Pumpkin Scones

I know we're a little past the fall season but here in Ecuador we buy pumpkin just about every time we go to the store. We use it for all sorts of things... Chuki's food, added to mashed potatoes, instead of butter in a baked good. Anywho, we had some left over pumpkin and some left over cream a couple of weeks ago and the only thing that I could think of was pumpkin scones.

Now, I have a bit of a history with pumpkin scones. I've tried many a time to get the perfect scone and have never really succeeded. To me the perfect scone is the walnut scone from Starbucks with just a tad less sugar in the frosting. It's crunch on the outside, cakey in the middle and sweet on top. Perfect! These scones come pretty close to what I think of as the perfect scone.

The recipe is adapted from Love and Olive Oil. Here's what I did:

3 cups of ap flour
1 1/2 tsp b powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp ginger
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp oil
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup of cream
6 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp cinnamon

I did exactly the same instructions at Love and Olive Oil. Which are, basically...
Combine wet with stand mixer. Combine dry (and butter) in food processor until you have coarse crumbs. Combine wet and dry. Knead slightly. Shape into a circle, cut the circle into 8 and back for 15 minutes at 425 degree oven.

For the glaze, mix all ingredients and drizzle on top.

Beware, you might want to make these if you are going somewhere for breakfast where there will be other people. Or you'll end up like us and eat all 8 in 2 days.

MULUB,
Taylor

You probably want to make this...

Interested in extending the holiday of LOVE? Make this for dessert tonight and you'll feel like it's Valentine's Day all over again. I followed the directions exactly and didn't change a thing, so I'm just posting the link. Warm Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake

2 suggestions I would make:
1. Don't strain the raspberries. Just mash them up and be done with them.
2. Don't take it out of the oven too soon. Make sure you wait until the pudding part all comes to the top. It will, just be patient!

Enjoy!
MULUB,
Taylor

Valentine's Day

This is our second Valentine's Day here in Ecuador! Last year we went away for the weekend to Otavalo. It was our first little trip outside of Quito. We had a great time, except for the part when Ryan got sick for 3 days because he got dehydrated on a hike. Oops! We've learned a lot since then about traveling together and about hiking together. To celebrate Valentine's Day last year, my parents graciously (as always) let us go out to dinner at ZAZU on them (you all know how much we love ZAZU).

We were talking about Valentine's Day this year and we realized that our Valentines 2010 weekend was the last time that we've gone away just the two of us. In March we got Chuki and since then we haven't traveled too much just the two of us. So we decided that we'd go away again just the two of us this year!

Ryan has been planning the whole thing! I'm super excited because I love surprises! Chuki went to Sebas's for the weekend and we're leaving right now. I thought at first that we were going to the beach but a few nights ago at dinner Ryan said I needed to bring warm clothes and a swimsuit. So I'm not sure where were going!

Instead of trying to figure out where we're going, I've been trying to figure out what to bake to bring with. We're going to bring some food, because the place we're staying at is a little pricey. I'm thinking heart shaped cookies and red velvet cupcakes, but I'm not sure. I also made this awesome chewy granola when we went to Quilotoa for us to munch on during the hike. It was supposed to be bars, but they fell apart. I'm thinking a repeat attempt is in order.

Other than that, I'm just excited to be going someplace new, just the two of us! Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!

MULUB,
Taylor

Chicken (almost) Marsala

The dinner duties have been divvied up depending on who has night classes. It's been changing a lot lately because of our schedules changing. Often times, one of us gets home and we have a conversations something like... R: "I thought you were making dinner tonight."T: "I thought you were making dinner tonight." You get the picture. It's late and we're hungry and there's nothing made. Last week we had one of these nights and I decided that I would go ahead and make dinner, as Ryan had been making dinner a lot lately. I was completely uninspired to make anything, but of course we were both pretty hungry. So I consulted the usuals (smittenkitchen, 101 cookbooks, budget bytes, and sing for your supper) but nothing sounded oh my word, i have to make this right now good. Plus we didn't have too many ingredients in the house. I decided on Chicken Marsala after browsing Taste Spotting for inspiration (always does the trick). But of course, we don't like mushrooms and we didn't have actual Marsala. So I took a little from this and a little from that and the result was delicious!

Here's what I did for the two of us:

CHICKEN - Salt, pepper and flour two chicken pieces (bone in and skin on). Heat oil till hot. Sear on each side for 3 minutes. Remove from heat but keep them warm (I put ours on a plate in the toaster oven).

BACON - Reduce heat of the oil. Add chopped bacon. Brown. Remove from heat but keep warm (I put the pieces on the plate with the chicken in the toaster oven).

VEGGIES - Chop 1 onion and 3 peppers. Mince lots of garlic. Put veggies and garlic in the pan over medium low heat. Season. Add chicken. Cook until veggies are tender and chicken is almost done. Add a big handful of spinach, the bacon and about a cup of red wine. Cover. Simmer until ready.

I served this garlic mashed potatoes and lemony green beans. Everything was ready in about 30 minutes and it was delicious. Make sure to enjoy it with the rest of the wine! Even we were fancy and had wine from the bottle (not a box)!

Just in Case...

Just in case you don't know what you're making for today's BIG GAME, I made this soup for Ryan and myself last night and it was delicious. If we're back in time (we've got a little day trip planned to Sangolqui), we'll definitely be eating it while watching the game. I served it last night with some left over homemade pita topped with butter, garlic and parmesan cheese toasted in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes! It was really great! Perfect for a cold day and football!

The recipe is adapted from CookingLight's Fresh Food Fast. This cookbook cracks me up because most of the recipes don't use fresh food. The use a ton of frozen food and a ton of jarred things! But oh well, I made everything fresh and it took about an hour all together (longer depending on what kind of barley you buy).

Here it is:
1 lb of seasoned ground beef* or sausage
1 chopped red pepper
1 chopped green pepper
1 chopped onion
2 cups water
5 stewed tomatoes**
1-2 cups of cooked barley
1 cup chopped spinach

*They don't really sell sausage here in Ecuador. So I just take the ground beef, add a bunch of spices to it and some oil and then cook it up. Essentially the same thing as sausage.
**Homemade stewed tomatoes are super easy. Boil a small pot of water. While water is boiling cut an X in the bottom of each tomato. When water is boiling place the tomatoes in the pot for about 10 seconds. Remove, run under cold water and then remove the skins and quarter. Dump out the water, return the tomatoes to the pot and simmer for 20 minutes with 2 teaspoons of salt and any other seasonings you might like.

Alright directions -
Cook the beef.
In a food processor combine peppers, onion and water. Puree until smoothish.
Combine beef, pureed mixture, tomatoes and barley in a pot.
Bring to a boil.
Season to taste.
Add the spinach. (If you're making cheesy toast, put it in the oven now!)
Serve when spinach is wilted. (and toast is crispy!)

Super easy, pretty quick and REALLY REALLY hearty, deliciousness.

LET'S GO BEARS! And Happy Birthday to Cousin Lou!

MULUB,
Taylor

Thanksgiving in Ecuador

This will be the second Thanksgiving that I've spent away from home and it will be Ryan's first away from home. My first time was when I was in Prague. I had SUCH a fun day with new friends that day. And I expect being away this time to be exactly the same.

Restaurant Recommendations

One of the initial goals of this blog was to help us remember our time here. Where we ate, where we stayed when we traveled, fun things we did in the city. It's turned into more 'what we've learned' and 'what is different' than the original goal. Yesterday as I was walking to class, I decided I should remedy that. We surprisingly have a nice handful of Ecuadorian readers, besides ourselves, and so this post (and the next couple posts) are for you! 

Perfect Football Appetizer

Make sure you make a lot of these because they'll be snatched up in minutes! The recipe was taken straight from Martha Stewart and only one substitution was made - leeks for scallions!

Enjoy!

Last Night's Game

We had a very busy weekend and a very fun weekend. Friday we had a skype date with Ryan's family and with Doug! Saturday we got up early and went to Latacunga for the Mama Negra festival (more on that later). Then Sunday we had a puppy play date with a 4 month old boxer pup and her owner. Then we spent the rest of the day watching futbol and cooking for Sunday Night Football. We had six people over, plus us and Chuki. On the menu: Nacho Fries, Pumpkin Chili, Regular Cornbread, Jalepeno Cornbread, Cheesy Onion Rolls, and Vermont Spiced Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting. Everything was a hit and everyone left like you leave a football party in the states, full of beer, food and wishing the other team had won!

Roasted Veggies

Nothing says fall more than roasted veggies. Usually, here at 708, we just sauté our veggies. But yesterday, as I was getting lunch ready I had everything prepped and the sauté pan on the stovetop when I thought... 'why don't I bake these?' And that's what I did. I cranked up the oven and let them roast until they were nice and, well, roasted! I suggest you do the same thing real soon!

Last Night's Dinner

So yesterday was Friday and usually we don't do much on Fridays because we're tired from the week. I had class until 2 and then Ryan and I went to Megamaxi to look for some more herbs for our little garden and pick up a few things. Then I had a FABULOUS skype date with my dear friend Jenna! (Jen, It was soo great to talk with you!) Anyways, when I got home Ryan and Chuki went downstairs to play (read - I needed time in the apartment to myself!) I got the whole place picked up, and was just starting to clean the kitchen when our friend Sebas called!

3 Bean Pumpkin Chili

So I've been on a fall foods kick and what says fall more than chili. I saw this recipe on Meet Me In The Kitchen for Black Bean Pumpkin Chili and thought, hmmm pumpkin + chili = totally fall. So I figured I'd give in a try but between looking at the recipe and making my way to the kitchen, it took on a life of its own.Now, if you're like me you like your chili thick, chunky and spicy. My dad makes the best chili I have EVER had. Every fall, for as long as I can remember, my dad would get out this HUGE pot (So big a small child can fit in it. In fact there have been many children pulled around the house in this pot, predominately I remember Brianna hiding in the pot.) And in would go cans and cans of whole, peeled tomatoes, beans, tomato sauce, and who knows what else. And after what seemed like days of simmering on the stove, we'd have chili... for a year. The chili would go into the freezer and we'd take some out to eat or to take people's houses to eat. It was delicious! It still is delicious and I hope there's a bag ready to be pulled out of the freezer when I'm home in December (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

There's More...

What's Your Favorite?

Just curious as to what is everyone's favorite thing to eat during the fall?

Next up on my TO COOK list is Pumpkin 3 Been Chili! It sounds delicious to me. I'll let you know.

We're missing fall so much, that we're contemplating getting cable next month so that we can have people over to watch Sunday Night Football and eat fall-ish foods! Pathetic? Maybe! But there are some things that the Mid West just knows how to do right! And fall is certainly one of them.

MULUB,

Taylor

Caldo Xochitl

You all know we love soup. But lately I've grown a little tired of the same old, same old. So I decided to mix it up, kind of. Don't get me wrong I still made a chicken soup, but it tasted completely different. This recipe is from BudgetBytes.com, one of my all time favorites! Seriously, if you're on a budget then you've got to check out this sight. Everything I've made from it has been super tasty and super cheap!

Anyways Caldo Xochitl is a mexican soup and it's fantastic. It was really easy to make, cost a tiny bit more than just the regular chicken soup we've been eating lately, and by tiny I'm talking not even a dollar more per serving!

Here it is:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 head of garlic

1 onion

1 red pepper

2 skinless bone in chicken breasts

1 lb of tomatoes

2 jalapeno peppers

2 tbsp lime juice

3 bullion cubes

1/4 -1/2 cup of cilantro

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Heat the olive oil, minced garlic, chopped onion and red pepper in a large pot for 5-10 minutes.

Add the two chicken breasts and 6 cups of water. Simmer for 30 minutes. Remove chicken breasts. Shred chicken and return to pot.

While chicken is simmering, dice tomatoes and mix with jalepenos.

After you've returned the shredded chicken to the pot, add tomatoes and jalepenos. Add lime juice. Add bullion. Add chopped cilantro. Mix well, to dissolve the bullion. Simmer for another 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with garnishes of fresh cilantro, raw onions and sliced avocados.

Enjoy!

MULUB,

Taylor

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!