Costa Rica breakfast dinner

We decided to make a meal from Costa Rica. When we pulled up the Wikipedia entry for Costa Rican cuisine, the photo showed a typical Costa Rican breakfast. Who doesn't like having breakfast for dinner? Certainly we like it. So we made the following meal:

poached eggs,
toast,
gallo pinto,
fried plantains,
and to drink, one of M's favorites, Mighty Mango Naked Juice.

M's Interruption
Hi. I liked the brinner, which is, yes, breakfast for dinner. Here is some other awesome naked juices:
Blue,green and red machine
Berry blast

Those are just some. You can find lots at Cub and Target. Some are at DBC.


back to Mom
Gallo pinto, which means spotted rooster, is black beans and rice, which are cooked separately and then pan fried together. It is often served with Lizano salsa but, as we couldn't find any at our local grocery stores, we had HP sauce with our gallo pinto.

I had never had plantains. I liked the taste, not as sweet and firmer than regular bananas.

It was an easy and yummy Friday night dinner.

I get my salsa from New York City!

Actually my salsa recipe. And it's from Spanish Harlem, to be exact. This is taken from FETCH!. In the challenge Sammy (one of the FETCHers) goes to Spanish Harlem to, apparently, learn the ingredients to salsa music and buys the ingredients for salsa (the food). In the other challenge Sam, Noel and Harsha make a cake protector. Oh, and D.J. and Jay get a perfect score in the Half-time Quiz Show.



Mom's Interruption
M did a great job of copying the recipe from the TV screen. But you'll notice what's missing from the recipe (shown in the picture above): what are we supposed to do with the ingredients?? We simply added everything to the food processor and coarsely chopped. To my tastes, the result is just a little sour ("pocky," to use M's word). Maybe we were just supposed to use the juice of the 3 limes? Next time, I'd probably add whole limes again, but use only two limes. Even with three limes, I agree with Ruff's pronouncement that "this is an excellent salsa" (and a very easy one, too).

The green tomatoes came from our garden and the garlic from our local farmer's market. And we even managed to find locally produced corn chips.

Back to M
I like this salsa, even though I don't usually like tomatoes and we have some great chips, too. I like watching FETCH! and I see it almost everyday.

Late Post: World Cup champion dinner

What are we doing with our time now that the World Cup is over? Our household followed all the action in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We watched the USA, we watched all Group C, we watched the Netherlands, Ghana, Uruguay, Germany, and Spain and... well, really we watched almost all of it. And what we didn't watch, we followed on fifa.com. M had a bracket poster that Steve brought back from Malaysia and updated the scores and winners of all of the games.

Around the end of the group stage, we decided that we would make an Around the World dinner from the champion nation. Spain, of course, came out on top. We debated making paella in honor of Spain's victory, but decided, in the end, to make another tapas dinner.

M's interruption
I do not think that I wanted Spain to win (Yes, even after the USA lost). Here are my top 5 nations that deserve to win the World Cup that haven't.


1. Netherlands
2. Portugal
3. South Korea
4. USA
5. Mexico

Me gusta tortilla esponol, chocolate caliente y churros.


Back to Mom...
Can you tell that we are a soccer family? :)

Anyway, the menu:
bread,
olives,
Manchego cheese
tortilla espanol
and, for dessert, hot chocolate & churros.

Tortilla Espanol is becoming one of my "go-to" dinners when we want a quick dinner.
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb potatoes, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
5 eggs
salt & pepper to taste

1.) Heat oil in a non-stick skillet. Add potatoes, onion, and red bell pepper. Saute until soft, but not brown (about 15-20 minutes), stirring occasionally.

2.) In a bowl, beat the eggs. Add to the potatoes and veggies. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat, shaking the skillet occasionally, until the underside is set and beginning to brown.

3.) Cover the skillet with a large plate and hold in place with one hand. Quickly turn the skillet upside down so the tortilla falls onto the plate (no, really, it's not that hard). Slide the tortilla back into the skillet to cook the other side. Cook until the underside is lightly brown. Slide the tortilla onto a serving plate.

Churros
Vegetable oil for frying
Powdered sugar for dusting

dough:
1 c. minus 2 Tbsp self-rising flour
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 c. butter, diced
3/4 c. water
3 eggs, beaten

1.) Sift together the flour and cinnamon. Set by the stove.
2.) Heat the butter and water until the butter has melted. Quickly bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the flour mixture all at once. Beat until smooth. Return to heat for about 30s, continuing to beat. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Gradually beat in the eggs until the mixture is a smooth, glossy paste.
3.) Heat oil to 375oF.
4.) Spoon dough into a pastry bag (or a Ziploc bag with a corner cut) and pipe 3-4 pieces of dough into the oil. Fry for about 3 minutes, turning once, until golden. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the churros to paper towels to drain. Keep warm while cooking the remaining dough. Dust with sugar. Serve with hot chocolate, and dunk the churros in the hot chocolate.

Ethiopia dinner

Everyone enjoyed our recent trip to the Blue Nile so much that on Friday, we made an Ethiopian dinner at home.

The menu:
Akara (the same appetizer we made for our South African dinner, recipe here.
Cabbage and potato (see below)
lentils (also below)
and, of course, homemade injera (also called biddeena, the bread that doubles as utensils, recipe below).

M had fun helping make the injera and eating with his hands. Our homemade injera was a little thicker than the restaurant's, which made it a little harder to pick up bites of lentils and, especially, the cabbage and potato. But we still enjoyed sharing a platter of food. Steve named it "Gosa Gosa Mom," like Blue Nile's Gosa Gosa A (I think Gosa Gosa means combo).

M's interruption

Hi.We made injera and then ate it with the other dishes.We also had some yogurt (It isn't on the menu).

Back to Mom...

I used the recipes for injera and yellow lentils from "The Africa News Cookbook: African Cooking for Western Cooking" and also adapted the recipe for the potato and cabbage from one of the recipes in "The Africa News."

Injera (cut in half from the cookbook's recipe, made plenty for the three of us)
2 c self-rising flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 c club soda
2 c water

Combine the dry ingredients. Add the club soda and water and mix into a smooth, fairly thin batter.

Heat a large, non-stick skillet. When a drop of water bounces on the pan, dip about 1/2 c of batter and swirl to spread the batter thinly and evenly (maybe you'll be better at making it thin than I was). When the moisture has evaporated and small bubbles appear on the surface, remove the injera. The recipe calls for cooking on only one side. I flipped mine and cooked briefly on the other side, since I had trouble getting them thin.

Stack the injera as you remove them from the skillet and cover with a cloth to keep them from drying out. To serve, lay them on a platter in overlapping circles. Serve the veggies and lentils on top and make a second plate with extras (see photo above).

Potatoes and cabbage (this is my version of "The Africa News"'s Yataklete Kilkil, spiced vegetables)
1/4 lb butter
2 Tbsp chopped onion
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1/4 tsp tumeric
1 inch piece of cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 lb new potatoes, halved
a head of cabbage, cut into to thin shreds

1.) Steam the potatoes until tender (about 20 minutes).
2.) Melt the butter over low heat. Add all of the spices and stir to keep from burning. Add the cabbage and saute until wilted and tender.
3.) Add the potatoes and stir to coat the potatoes in the melted butter.
4.) Discard the cinnamon stick before serving.

Yellow Lentils (halved the original recipe)
1 c. orange lentils (I used toor dal)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp fresh ginger (emergency substitution, I used 1/4 tsp dried ginger powder)
1/2 garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin seeds, pounded
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Bring 2 c water to a boil. Add the lentils and the salt. Cook until the lentils are tender (about 30 minutes). Drain and then mash slightly with a fork or potato masher. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Fry the onions until golden. Add the spices and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the lentils, stirring well. Heat until the mixture is thick.

On location: Blue Nile restaurant

On Saturday night, we took Around the World dinners on location to the Blue Nile restaurant, an Ethiopian restaurant in Minneapolis. Steve and I used to eat here frequently in the years B.C. (before child) but hadn't been back in... well, in about seven or eight years. It was just as good as we had remembered, maybe even better. We ordered the Gosa Gosa A combo, a platter of their vegetarian dishes, served on a communal platter. In traditional custom, Blue Nile doesn't give you silverware: you eat by breaking off pieces of biddeena (bread) and using it to pick up bites of the other foods. I was struck by what a sense of closeness sharing a platter of food gave our meal. M's favorite dish was the sauteed potato and carrot but he also ate plenty of red lentils and black lentils. My favorite was the foule, a fava bean stew. Check them out at Blue Nile Restaurant. We will not wait another seven years to return and will probably make a homemade Ethiopian meal soon, but maybe with fewer dishes on our Gosa Gosa platter.


M's comment I liked the biddeena and I liked using it as a spoon!

Friday June 11: World Cup celebration

M here.
Hi. On Friday June 11 we ate a special World Cup dinner. We ate 5 different things from 4 different countries for 4 different reasons.

Menu:
Akara from South Africa.
Tortilla espanol and asparagus with citrus sauce from Spain.
Scones from England.
Cookies FROM THE U.S.A!


The reasons: Spain: a high ranked team; South Africa: you should always respect the host; U.S.A we live there; England it's a great place.

Mom's interruption
What a yummy dinner! And easy to make. Other than the cookies, which we made the day before the dinner, we made everything after a long day that included both a trip to the zoo and a play date with friends.

Tortilla espanol is much like an omelet or an Italian frittata. Akara are black-eyed pea fritters. The cookies were classic tollhouse but with peanut butter and chocolate chips, because, after all, what's more American than peanut butter! :)

Back to M
Well, here's a little info about U.S.A. and the World Cup. The U.S.A. has hosted one. It was in 1994. The mascot was Striker. They have never won one. More about Striker: Striker is a English football(Soccer)-mad dog. He has the U.S.A. kit on. Weeelll, I guess that's it. Enjoy the World Cup!!!!!! Bonus: How many times did I say U.S.A.?(the one in the question counts!)

Back to Mom for links to the recipes.
Mom again:
This is the best recipe for akara that I have found: http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Akara.
For the asparagus, I planned to make this sauce but at the last minute, just mixed olive oil, yogurt, and orange juice. How did I cook before the internet??

Late Posts: South Africa & Malaysia

We have been cooking plenty but not writing these last couple of weeks. We've had two Around the World dinners since our last post. The first was on April 10. In honor of South Africa hosting this summer's World Cup soccer tournament, we made a South African dinner. We made two courses, a main and a dessert. The main course is a popular South African street vendor food, bunny chow. It is curry served inside a bread bowl. The bread serves as the container and the utensil and is supposed to have originated as a way to serve workers who couldn't afford their own spoons or bowls. We chose to fill our bread with a simple chickpea and tomato curry that I make frequently and which is a family favorite. For dessert, we made Malva pudding. The recipe came from Recipezaar, one of my favorite go to spots for recipes. The recipes for Malva pudding is here. I agree with the review declaring this "the most fab pud ever!"

Last Wed, we made a dinner from Malaysia, in order to see what Dad (aka Steve) would eat on his business trip to Penang, Malaysia. We made Malaysian rojak, a salad made of pineapple, cucumber, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts. The dressing is usually very spicy but I left out the chilis and just used honey, vinegar, and a little olive oil. Steve and I added red chili paste to our salad. M isn't a fan of bean sprouts but still enjoyed the rojak. I also made Char kway teow, a Malaysian Chinese dish which is kind of like fried rice, except with rice noodles instead of rice. I don't have a good link to the recipe, as I mixed several recipes together. I've always had a hard time making fried rice at home and the char kway teow had a similar problem; it didn't seem as "fried" as it sounded like it should have been. But it was still tasty. I look forward to hearing about the char kway teow that Steve is trying in Malaysia and having it for myself at a local Malaysian restaurant (Peninsula Malaysia) to see how close I got it. M saw a Mango and Tofu stir fry on Peninsula's menu and is eager to try that one!