Tag: culture

Cool Beans

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We’re all running a bit behind this week and things have gotten a little hectic. Thankfully it’s almost the weekend, and fortunately we’ve had some fabulous beans to use throughout the week in various dishes.

We first whipped up this recipe for the popular Nicaraguan Gallo Pinto last Sunday with our Nicaraguan steak and Mormom Johnnycake, and the leftovers have graced our table ever since. Gallo pinto is a traditional Nicaraguan dish of rice and beans cooked together.

For this particular version, Mr. N selected black beans – his favorite. We soaked our beans according to the package directions and then simmered them for an hour and a half in a sauce pan with about 8 to 10 cloves of garlic and water.  Continue reading →

Here’s Johnny

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State night is back! This week Miss A is taking us to Utah. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states Mike and I have ever seen. We spent a few days touring its many national parks on one of our cross-country trips before the kids were born, so we were happy to revisit some of those memories.

Surprisingly though, it was hard to find traditional recipes from the Beehive state. The state fruit is the cherry, but we covered those in Michigan; the state historic vegetable is the sugar beet, and you know how we feel about those (if you don’t here’s a refresher); and the state snack is Jell-O, but well, after Lisa’s post on its mystery ingredients, we can’t bring ourselves to eat it. Then we came across several recipes for the Mormon Johnnycake – done deal. We can do that and it just so happens it was a good match for a Nicaraguan dinner we’ll share later this week. Continue reading →

Gender Divide

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Tonight we bring you another easy and healthy Nicaraguan recipe. We’ve been exploring Nicaraguan recipes for the past week or so and it’s fairly varied with heavy indigenous, Creole and Spanish influences. According to Wikipedia, the Pacific Coast cuisine makes use of local produce with the most common being corn. The Caribbean Coast tends to use more seafood and coconut. Our first Nicaraguan recipe, Curry Seafood Stew, clearly comes from the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. So tonight, we head to the opposite coast and have a recipe with a bit of Spanish influence.

I’m really diggin’ how simple and fast these meals have been so far, especially after our cooking marathon the past few weeks. I’m also lovin’ that Miss A and I have gotten to spend some quality time in the kitchen together. Cooking earlier in the day for that much-needed natural light has its benefits. And so, Miss A and I bring you the Ensalada de Jicama y Naranja (or Jicama and Orange Salad). Continue reading →

All’s Quiet on the Home Front

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Last night was an unusual occurrence. Mike was working in the city for most of the weekend while the kids and I were busy keeping busy. Then yesterday evening the kids went to visit Mike’s grandma with their Nana and Papa and I escaped to a yoga class. When I came home it was just Mike and I for dinner – and at a normal dinner hour!

Now it’s not unusual for us to put the kids to bed and have an at home cooking date night, or to even drop the kids off at Nana and Papa’s for a night on the town, but to find ourselves at home, alone, at the dinner hour – unheard of. So we decided to launch our next international adventure alone, with a recipe we knew we’d enjoy, and eat it in our dining room. (I don’t know that we’ve ever sat down to eat in there aside from Christmas Eve or a random dinner party.)

So where are we venturing off to now? We’ll get to that in a minute, first we bring you “Bloggers Unplugged,” a fun little game of questions in which we were tagged by Charles of Five Euro Food. Charles as you may remember is the creator of this delicious baba ghanoush that we made for Christmas and have enjoyed for lunch over and over again. Thanks for the recipe and the tag Charles. Here are the questions fielded by both Mike and I.

1. What, or Who, inspired you to start a blog?
Mr. N was our inspiration. We had talked for a long time about exposing the kids to different cuisines from around the world. Mr. N, who was really excited about our “experiment” thought we should write a book about the experience. Well, it’s not exactly a book, but I think he approves. 😉

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?
Well, first and foremost, Mike expanded my horizons with food exponentially very early on in our relationship. Many of our early dates revolved around fantastic restaurants or cooking at his apartment. One of our favorite dishes to this day came from those early dating years. We may get around to sharing that one of these days. Other foodie inspiration – well the many food blogs we read. They’re always inspiring us. And of course Chopped. 🙂 Continue reading →

A Delicious Time of Year

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We hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays. We had a wonderful weekend complete with a visit from Santa (the kids are still besides themselves), laughter, love, family and delicious food. We’d like to start by giving a shout-out to some of our blogging friends who made our holiday all the more delicious. Unfortunately I don’t have photos of all the dishes we made, but each one was every bit as good as we hoped!

We spent Christmas Eve having a family dinner with just the four of us. We dressed-up, opened presents, ate our traditional homemade Italian dinner, followed by a tour of Christmas lights in our Christmas pajamas while we ate cookies in the car. Our meal this year featured two amazing recipes from Linda at Savoring Every Bite. The kids especially enjoyed her Calamari Pomodoro. We did too, but the kids beat us out of seconds and thirds. They love their calamari. So while the kids devoured the calamari, Mike and I enjoyed the Pasta with Pecorino Herb Walnut Sauce. (Which incidentally makes for great leftovers too!)

We kicked off Christmas day with our Maple Bacon Biscuits – every bit as good as the first time and then got ready for the festivities.  Continue reading →

It’s Not Christmas Without…

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Mom’s oatmeal cookies. They are the only cookies that are an absolute must in our house.

I know, I know, mom. Couldn’t leave you out of the flashback pics though.

Admittedly, this week has gotten away from us a little. We haven’t had many home cooked meals and we’ve put our cooking around the world on hold for a few days. Rather we’ve been finishing up our holiday to do list – okay, we started and have almost finished up our holiday to do list. Fortunately I’m taking a day off work today and plan to finish everything up, because for the next three days it’s all about playing with the kids.

Now the one thing we made sure to have time for this week was mom’s oatmeal cookies. These little gems grace our holiday dessert table every year. I don’t know where the recipe originally came from, I just know it’s hands-down my favorite cookie. It’s sweet with a hint of vanilla and practically melts in your mouth. I don’t think it’s Mike’s favorite cookie, but he does ask that I only make them one time a year because he just can’t control himself around them. And the kids…well, they would eat these for every meal of the day if we let them. Continue reading →