Food, Fusion and More

Another way to cook Quinoa, this time a good friend of mine, Anahi, sent me this recipe and I thought it was great, according to my husband is the best quinua recipe ever. I have to say, it's pretty tasty and easy to make. I did some adjustments to the recipe to make it just a little faster. Stuffed Quinua: 1cup of quinoa 1 lb yukon potatoes (about 4 medium potatoes) 1 tbsp olive oil Salt to taste Filling: 1 lb Ground beef, I always use the "meatless" beef but you can use any kind of ground "meat" 1 medium onion 2 garlic cloves 2 tbsp of aji colorado* optional 1 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp raisins* optional 8 black olives or kalamata olives 1 hard boil egg Salt to taste First boil the potatoes until cook, peel and mash them. Set a side. Cook the Quinua in 3 cups of water until the grain cooks and then drain. Add together the cook quinoa and mash potatoes together, with olive oil and salt to taste. Set a side. For the filling: In a p...

 This is another traditional Peruvian dish, with ingredients that you can find easily at the store. The name in Spanish is "Seco" (it means "dry") I think it has a lot of Indian influence, I have tried something very similar in an couple of Indian restaurants. In Peru, the traditional way to do it is with lamb, beef or chicken. I did it with zucchini instead of meat. Seco de Zucchini 1 medium zucchini 2 bunches of cilantro 3 garlic cloves 1/2 red onion 2 medium carrots 2 medium Yukon potatoes 1 cup of frozen peas 1 cup of frozen yellow corn 1 tsp aji amarillo *optional 1 tsp aji colorado*optional 2 tsp dry cilantro *"verdecito" First as always chop the fresh veggies. Zucchini is bite sizes, carrots are little squares and potatoes in quarters. Finely chop the onions and garlic. Set a side For the cilantro, after you wash and rinse it, put it in the blender with 1/2 cup of water, and make a pa...

Now we have several elements to combine from previous dinners like, Hummus, salad dressing, stuffing from the avocados, well we put them all together and call it "burgers for dinner" Tonight's menu was: Hummus veggie burger and salad. For the Salad: 1 cup of Arugula 1 cup of Mix greens 1 cup of chop celery 1/4 cup of kalamata olives 1/4 cup of green olives 5 small pepperoncini 2 tbps feta cheese 2 tbps "my aunt Dina's dressing" The veggie burgers I like the most are "grillers" from Morning Stars. You can find all the vegetarian "meat" in the frozen isle, next to the frozen veggies. A very simple way to combine all of our things from the fridge and make it a tasty dinner. I have to confess that I am not a fan of bread, and not because I don't like them, it's just because they go straight to my thighs, so a lot of times I wrap my burger in lettuce or just bunless. In Lima, at my parents house when we had burg...

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, I have celery, carrots, broccoli and coli flower always chopped at home for easy snacks. We use a lot of hummus as a dip or sometimes guacamole works great too. Today I made hummus, with a recipe I tried when I was living in Lima. 2 Cans of garbanzo beans ( 3 cups aprx) 4 - 5 garlic cloves 1/2 lime juice 1/5 tbsp cumin 1/8 tbsp cayenne pepper 1/5 black pepper 1/5 cup fresh parsley 1/2 cup veggie stock Rinse the garbanzo beans with warm water, let them soak for about 10 minutes and then peel them. Don't worry you won't have to peel one by one, once they are soaked, it gets really easy, just put them in between your hands and rub them gently and you will notice how the peel just comes out all in once. In the meantime roast the garlic cloves, you can put them in the oven or just in a small pan until the peel gets brown. So they are cook inside. Add all the ingredients together in the food processor until it...

Tonight's dinner For a reason that I don't really know,  in Peru is almost a tradition that you will have lentils on Mondays.  It's supposed to bring you good luck, money and prosperity for the week. I really have no idea how it all started, but that's one of the traditions that's still practice in most of Peruvian houses. As a kid, on Mondays you won't even bather ask the "mom, what's for dinner" question. Because you knew what it was going to be the answer. I am not a great lentils fan, but they are "good for you" and my hubby just loves them so once in a while I embrace the Monday's tradition. Last night's menu was: Peruvian style lentils and Stuffed Avocados. We also had some left over rice that went perfect together. Peruvian Style Lentils 2 cups of lentils 4 cups of water 1 veggie bouillon cube 1 red onion 3 garlic cloves 1/2 tsp dry oregano 1/4 tsp cumin salt and Pepper First boil the le...

Since it was Valentine's day and we decided to stay home, I thought I should do a "fancy looking" night out of it. I wanted to have a "theme" night and I thought Rum will be a good idea. Despite all my research on rum salad vinaigrette I couldn't find any that I like, so I made my "aunt Dina's oriental dressing", I did use rum on the main dish, the dessert and drinks. You always can do all of this recipes with Rum extract instead of the actual Rum. Let's start with the salad. Heart Garden Salad: 2 cups of Spring mix lettuce 1 cup of baby arugula 5 beats 1 medium size carrot 1 roma tomato 1 cup of Kalamata olives 2 oz goat cheese 100 gr walnuts  100 gr cashews I eat a salad similar to this in a local restaurant but they used hazelnuts instead of my cashew/walnut combination, but my hubby is allergic to hazelnuts, so I thought this combination of nuts (harmless for him) will work too. First make sure that you pick your s...

One of my friends here in Ellensburg ask me to specified how I make my "Peruvian style rice". So here it goes: I always use a rice cooker . I find it very easy and it can be cooking meanwhile I do something else. You will need  2 cups of rice 3 cups of water 3 garlic cloves - crushed 1 tsp vegetable oil salt to taste First you have to put the rice cooker in "cook" mode, once it's warm up add the oil and let it warm up, incorporate the garlic cloves and salt, stir constantly so it doesn't get stick to the bottom. Add the rice and stir it with the garlic, salt and oil for a couple of minutes, then add the water. Make sure that you still have your rice cooker in "cook" mode. Wait until it pop's up and enjoy.

This stew was often made when I grew up, but, one more time I transform it to a vegetarian dish. We served it last night with sliced avocados and boil potatoes. But I have to say, it's pretty good on top of rice too. Spinach and Garbanzo Stew: 1 cup of "vegetarian ground beef" 1 bunch of fresh spinach 1 yellow onion 2 garlic cloves 1 1/2 cups of Kalamata olives 1 tbsp olive oil 1 can of garbanzo beans 1/4 tsp cumin 1/4 tsp black pepper 2 tbsp black raisins *optional salt to taste Instead of using ground beef, I used ground "non beef" (it's sold in the stores in the frozen isle next to the vegetables, with all the vegetarian "meatless meat"). I have seen two different brands. It tastes good for me, I can't even tell the difference with ground beef, but you have to know that I am a vegetarian more than 15 years ago, so may be I just can't tell the difference. You also can use ground turkey instead of beef, if you are looki...

In Peru it's very common to see dishes with rice and potatoes at the same time, and since we have over 2000 different kinds of potatoes, we make a lot of potato dishes.  Here is one of them. The original name for it is Cau-Cau (sounds like  cow-cow ), formerly it was made with "mondongo" which is one of the stomachs of the cow, and in a lot of places in Peru they still make it this way, but in my mom's house nobody liked mondongo, so my mom made it with pieces of chicken breast. And now that I am vegetarian I do it with mushrooms. Today the whole dish is Rice (jazmine rice) with Cau-Cau and radish salad. Radish Salad: 2 bunches of radish 1 lime salt and pepper First take the leaves apart from the roots and then wash them. Slice them in thin circles. I don't have a mandolin cutter but a sharp knife works well for me. Add the lime juice and season with salt and pepper. I usually do this salad first so the lime has time to marinate the ...

The original name for this dish is "Choritos a la Chalaca", but for vegetarian reasons I exchange it to "choclitos a la chalaca". Choritos in Peru are muzzles, so the original dish is boil muzzles with this salad on top. They are serve as appetizers or just snacks, in my case I use the salad as a side dish. Now, choclitos means little corn in Peruvian, and if you are vegetarian like me, you can easily make the switch. You will need: 1 yellow onion 1 roma tomato 2 Tbsp cilantro 1 lime (juice) 2 cups of frozen yellow corn salt and pepper First chop all the ingredients "salad size". Put the corn to boil and let it cool down, if I don't have to  much time, I will put a couple of ice cubs to help it cool down. Marinade the onions in the lime juice for at least 10 minutes, you will notice that the lime juice reduce the "kick" of the onions, in Peru everybody uses red onions instead, but just because yellow onions are less expe...

This is one of my fastest meals, Quinua Salad and a veggie patty. This is a truly 50/50 dinner. 50% Peruvian  (quinua) and 50% American (veggie chicken patty). I grew up eating quinua at least once a week, and before I came to this country, I thought vegetarian "meat" was awful, so I used not to have much of it, but here in the US you can find very tasty "meat" that are "meatless" I am going to refer it as QuinUa, just because it feels more natural to me, since I have eaten quinua my whole life, and I am just recently eating quinOa. ( yes, I am trying to be funny ) This way of cooking quinua is very different of what I am used to, but it's not only very fast, it's also quite tasty and satisfying . You will need: 1 cup of quinua 1/4 cup celery 1/4 cup orange bell peppers 1/4 cup kalamata olives 1/4 cup mushrooms 1/4 cup asparagus 3 Tbsp feta cheese - crumbled 1 Tbsp fresh parsley 1 lime Olive oil Salt and Pepper ...

You know how it is to be out all day, and come back home extremely hungry and having to cook at the same time, to avoid snacking chips of crackers, I decided a couple of months ago that I will always have enough celery and carrots to snack meanwhile I am cooking. That helps my "I'm so hungry cooking style" Well we still have green beans! But we finally finished them tonight. I did Green Bean Salad, one of the many ways my mom cooks them, I will call it the "Loty Salad" , this salad is so popular in between my family  that every time there is a potluck or a get together, everybody request this salad. You will need: 2 cups of Julianne style cut green beans 1/4 cup chop pecans 2 1/2 Tbsp sugar 2 Tbsp of golden raisins 2 Tbsp of shoestring potatoes 3 Tbsp non fat plain Greek yogurt 1 tsp yellow mustard 1 lime Salt and Pepper Since it was late already, my chopping style was more "just chop them" style. But ideally should be a fi...

I am pretty sure there is a lot of ways to make fried rice, I call my fried rice "arroz chaufa", it's not a made up name, it's the way fried rice is known in Peru. Peru has a lot of Asian influence, but of course the way I make my rice it's not probably be 100% authentic Asian it's going to be a FUSION fried rice, with my very Peruvian background and my ingredient availability  at home. A lot of our Peruvian main dishes come with white rice, and after I did some research for the rice that taste more familiar to me I found that the one that taste more alike to "arroz blanco" is Jasmine rice. I try to cook with things I have at home, and I will not necessarily go out of my way too much on ingredients, but I really like fresh bean sprouts in my fried rice, well, I couldn't find any in town today, apparently they have been recall, what a bummer, so I decided to give it a chance ...