La Noche Mexicana, ole!

The lime made it refreshing, and it was suuuuper creamy.

Tonight was Mexican Night. I found an avocado hummus recipe and couldn't help myself so I ran with a south of the border theme. First it was a "green food" theme, then I realized I didn't want an all green meal. The hummus was awesome, I used a whole lime, two 16 oz cans of garbanzo beans, 4 cloves of garlic, olive oil and two avocados. Blend and boom!

The main part of the meal was black bean, sweet potato, onion and cabbage enchiladas, this part is cooked on the stove for 45 min. I accidentally dumped a TON of jalapenos into the sauce, but it ended up with the perfect amount of spice. It was tomato sauce, salsa, hot sauce, salt (tomato sauce here is suuuuper sweet so it might not be necessary in the States). Topped with sauce and cheese and baked for 20 minutes.

I also went for veggie stuffed roasted red peppers. Black beans, corn, onions, tomatoes, cilantro and garlic were stewed first. Microwaved the pepper halves for 4 minutes (sounds weird but it turned out perfectly), stuffed them and topped them with cheese. Baked on 400 for 20 minutes. So simple and quick, super healthy and very yummy.

The cheese stands alone

It began with a wheel of cheese.  A week ago our Spanish class met at the organic market held Thursdays in Ciudad Colon.  We were tasked with asking vendors about their wares and about Costa Rican cultural tidbits.  There were few stands, but the offerings were interesting -- herbal medicines, pastries, shampoos, specialty cooking oils.  One seller had fresh fish and cheese.  Cheese is readily available here, but not in the many iterations enjoyed at home or in other countries with rich cheese cultures.  Instead, Costa Rica has two staple cheeses: cheese for frying and cheese not for frying.  You can absolutely find other kinds, but they tend to be both more elusive and more expensive.  Thus, it was with great excitement that I tasted the sample cubes of cheese this vendor was offering.  The cheese was soft and creamy -- reminiscent of fresh mozzarella.  Impulsively, I bought a wheel, but once I got home, sliced open the plastic covering, and eagerly cut myself a slice, the cheese had transmogrified into a hunk of grocery store quality dairy product.  The delicate flavor was gone; the softness had disappeared; disappointment quickly set in.  I had no idea how I was going to eat a kilo of mediocre cheese before it went bad.  And frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to eat it at all.  Then I remembered a recipe I'd been saving.

Out to dinner at an Indian restaurant last semester I'd eaten a creamed spinach dish. There is a similar version of this recipe that calls for paneer -- fresh cheese.  I figured I could make saag paneer using my hunk of ho-hum cheese.  What I made Wednesday wasn't exactly what I'd eaten at the restaurant, but it was definitely edible.  I daintily ate around the cheese -- just couldn't get over that disappointment -- but everyone else seemed to enjoy theirs.  I served the palak paneer over rice, and made Turkmen flat-bread and a nice salad to accompany the main-course.

Dessert this week?  Banana-brown sugar ice cream.  By far my favorite part of the meal :)

I've had a few people request the recipes from our dinners.  While some meals are products of creative inspiration, mine are always recipe based.  I'm happy to provide the recipes I use, but I can't promise that from everyone else :)

Saag paneer:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/saag-paneer-spinach-with-indian-cheese-recipe/index.html

Banana-brown sugar ice cream: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/03/banana-ice-cream-recipe/


AND NOW.....

I'm writing for Cam this week also.  I got home from Spanish class on Thursday evening and found the kitchen counters covered in bowls filled with chopped technicolor vegetables.  It was beautiful.  Cam's meal was a paella inspired dish. Spicy veggies served over rice and topped with avocado were accompanied by amazing fried plantains.  I recall a time in my life when I didn't like plantain.  That was foolish.  Plantains are delicious.

Delicious though plantains may be, they are not bananas.  Lest anyone get confused at the grocery store (ahem: Blake).

When Casey's gone...

MEAT!!!! Tuesday night I made mozzarella- and zucchini-stuffed breaded chicken cutlets with broccoli and curry potatoes on the side. We were all lovin' having some meat! It was scrumptious and perfectly cooked. (Thanks to Sam for telling me to pull the cutlets out when she did; otherwise I would've overcooked 'em.)

Meat is a rare but appreciated treat. So it's a good thing Casey is pretty or else we might kick him out in place of bacon and steak! ;)

The path to the soul is dotted with Reese's

Breakfast for dinner! Always a treat. Last night (I'm lazily only getting to this post now) Casey made french toast with a banana-strawberry sauce along with a couple side salads. One, fruit. The other, peppers, onions and casava - it had a home fries kind of essence.

All was tasty but I give the french toast, in particular, two enthusiastic thumbs up! I had never had french toast made of baguette (a great idea!) nor had I ever had it with such a great topping. A+, Casey.

And top things off, he put together one of the greatest deserts I've ever witnessed: A giant bowl of Reese's peanut butter cups. Delish.

Cameron, hoarding the after-dinner treats

Oh yeah! Keshia joined us. She's always a delight :)

La Cena Española

Cam's plate pre-croutons

Woohoo! My first post! I have to admit Camron's sushi raised the bar for all of us and I really thought about what I wanted to make. Typically I go overboard on veggies but stick to really fresh, clean flavors. It was incredibly hot today and we were all outside watching the Horse Parade (which degenerated into random acts of police brutality against both humans and kids...so random) all day and gazpacho was the perfect thing.

I went with a Spanish theme with traditional gazpacho with basil croutons  (we grew the basil!), uber veggie quesadillas (red pepper, broccoli, onion, cabbage) and roasted red pepper, eggplant and zucchini. This was my first solo gazpacho and I kept finding whack recipes calling for canned tomato sauce. I sincerely doubt that gazpacho made in the campo of Spain to serve agrarian workers for lunch back in the day really involved Campbell's soup so I just used a ton of tomatoes. Ended up underestimating the volume of my tomatoes so I had to make enough gazpacho for an army. We'll be eating it for ages...and that's a really good thing. Blake was the ultimate sous-chef and housed the vegetable cutting with me. Thanks Blake!

With croutons!

Veggielicious

Raising the bar

Usually I would take time to write a detailed report of a delicious meal and the company and the convo etc. etc. etc. But tonight, I think the images will speak 1000 words... Suffice it to say that Cameron brought it the next level and really raised the bar with this delicious (mostly) vegetarian sushi.

See video below to take your sushi food porn experience to the max.

Spooning is fun.

Just good fun...

It is my first time contributing to this delicious forum, but certainly not the first time I have enjoyed the culinary skill of my wonderful roommates. Cooking is something I have enjoyed since stirring the pancake batter for my dad as an little rascal. My love of cooking grew through the support of my Mama and sister; who taught me that simple food tastes good...but most importantly a little wine makes any meal all the better. Bean, corn, zucchini and cheese Quesadillas, with a few spices thrown in, and avocado salad to compliment were helped by a large bottle of Cab Sav and some laughs along the way. People make the food worth making, and the food helps to bring us together..............it also helps when you have orgasmically delicious leftover beet brownies to round out a meal. Can food be better than sex? Discuss.

My heart beets for you

It's no secret that I like to bake.  For me, dinner is just an excuse to find an interesting dessert recipe.  Finding baking chocolate in Ciudad Colon, however, has been an issue.  And yet, our local grocery store works in mysterious ways; unusual items appear on the shelves at random intervals.  This week, I serendipitously happened upon a kilo-sized bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips -- the only bag on the shelf -- and snatched it right up, pausing only a moment to ponder whether or not it was worth the ten dollar price tag.  It was.  Recently, Cam mentioned having once eaten beet brownies, and I was curious to try them.  Blake had a Valentine's Day date and couldn't cook, so I was responsible for tonight's dinner.  Beet brownies were the perfect Valentine's Day dessert.  The beet was gorgeous and red and the brownies rich and gooey.

It looks like a heart!

Cam surprised Amanda and me with ice-cream treats, and we wound down the evening watching Chocolat.  It was lovely.

 
Valentine's Day menu:
Spinach cake with bacon
Baked plantain
Dark chocolate beet brownies

Yes, I will be having seconds :)

Ingredients layered in the blender

Dinner is served

And silence reigned supreme

It was unusually quiet around the dinner table tonight.  The conversation died as we all bit into Blake's pizza.  There were no inappropriate conversations.  No witty banter.  Just rapturous chewing.  Blake made a pesto pizza with potatoes, broccoli, and bacon.  It was pretty damn good.  We had a nice salad, too -- with celery greens, which I frankly had never thought about eating.  As the other five finished their dinners, I was left alone at the table, easting slowly and savoring every last bite.

Then Blake accidentally hit Casey in the balls, the silence was broken, and laughter filled the house once more.

Menu:
Pesto pizza topped with potatoes, garlic, onion; one half topped with broccoli, the other bacon
Celery green salad with tomatoes, avocado, and honey mustard balsamic vinaigrette 

Catching up to speed

This blog exists to document our epic mealtimes. But we were inspired to create it only after several magnificent meals had passed by. All have been incredibly delicious and deserve recognition. Of course great meals in the future will be more eloquently and mouthwateringly described, with pictures to match. Until then, here's the recap:

Last night, Sam came over and made a fresh and tasty pasta primavera with shrimp in a spicy cream sauce. After, we enjoyed some Oreo-crusted Nutella cheesecake. (This is food porn.) Other than last night, though, the dinners have been by the following iron chefs:

Jess, bakestress extraordinaire:
Roasted vegetable quiche
This-shit-is-bananas bread
Thick and stuffed calzones
Butterscotch and vanilla puddings
Shak Shuka
Mango fool (not to be confused with, "Mango, fool.")
Apple cake (not to be confused with apple pie)

Casey, the man with the pan:
Spicy vegetarian chili
Roasted red peppers
Grilled cheese with tomato soup. Classic.
Bomb-ass black bean burgers w/ mashed potatoes

Amanda "The Flavor Maker" Johnson:
Fish tacos with mango chutney
3 salad medley - chickpea, cucumber, and mexican bean salads
Mediterranean medley - caprese, roasted balsamic eggplant, red pepper carpaccio
Fried egg and rice with curry vegetables and baked fruit

Cameron, the kitchen contendor:
Thai peanut stir fry
Eggplant zucchini lasagna
Stuffed bell peppers with orange glazed beets

Shake-n-Blake:
Peanut stir fry (more Chinese than Thai)
Eggplant parmesan
Vegetarian cashew korma over rice
Bacon-wrapped, cream cheese-stuffed jalepenos
Breaded avocado fries with roasted garlic and lemon cilantro dipping sauces

The newest edition to Casa 116

He goes by Maizy Jankytail. Or Janky. Or Miss J. Or Mojave. Or Gobi. Or she/her. (We're not 100% on the gender yet.) He's not always so mellow...

We started a gang

There's a turf war going on. Drive-by spreadings and everything. It's a gang war between the Crunchys and the Creamys. Me? I'm a crunchy. Cam-cam is too. PB for life.

And luckily we've got allies. We've got out sister gangs, the Apples and the Honeys. But the Jellys? They side with the Creamys. There's also the Chocolates, and the Celery Stalks. They haven't picked sides yet...

It's been a long-standing and underground war. But watch out: It's coming to a supermarket near you.

This ain't your mama's gallo pinto

Hola!

This is a blog about a house. And a country. And some people, too. We are graduate students living in Costa Rica. We room together. We cook together. We live together. This blog documents our inroads into the world of culinary expression by way of our amazing, tasty, and sometimes funky family dinners. The food is great, the conversations are raunchy, and the people are amazing. This blog will also document - albeit marginally - our brief time here in Costa Rica, our adventures and misadventures and, at times, our deepest musings. Enjoy and bon appetit!

Top-down: Casey, Blake, Cameron

Left to Right: Jess, Amanda, Sam