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KZ KitchenIf more of us valued good food & cheer & song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien |
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Fowl Favorites
Hot Chicken Salad is one of my favorite dishes. Even when I was a child, I would choose it as my special meal on birthdays. I thought that I would post it this week, because it would be simple to substitute leftover-Thanksgiving-Day turkey for the chicken called for in the recipe.
White rice, prepared Grilled, baked or roasted chicken (or other fowl) peas, fresh or frozen cream of chicken soup chopped onion chopped celery mayonnaise salt & pepper to taste
Taking Gingerbread to Another Level Part of Pipe's homework this week is to find out how to make my cookies look better. Spread is a problem when baking at high altitude. Since he is interested in Science and requested that he be assigned to investigate something on the internet, I told him to figure out what I need to do to correct this.
At the last minute, Shawna needed an adult to watch the kids for part of Saturday evening. Joel already had plans to attend a concert and I had a class to teach at 3, though. A few calls and emails later, Liliana was willing to change the meeting place of our ESL class to Shawna's kitchen, so I agreed to "babysit" for a few hours.
After correcting written ESL homework and reading aloud to practice pronunciation, I pulled out a recipe for gingerbread cookies; it was time for some more practical practice of the English language. The first step was to review kitchen vocabulary and to make sure that Liliana remembered the English equivalents for the ingredients. She underlined "beater" and "speed" as two of the words that she didn't recognize in the instructions. "Ginger" and "molasses" were other unfamiliar terms. Since it was difficult to aquire these to ingredients here in Bogota, I was somewhat prepared to explain these two...well, actually, I had to use substitutes: freshly grated ginger instead of the dry ground variety, and a product called "dulce duemado (tintura de panela)".
At this point, Caylie and Pipe found their way into the kitchen to help me with my English class (I had to keep reminding them not to speak in Spanish). I reminded Pipe of his assignment, and he finally got a suggestion of more flour and less liquid from Caylie's big sister, Elena.
The kids creamed together the butter and sugar while Liliana grated the ginger. We all worked at cleaning the oven (result from earlier Thanksgiving baking) while the dough chilled in the refrigerator.
Rolling out the dough was a new experience for them, I think. They needed to be instructed on flouring the rolling pin, rolling the dough out to an even thickness, and choosing similar shapes to avoid burning and breakage.
We only ended up with 2 sheets of cookies, because it must be an worldwide custom to eat more raw dough than baked cookies.
I set aside 7 cookies for the adults, but I was told by Pipe's mom, that they never saw them.
Gingerbread Men: 4 cups (500 grams) all purpose flour 1/4 teaspoons salt 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated brown sugar
1 small egg 1 teaspoons grated ginger, fresh 1/3 cup (160 ml) granulated brown sugar 1/3 cup dulce duemado (tintura de panela)
oil to grease cookie sheets
Instructions: Sift dry ingredients together in a large bowl; set aside. Cream butter and 1/2 cup of the granulated brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg, grated ginger, additional 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup dulce duemado; mix until well combined. Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time to form the cookie dough. At this point I use my hands to finish mixing the dough; the warmth of your hands helps to soften the butter and make it less crumbly. Form the dough into a ball and cover it with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Place the bowl of dough in the refrigerator. Many recipes recommend that you refrigerate the dough for 2-4 hours or even overnight. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/8" on a lightly floured surface. Choose similarly sized/shaped cookie cutters so that the cookies bake evenly. Transfer the cut-out dough to a greased baking sheet, using a spatula/pancake turner. Bake in an oven that has been pre-heated to 400*F (REMEMBER THAT I AM BAKING AT HIGH ALTITUDE) for 8-10 minutes. You will want to keep your eye on the cookies as they bake so that they don't burn. Pull them out before they look "done" or else they may burn or have a cracked surface (as you can see in the photograph above).
Peanut Butter at a Price Do you remember the peanut butter scare in the USA earlier this year? I don't suppose too many people are still scared of salmonella from their Jiffy or Peter Pan spreads. However, since moving to South America, I've encountered a different problem: PRICE.
Manis (peanuts) are the only nut that you can count on being able to purchase (availability and cost) at the local co-operative (grocery store). On the contrary, manteca de mani is muy costoso (expensive). I did buy one small jar to replace a friend's stock after making a batch of buckeye candies, but haven't really found good enough reason to spend so much money again.
This week I remembered that I had heard of people making their own natural peanut butter at home. I looked for recipes on the internet to see if I could whip anything up in my blender (I don't have a food processor and am notorious for breaking blenders).
In general the internet recipes call for:
1 cup roasted peanuts
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon honey (optional)
1 1/2 T oil (preferably peanut oil)
First process the peanuts, salt and honey together. Add the oil, drizzling it in bit by bit. Continue processing for 2 to 3 minutes, until it reaches the consistency that you prefer. If you like it really chunky, you could chop some of the peanuts up separately and stir them in by hand.
Carrots for a CrowdThanksgiving is a time to think about the blessings that the Lord has given to you in the past year. However, you cannot exactly describe the holiday as a time of quiet, personal reflection. Rarely, have we ever escaped an invitation to a large gathering whether it be with family or friends, and this year, even in another country on another continent, is no exception. Monday afternoon, we plan to head to Shawna's house for Thanksgiving dinner. My assignment is to bring a "salad". The recipe that she sent is as follows: 1 cup sugar
That's a lot of carrots!
Under Pressure: BeansFruit & Fiber: definitely not things that are missing in Colombia. The neighborhood tiendas are overflowing with fresh papaya, pinapple, mango, apples, and other less common fruits. The supermarkets have entire aisles of dried beans, too. But that's the problem if you don't have (or don't want to own) a pressure cooker. A novice like myself could take over a week soaking and simmering the large frijoles, only to end up with still-hard beans. The alternative is to buy them canned, already softened and seasoned with fatty pieces of tocino (bacon). Last weekend I walked to Exito and wandered up and down the aisles. Lo! What doth mine eyes behold? Small, black beans? SMALL and BLACK??? And so, I decided to try once more to prepare beans from scratch. After soaking them overnight, I rinsed them then boiled them with a chicken bone for a bit of flavor. EXITO!!! (both the name of the store and the spanish word for success). My first batch was small, in case of failure. I blended some canned corn with leftover spicy vegetable broth and then added the black beans and whole corn kernels and simmered it on the stove for a few minutes. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro.
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