Glazed Apple Bread

This will make your house smell like fall deliciousness and you'll want to eat the whole thing because of that fact. <-- Just a disclaimer.

So I made this Glazed Apple Bread not with apples but with plantains that I've had in the freezer for who knows how long. As a side note, why do people throw away bananas? Just pop them in the freezer when they're about to go bad and use them later to bake with or for doggie treats! Chuki loves them, especially when it's hot out and we're laying out on the terrace.

Anyways this recipe comes from a new food blog that I just found out about through my Google Reader. It's called PassTheSushi.com. I haven't looked around at all on the site, so I'm not really saying anything about it, besides that this bread was fantastic!

The original recipe makes 2 loaves, but because we're only two people and not that big of fatties (although if I had made two loaves, we would have eaten two), I decided to 1/2 the recipe. Here's how it works:

3/4 cup of frozen mashed plantains (about 4)

1/2 cup of panela (similar to brown sugar but earlier in the sugar making process)

1/4 cup of buttermilk (put 1/4 cup of milk and 1 tsp of lemon juice in a cup, stir, let set 5 minutes)

1/4 cup of sunflower oil

2 lightly beaten eggs

1.5 cups of flour (2 cups if you're at high altitude)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix plantains, panela, buttermilk, oil and eggs. Add dry ingredients. Combine until all are wet. Put in buttered bread tin. Bake at 350 for 50ish minutes.

Glaze -

Note: I forgot I had 1/2ed the bread recipe and made the full glaze recipe. This is dangerous, because now I want glaze on everything. Glaze on eggs, glaze on granola, glaze on you name it!

2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup panela

1 tbsp milk + 1 tsp

1/4 - 1/2 cup of powdered sugar

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add panela. Mix continuously. Bring to boil for 2 minutes. Add milk. Bring to boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. MIX MIX MIX.

Let the mixture cool down for 30 minutes. Put saucepan in a bowl of cold water. Slowly add powdered sugar depending on desired sweetness. (I added about 1/3 cup and it was plenty sweet for me.) Add milk until you are able to drizzle the glaze over the bread. ENJOY warm with butter. Sinful, I know.

MULUB,

Taylor

Red Sauce

It kind of looks really gross in this picture. Sorry.

I've been making red sauce for a while now and have never thought to look at a recipe. You know just put some tomatoes in the pot, season, simmer. Done. But with my new Google Reader I saw that a while ago my favorite food blog, smittenkitchen, had posted a recipe for red sauce.

Apparently, this is a hotly debated topic, especially amongst Italians. Who knew? I followed her instructions, which were much more labor intensive than mine. But the sauce turned out great. Before, my sauce was really chunky, more like a ragout instead of a sauce. And what I needed today was a sauce, something pourable and spreadable to cover a lasagna that I had made a while back.

So here it is: super simple red sauce, that's actually saucy.

4 lbs of tomatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

one onion

1 head of garlic

1 red pepper

1/2 head of broccoli

1 tsp salt

a pinch of aji flakes

1/4 cup of basil

Remember I said a little labor intensive - but don't let that scare you. I had done all of the prep work in 20 minutes, max.

Boil a small pot of water. Wash your tomatoes. Cut a X in the bottom of them. Place them in the boiling water for 30 seconds. Immediately put under cold water. Peel the skins off your tomatoes and set aside.

Cut tomatoes into quarters and de-seed. Dispose of the seed in a strainer over a bowl. You want to keep the juice that comes out.

Rough chop tomatoes.

In a food processor put your onion, broccoli, red pepper and garlic. Process until paste like.

Heat olive oil in a medium pot. Add paste like veggies. Cook for 10 minutes. Add tomatoes. Add aji flakes and salt. Simmer for 30ish minutes. While simmering mash your tomatoes periodically to help break down the chunks.

Add basil. Simmer another 5 minutes. Taste, re-season, eat out of the pot like I did. It's really good.

Pretending it's Fall

Now that we're half way through September, Ryan and I have really been missing fall at home. The thought of Edward's Apple Orchard just makes me sick with yearning. What I would give for a peck of Honeycrisps, a liter of cider and a whole dozen, yes you heard right, a whole dozen of donuts! Meanwhile, back in our reality, it's been hotter than hades here! I get so hot that I feel like my skin is made of plastic. Usually it's in the afternoons when I'm on my hour bus ride to my little kids class and there are 50 million people on the bus and of course every single one of them doesn't even notice the heat, besides me! Geeze people! I think this is the reason people put their infants in snow suits here, because they want them to be accustomed to being hot ALL OF THE TIME during these weeks!

I've been meaning to have an all day cooking day for a while now. But I've been really busy with classes, which is a whole other post! As you know, it's quite a tight month and it's only exasperated when there seems to be no food in the house. So I've been meaning to cook a ton of food so it's one less thing to worry about! Combine that with my few found obsession: Google Reader (more to come). And I have all of my food blogs in one easy place with about a billion containing the tag TO COOK.

So today was the day. I made red sauce to cover the lasagna from last week that's nakedly sitting in my freezer. I made Glazed Apple Bread, except with bananas because I live in the ex-banana republic. And I made Caldo Xochitl, a mexican soup. Plus I started soaking the beans for the Pumpkin 3 Bean Chili I'm going to make tomorrow.

And wouldn't you know it that as I started to cook my fall-esque foods, the temperature dropped to darn right chili. I had to put on a long sleeve shirt over my shorts and tank top! I turned on some David Gray (the epitome of fall music and such a reminder of sophomore year of high school!). Once that bread was in the oven, it really felt and smelt like fall! For all I knew, I could have been at home in the midwest. Except for those big Andean mountains outside my window! It was glorious and good for the soul!

I'm happy to report that EVERYTHING is DELICIOUS! Of course, I made some tweaks to the originally posted recipes based on what's available here in the South of Americas. So please, enjoy!

MULUB,

Taylor

Cooking on a Budget

Some people may say we're on a budget, we just say that this month we're poor. Now this isn't the first month that we've been pretty poor, in fact it's probably the 5th out of the 7 that we've been here. So we've had to really figure out how to stretch our money when it comes to cooking. Which, has been hard seeing that Ryan and I love to eat and we love to eat nice things! While we've had to sacrifice somethings that are just too expensive, we still eat food that is super tasty (for the most part)!

Some of the advantages of being down here are that fruits and veggies are SUPER cheap. So if all else fails, salad it is! Plus we always have rice in the house. The combinations of rice are endless... fried rice, rice salad, curried rice, turmeric rice, veggies and rice, beans and rice, etc.

Tuna Casserole is one of the dishes that we've made a couple of times during particularly tight months. It's cheap, it's really filling, and it's 1/2 way healthy. Now, most tuna casserole's call for cream of something soup. But the thought of cream of something soup grosses me out, it's not healthy and we'll it's expensive to buy here. So I did lots of digging online to figure out how to get creamy tuna casserole without cream of whatever soup.

Here's what I came up with (adapted from singforyoursupper.com)

500 grams of noodles

2 cups of fresh peas

3 cups of stock (either canned or from bullion)

about 4 oz of butter

all of the veggies you want (I used 2 onions, 2 green peppers, 1 carrot)

6 cloves of garlic

about 6 heaping tbsps of flour

2 cup of milk

A handful of cheese

1 large can of tuna

Salt, Pepper, Sage, and aji to taste (I wish that we had tarragon down here, but I'll have to settle for sage.)

Cook the noodles and the peas separately. You want them on the al dente side. If you're making stock from bullion get that started in the beginning too.

In a large pot or pan melt the butter, add the veggies and saute. About 5 minutes. Add the garlic; let set for another couple of minutes. Add the flour slowly, one tablespoon at a time. Make sure to incorporate the flour each time you add it. Stop adding flour once all of the liquid has been absorbed. Let set for a couple of minutes. Slowly add the stock, stirring after each cup. Then slowly add the milk, stirring, stirring, stirring. Your pot should look like a really thick sauce, kind of like cream of whatever soup.

In the noodle pot (after you've drained the noodles) add the peas, the sauce, the cheese, the tuna and your seasonings. It needs lots of salt, lots of pepper and if you like it spicy lots of aji.

Keep half in the pot and put the other half in a casserole dish, wrap tight and freeze.

All in all, I figure that we get 12 servings from this recipe. We spent under $6 on the ingredients. So it's approximately $.50 per serving. And did I mention it's really filling; perfect after a long run!

Next Ryan's going to repost the Nutella cake that he made for my birthday = WATCH OUT!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I would definitely recommend it. I thought that it was an easy ready and pretty entertaining. I'm not usually much of a mystery reader, more the history or biography type. I'm not going to tell you anything about the book, except that it can be pretty gruesome in parts. The two things that I really like is that it's part of a series and they're all available for the Kindle.

I'm starting the second book in the series either today or tomorrow and I'm hoping that that one is equally good. I always hate when the second part of something is never as good (Eat, Pray, Love --> Committed, Sex and the City 1 --> Sex and the City 2)

Happy Reading Everyone!

MULUB,

Taylor

no.visitors.

Let me preface this by saying - WE LOVE HAVING PEOPLE VISIT US AND STAY WITH US. It's one of the things we love most about being away! But sometimes you just need a break!

It's been so great to have some down time this week! I've been able to do exactly what I want to do and we've been able to spend some real relaxing time together.

Saturday we had all day to ourselves but we really didn't do anything. Just cleaned up a bit and waited for Chuki to come home. We had boarded him at Lord Guau, an American owned boarding facility outside of Quito. They picked him up and dropped him off, so we never actually saw the place = BIG MISTAKE! He came back crazy. Needless to say, we're still working on calming him down 5 days later. But we needed to begin the process of figuring out where to put him when we're home at Christmas time. So that's one place crossed off the list.

Saturday night was our friend Rachel's going away party. It was tropical themed. Ryan and I wore towels, which I thought was kind of lame, but there weren't many people in costumes so it ended up being fine.

Sunday we did NOTHING! We watched 5 movies and made sandwiches for all 3 meals. It was fabulous!

Monday we went on our long run, which killed both of us because we hadn't done any running while Corey was here. YIKES! Ryan hurt his knee, he's still in pain, but we were able to finish 12K... only another 9K to go! DOUBLE YIKES!

Also on Monday, I talked to my dearest friend Toby for almost an hour! IT.WAS.AMAZING! It happened to be that she was home alone and I had a ton of time... this never happens! It was so great to talk to her and to catch up. She's always been one of my most valued sounding boards and I've greatly missed the Matson's while I've been away.

We cleaned the house, got Chuki back into his routine, and both started new books on Monday too! All in all, a FANTASTIC day. Plus, to top it off we went to the grocery store together in the evening and made a delicious dinner together. <--- Two of our absolutely favorite things to do together, especially when we're not in a hurry and when we're only cooking for each other.

Then yesterday, I started the day with a swim in the pool and let me tell you the water was SO hot! Hotter than bath water; it was amazing! We both had a ton of classes (which come pay day, will be great!). This month it looks like we're both going to be teaching a lot. Which will bode will for October, when Doug and Roz are here. As far as September, well we didn't teach much in August so it will be slim living until October's pay day. We're talking real slim! Like, if anyone wants to mail us non-perishables we'd love it! =) (Only 1/2 kidding).

Last night we went over to our British friends' house, Sarah and Corine. They have visitors here from University that just completed a 5 week tour of South America and most of them are now spending some time here in Quito, crashing at Sarah and Corine's house. They made a lovely pie-esque dinner. Just a side note - why don't we eat more savory pie in America like they do in Britain? And their friends that are visiting made a Rum Cake. The pie was fantastic, the run cake not-so-much. You needed a coke with it, it was that rummy. I made some chocolate chip cookies from smittenkitchen. Although, I didn't have any baking soda and so I used yeast instead = interesting. But I was really excited because I got to use the peanut butter chips and the butterscotch chips that my mom and dad had brought down for me! Surprisingly, I have no chocolate chips!

Today has started off to be an equally lovely day except for the fact that I found out one of my favorite students is no longer going to be taking classes. =( That did mean that even though I was up at 6, I don't have to leave the house until 9! Which has given me plenty of time to cook breakfast for the puppers, make myself and drink a whole french press of coffee, read my new book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thoroughly prepare for my training today! This afternoon, we'll run and then we both have classes this evening. What I'm most looking forward to is talking to Hannah tonight! And then coming home and making dinner again with Ryan.

All in all, just the first 1/2 of this week has been FABULOUS!

Talk to you all soon!

MULUB,

Taylor

So Many Visitors!

Let me tell you, we have been busy! We've had so many visitors this month!

First the Almond family came to visit for 10 days! We spent a lot of time in Quito, exploring Old Town. Plus, we went to Banos and to Mindo. I fell in love with Mindo and I can't wait to go back.

Then we had My here. Now My is Maria Jose's friend's friend's girlfriend. Crazy, I know! When Maria Jose was here, her friend Kalani visited. All three of us went to LFC but didn't really hang out in the same group of friends (well they did, but I didnt). When Kalani was here they came over to our house for Easter dinner (I think, or some dinner). Kalani studied in Italy this summer with this guy Oliver, whom he met on his trip. Oliver's girlfriend, My, came to visit Oliver in Italy and met Kalani because they were living together. My told Kalani about her travels to Ecuador, Kalani contacted me, My stayed with us! I mean it really is that simple =)

And now Corey is here! Its been so great having him here, especially for Ryan, I think. He's only here for 5 days, so we've been busy. Monday we went to Old Town; yesterday they went to Mitad del Mundo; today we're going to Guayasamin's museum and then I think tomorrow we're going to get out of Quito for a couple of days.

Yesterday was my birthday... I'm officially a quarter of a century old! I feel old! We went out to dinner for Mexican food. It was really good but SOO much food. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, either via facebook or email or the mail! I think I got more cards living in Quito than I ever have living in the States! Thanks so much! It really made my day special!

Corey leaves on Saturday =( Then Saturday night we have a going away party for a girl that was in our training class. That makes 2 to have left from our class. Then we'll have some down time until Doug and Roz get here! We're hoping to plant our garden during that down time, so that will be exciting. Our composting is going well! Its amazing at how much less garbage you throw away when you recycle all of your organic material.

There are a couple of you out there that we've been meaning to schedule Skype/G Chat/Phone dates with and hopefully after Saturday we'll be able to get those done! Don't worry we haven't forgotten about you!

Miss you all!

MULUB,

Taylor

PS. See you all in 98 days!