Pollo Arvejado - Chile chicken recipe :-)

Hey Guys!!!

This week has been crazy - and it's not even half over! Micah is counting down the days till the end of the semester, as am I! I have t-minus 60 days until graduation and then I'm off on my world trip! Despite our super busy life, and looooooong work weeks, we're still chugging on with this project. We've tried hard to stick to our own rules, but sometimes we've got to make allowances so that we can even cook anything in the first place!

Anyway...moving along to the food aspect of this post - this week we decided to cook a meal from Chile: Pollo Arvejado. I don't even know what Arvejado means, but it must be something good because this dish was probably my favorite so far!

This recipe was relatively easy to make, and surprisingly, we already had all of the ingredients in our kitchen. It's funny how cooking regularly actually helps one stockpile standard ingredients...not to mention, I've become a very good shopper now. I used to walk into a grocery store and get the same five items. Now, I actually know what the spice isle contains - a whole new world just opened up for me!

OK - got side tracked, again! Back to the food: we pretty much cooked this by the book, as usual. We did, however, serve this with baked sweet potatoes and yams instead of the recommended fried potatoes. The reasons being: 1) we didn't have regular potatoes, and, 2) the last time I tried to "fry" something on our stove top...it was a huge, huge mess.

Which brings me to a question I have (for you people out there reading this!): Is it possible to fry something without having a fryer? Is there some sort of stove-top way of doing this? Answers are appreciated!

Polo Arvejado verdict: DELICIOUS (at least when I made it!). The peas/onions/carrots had a nice, flavorful taste, the chicken was tender, and the baked roots really added texture to the dish.

This weekend Micah and I are road-tripping home to meet up with some German family which is in town - hopefully I can convince my German grandmother to write down some recipes for me :-)

See ya'll next time!


P.S. Both of our cameras are completely dead and I can't get any of our pictures off of them! Hopefully I'll get those pictures up here within this week!

Zimbabwe! Stopping by Africa for some delicious greens, rice, and sweet potato cookies!

Tonight we had a fabulous meal! Veggies, peanut butter, sugar, and glaze - how could it not be amazing?

First things first - we picked Zimbabwe on a whim today, 32 minutes before Micah was getting off work. Two texts and it was a done deal.

Our dinner for the evening was Zimbabwean greens, served with rice and sweet potato cookies with a lemon glaze for a sweet ending.

The greens themselves were very easy to make - I've never cooked collard greens so unfortunately for me, I didn't really know what a cooked one tastes like. Either way, I enjoyed it (which is all that really matters, right?). The recipe itself was good - easy to follow and easy to make. I preferred a stronger peanut taste so I added extra peanut butter and a little peanut oil which did the trick.

The cookies were DIVINE. I can't resist sugar. I will do just about anything for a good apple pie, which is probably the reason why I have a hard time keeping off those pounds. I would be able to justify walking miles through the snow for a good winter cookie.

Anyway, these cookies are just about as close to heaven as it gets. Think carrot cake, pumpkin cookies, and donut glaze mixed into one delicious super-desert. Take this cookie recipe and make it a family tradition. Pass it onto your grandchildren, your landlord...hell, the grumpy old man next door. Everyone deserves to try it.

If after all of this praise, you find that you don't actually like the cookies, one of two things happened: 1) You clearly have underdeveloped taste buds, or, 2) Your significant other already ate the entire batch of cookies when you weren't looking and left a fake behind.

Anyway, our introduction to Zimbabwean food was a major success. It tasted great, looked great, AND it was my first solo flight in the kitchen (no Micah around to stop me from demolishing our apartment!).

YAY! :-)

Madagascar - Our first attempt at Curry.

Onions = pain!

Curry is one of those foods that you just don't mess with. It's like the Mount Everest of cooking for me - you can't get any higher than that...unless you pay a few million dollars or you're best friends with Niel Armstrong.

Kody looking a little confused about the new smells coming out of the kitchen!

Well, I don't have a million dollars (or the stamina to climb Mount Everest)...and apparently it is not yet the time for me to know how to make curry either.

Either way, our attempt was edible (click here for the recipe!) AND I learned how to peel a tomato using hot water, a trick my dad decided to bestow upon us just when Micah was getting ready to peel the tomatoes by hand. The moment was captured when my dad said: "I've tried for years to be "cool"...and all I needed to do was to peel a tomato with hot water. I don't understand women."

Angels sang when this moment happened!

My Dad, AKA the tomato peeling master.

Anywho, we ate the curry and didn't get sick, so I consider our first try a true success. Numerous things went wrong - 1st) we didn't add enough onions (which suck up water), 2nd) we added too much coconut milk.

Our curry paste

With that said, the shrimp (no prawns available at our local supermarket) were delicious...definitely a great way to make them for a stand-alone meal!

For desert we had used about every tool in the house to get a some cold glasses of coconut milk which we paired with freshly scooped watermelon. Delicious :-)

The finished product!

The coconut was not an easy beast to tame.

Yummy coconut milk :-)

Shhh! I'm shootin' Wabbits! Making Rabbit Pie and Fish Cakes in New Zealand!

Ahh...New Zealand :-)

When I first mentioned the idea of eating like the Kiwi's do, Micah actually had to check the map to see where New Zealand was. My hysterical laughs clued him into the fact that New Zealand wasn't in Northern Europe after all. Needless to say, that sealed the deal (Yes, we really DID need to know more about this country).

Elmer Fudd making Rabbit Pie. :-)

Contrary to their nickname, this group of people does not subsist just on ugly, green fruit - they do, however, live quite comfortably on a nice range of food.

The biggest challenge here was that we didn't even know what food from New Zealand entailed. I mean, we were getting Martha Stewart recipes for a "New Zealand Summer Salad" - if I wanted that, I could go out to the nearest Crispers and call it a day. We were sure that there must be something in their cuisine which was different. After turning to our ever faithful Wikipedia, we decided to cook Rabbit Pie and Fish Cakes.

Buying rabbit meat was our biggest problem - we checked two different places and then eventually found it at good ol' Publix (who knew?). Unfortunately, we were assisted in our search by one of the most eager Publix butchers I've ever met, who also politely informed us that in case we were looking for Ostrich meat (????), we would have to make the drive down to Central Florida personally. Additionally, he pointed out that an Ostrich egg comes with the hidden benefit of being able to function as a liquor flask once empty. Never would have guessed.

Can you freakin' believe that we made this? By ourselves? It tasted great too - just wanted to brag a little!

Enlightened with new-found knowledge on the diverse uses for an ostrich egg, we arrived at home and started cookin' it up. The end result was delicious - if there is one meat you must venture out and try before you die, please make it rabbit! Tasty and a little tough, it added a really unique flavor to the pie. Substituting with beef would have left us with a sloppy attempt at Shepherds Pie, or some other pub alternative.
Word for the wise? Try making your own pastry. We took a shortcut and used the ready-make croissant dough they sell at the supermarket. It worked...somewhat (and tasted great too) but I feel like it would have been even better meal with the real stuff.

Rabbit Pie - about two seconds before I breathed it in out of hunger.

The fish cakes were equally as enjoyable. They reminded me a lot of British pub food, which I think is a compliment. Not too spicy, a little on the greasy side; probably the most delicious soul-food ever, and well worth the cooking effort. I would make this any day and my taste buds would thank me.

Fish Pie - delicious!

Our verdict? New Zealand ROCKS our socks off. We would definitely "visit" there again...except next time we might stay forever :-)

We've missed you guys!

Well, by you guys, we mean our lovely friends who are reading this :-)

Thanks for the nudge to get going on this thing! So...believe it or not, we have been cooking and eating, A LOT. I like the cooking. Micah really, really likes the eating.

Have we been blogging? Obviously not so much!

Anyhow, we've "visited" New Zealand, Madagascar, and now we're in Zimbabwe. Quite the trip around the world, if you ask me!

We've posted or are trying to post all the foods we've cooked since we've had our online hiatus. Life has been so busy recently, but somehow we've still found time to cook together. It's been really great to learn how to create edible food as a team and it's making us really excited to start both of our respective lives abroad. Our...real, non-fake lives abroad!

For those of you who don't know, December is the launching point for my 1.5 yr job/traveling stint around the world and Micah's two year commitment to the Peace Corps starts the following May (no word yet on where he will be!). Anyway, cooking together has given us a sense of security knowing that at the very least, wherever we end up, we will at least be able to eat!

Fighting or quarrels in the kitchen are minimal...perhaps because we sort of view our meals as a "threat"; we use teamwork to "defeat" it. Often I catch myself saying several times how much I enjoy doing this project with Micah - for someone who used to hate kitchens, I've sure become a convert!

:-)