now the bag is heavier, but we're probably on our way home, right?

Well next we went to buy cheese or queso. Honduran cheese is really different from what we typically eat in the states, but I really like it. We bought queso seco (dry cheese), quesillo (a milder, soft cheese) and mantequilla (kinda like sour cream...cheaper here in the market than in our neighborhood).
This is good. We have most of what we need, the 3 year old is screaming his head off...so we can go!

But not too fast...we still need veggies (since the gringa--me--said she loves vegetables!) All the vegetable stands offer pretty much the same variety, but you can't just stop at the first place you see. You have to touch all the produce first, ask how much it costs, mumble about how expensive it is, and then go to the next table where it will probably be the same price. We sized up some carrots, onions, pepino (cucumbers), patasta (still have not figured out what this vegetable is) and some cabbage. So...we add all this to the bags. They are pretty full at this point.

1 more stop, for some fresh fruit. My host mom makes really good fresh juice about 2 times a week. She usually buys tamarind, maracuya (passion fruit, i think) or nance. I enjoy all of the above, which most foreigners do not, so this makes her very happy. We add a few pounds of maracuya to the shopping bags.
Oh man...I think my bag is heavy, but Lucia is carrying her half of the take plus her grandson! I don't know how she does it!

We make one last stop to buy a beverage. I don't have any idea what this is, but its sweet and cold, so I take it willingly. Also...drinks on the go are served in plastic bags...like a sandwich bag with a straw, and then tied up at the top. Or sometimes, just tied, no straw, so you bite of the corner and drink it that way. Its rather fun, but takes some skill.

Thankfully, we are near the exit of the market and we have a jalon (free ride!) from my host brother. We are glad to get to the car and dump the heavy bags. The interesting thing is, Lucia usually comes by herself on Saturdays...I have no idea how she manages all the groceries by herself, but it's impressive. I think she wants me to go again, because she enjoys having the help :)