My Culinary Adventures: Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie

One of my English students gifted me a huge bag of sweet potatoes a month ago, and I knew I had to put them to good use because I don't think I had ever seen sweet potatoes in site before.  I used some of them to make Sweet Potato Fries, and the rest I planned on making a pie with.  In the states I always stayed away from sweet potato fries and pie because I was already so used to french fries and pumpkin pie that the idea of sweet potato anything seemed incredibly foreign and distasteful to me.  I looked upon these new recipes as a challenge to create something I actually enjoyed eating, and it worked!  With the right amount of spices, anything can taste wonderful :)  I unfortunately didn't have a regular pie crust so had to make one myself using crushed vanilla wafers, but that also turned out pretty delish.  It's topped with whipped cream, made with the whipping cream found here, some sugar, and vanilla.

Vanilla Wafer Crumb Crust Recipe

Adapted from Baking Bites

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups vanilla wafer cookies

1 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

1 egg white, lightly beaten (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Place cookies in a plastic bag and crush to crumbs using a rolling pin or can.
3. Put crumbs in a mixing bowl and add in sugar, vanilla extract and melted butter and mix well to combine. Mixture should resemble wet sand.
4. Pour into a 9-inch pie plate (or 9-inch square baking dish) and gently spread into an even layer over the bottom and sides. Press crumbs in firmly to create a tight crust. 
5. (Optional) Use a pastry brush to gently brush the beaten egg white over the surface of the crust (you do not need to use the whole egg white).  This step will help create a seal on the crust and prevent it from getting soggy from a moist filling.
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until crust just begins to turn golden brown around the edges.
7. Cool completely before using.

Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

Adapted from Food Network

I originally put the ginger in as stated in the Food Network recipe, but in the end, the ginger didn't quite complement the pie, so I've taken out that ingredient in the recipe below and instead put pumpkin pie spice, which contains a hint of ginger but combined with other spices as well so it's not too overpowering.

Ingredients

2 cups peeled, cooked sweet potatoes

1 cup sugar

1/2 stick melted butter

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or more if you're using Honduran vanilla extract, which is insanely weak)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 cup milk

9-inch unbaked pie crust (or in this case, a pre-baked crumb crust)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Peel the sweet potatoes, then chop into quarters and place in a pot with boiling water.  Boil about 30-40 minutes until completely tender.
3. For the filling, using an electric hand mixer, combine the potatoes, 1 cup of the sugar, the butter, eggs, vanilla, salt, and spices. Mix thoroughly. Add the milk and continue to mix. Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

My Culinary Adventures: Pizza Pizza!

Last Thursday I invited my English students to come over and bake pizza at my house, while learning the names of the ingredients in English.  It took a few hours, so we put on some merengue, bachata, punta, and American club music and danced in the meantime.  The pizzas turned out pretty good, except the crust was a tad bit flavorless.  It was however, as the recipe claims, crispy on the outside and soft and doughy on the inside.  We also made licuados, or smoothies, out of banana, peanut butter, chocolate drink powder, milk and ice.  I've actually developed quite an addiction for these smoothies!  That class was definitely more a time to relax and have fun; a welcome break from the twice-weekly classroom lessons to boost morale and keep them motivated (although they honestly are already extremely dedicated to learning!).

I had extra sauce, onions, and bellpeppers leftover from the day so decided to make my own pizza yesterday and add some herbs into the dough.  This time the crust tasted a billion times better.  I chopped up the dried rosemary I had from the spice bottle, added garlic salt, ground oregano, ground thyme, and Trader Joe's' 21 Seasoning Salute.  You can use whatever you'd like, but I definitely do recommend flavoring the dough, otherwise it turns out disappointing.  I kind of double layered the toppings, which I wouldn't suggest doing because it makes the pizza difficult to eat without a fork since the toppings weigh down the crust.

Oh yeah, did I mention it was stuffed crust?  :)

Recipes

Pizza Crust

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

I changed the Serving Size from 15 to 8 and followed the recipe from there.

Ingredients

1-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/4 teaspoon brown sugar

3/4 cup and 2 teaspoons warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon olive oil

Herbs to flavor dough

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (or more depending on dough)

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt, oil, and herbs into the yeast solution. Mix in flour until dough can be transferred to surface.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the crust is golden brown, then broil for a couple minutes until cheese is slightly golden, about 40 minutes (but keep an eye on it, time varies. Original recipe says 15-20 min).

Sauce

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) bag tomato paste

8 fluid ounces water (or more, depending on how thick you like your sauce)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons honey

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes (I omitted these and instead opted to put them on top of the finished pizza slice with Sriracha sauce!)

Salt to taste

1. In a saucepan over low, combine tomato paste, water, garlic, honey, onion powder, oregano, marjoram, basil, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes and salt; mix together.
2. Sauce should simmer on low for 15 minutes to blend flavors; spread over pizza dough and prepare pizza as desired.

Pizza!

1. Use whatever toppings you want! Just spread the sauce on first, sprinkle a bit of cheese (quesillo is the closest thing to mozzarella that we have here), add your toppings (bell pepper, onion, salami, tomato, anything!), then completely cover with more grated quesillo.  I prefer Sula brand because it really does taste like mozzarella!  Bake according to instructions above and enjoy!

My Culinary Adventures: Baked Ziti (ish)

My friends had left some quesillo (the closest thing we have to mozzarella) in my fridge from the welcome party we threw for the new North Coast PCVs, so I had been making a lot of grilled quesillo, tomato and basil sandwiches, but wanted to try something new.  I looked up some pasta recipes with mozzarella in them and came across Baked Ziti, which looked easy enough to do.  I altered the recipe a lot though, and it really can be whatever you want it to be.  I threw in some bell peppers that had been in my fridge forever (but still edible), and used the highly condimented beef they sell in site since it's impossible to find regular ground beef here unless I go to a city.  This actually turned out incredible, and I had a friend over for dinner and he said it was even better than his uncle's pasta dishes!  The only thing I would do differently is to use more quesillo so that it covered the entire top of the dish. 

Recipe

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 package dry shell pasta

1 package spaghetti

Salt

Olive Oil

1 pound ground beef (I used the condimented beef since that's all that's available in site)

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

2 (8 oz) bags of tomato paste

1 cup water

Ground oregano

Ground thyme

8 oz Sula mantequilla (sour cream)

1 tomato, cubed

1/2 pound grated quesillo (guessing on this, I didn't have enough when I made mine)

Dried basil for seasoning

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt and shells and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
2. Add some olive oil to the drained pasta and mix so it doesn't stick together.
3. Cook the spaghetti the same way and add olive oil after.
4. In a large skillet, brown beef over medium heat. Add onions and bell pepper; saute until tender and until all water has evaporated.  Add tomato paste, water, oregano, and thyme to taste; simmer for about 15 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
6. Grease a glass pie plate with olive oil. Place one of the pastas in the dish; top with a layer of half the spaghetti sauce mixture and sour cream.
7. Cover with remaining pasta, sauce and sour cream; top with diced tomatoes, grated quesillo, and dried basil.
8. Bake in preheated oven for about 50 minutes or until cheese and sauce are bubbly; broil for about 5 minutes until cheese on top is a nice golden brown.  Serve.

My Culinary Adventures: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies

I've had this bag of chocolate chips sitting in my fridge for quite a while because the climate is too hot here to leave them out.  I had another bag that I did leave out, and the chips all melted together to form one big block, which I slowly gnawed away at over the months.  I suppose I could have put it to better use and made something by melting the chocolate in a saucepan, but it was a fast and easy way to satisfy my chocolate cravings and I'd only have to nibble off a little bit every time.  I'm due to receive a box of goodies pretty soon from my uncle, and I know there's another bag of chocolate chips in there so I decided to bake something last night that I could share with some friends today after they get done doing their topographical study.  I had never made any sort of "Blondie" before, but these turned out rich and delicious with a big glass of milk!  The only problem I had was that the refrigerated chocolate chips I folded into the batter melted really quickly before I could even get the pan into the toaster oven.  I guess we could call them Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Swirl Blondies?  :)

Recipe

Adapted from The Sweetest Kitchen

Ingredients

1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 8×8″ square pan and set aside (I used a round pan).
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and brown sugar, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from the heat, and stir in the peanut butter. Allow to cool while combining the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the egg to the peanut butter mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla extract and stir to combine. Pour the mixture into the prepared dry ingredients, and stir to create a thick, smooth batter. Fold in half the chocolate chips, reserving the rest for sprinkling on top.
4. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, spreading the batter evenly to the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with the chocolate chips and lightly press them into the batter.
5. Bake for 25 minutes until the top is golden and the edges are slightly browned. Allow to cool in the pan. Cut into squares and serve.

Host Mom's Birthday, Carnaval in La Ceiba, Volunteer Day

My host mom mentioned to me briefly last year when I was still living with her that growing up, she had never had a piñata for any of her birthdays.  I made note of this and as her birthday was rolling around the corner this year, asked her niece if she could make one in secret for her.  She gladly did, and gave it to me practically for free!  I bought the candy, we filled it up, and it was ready to go.  My host mom invited my site-mate, his girlfriend, and I over for dinner since we both lived with her when we first moved to site (at different times), and we enjoyed a meal of fried rice and banana soda (which I've actually acquired a taste for, but would never go out of my way to buy it).  After dinner we sat in the living room and talked for a bit, before I ran over to her niece's house to bring in the piñata.  It was a pleasant surprise and we all enjoyed beating the crap out of it.

Me, host mom, site-mate

That weekend was also Carnaval (Carnival) in La Ceiba, the largest event in all of Central America.  I planned on meeting a couple friends there and we had spots in a hotel that had 12 beds crammed into 1 stuffy room.  The other beds were taken by other PCVs, a volunteer for another organization, and two backpackers from Australia and England who turned out to be really cool and hung out with us most of the time.  The first day was pretty chill; we watched a group of Garifunas play and sing punta music on the beach,

then later at night walked the carnavalito on one of the streets.  It was like a normal fair with a lot of vendors, live music and dancing, carnival games with prizes, food, and jam-packed with people.  I also bought my first pair of earrings in Honduras there!  One of our group went up on stage to dance while everyone cheered the Gringo on as he provocatively danced with one of the Garifuna dancers.  

After the long street fair, we headed to the nightclub Hibou, the best one in town.  It really was amazing inside, with a smooth white floor and colored lights, smoke, platforms, fully-stocked bar, upstairs terrace, and great music.  The next day was the parade on one of the main roads.  It was unnecessarily looooong.  The first part consisted of people riding gigantic horses and they just kept coming, and coming, and coming.... and coming.  Then motorcycles followed, the loud noise scaring some of the horses.  After those I believe was a car show, floats, marching band, fighting groups, and not sure what else.  Oh yeah, there was this guy:

That night we headed to the night carnival which was a lot sketchier than the previous one, so I didn't stay very long.  Everyone later met up at El Pacha, another nightclub in Ceiba because Hibou that night had increased their price to L500 a person, which was L500 more than we paid the night before.  Usually the Pacha clubs are world-renowned for being high quality clubs, but this one was horrific.  Service was terrible and we probably waited an hour to get drinks.  They promised us VIP but we got nothing, and the music changed too often.  The only benefit was that there were no walls as it was situated right on the beach, so the view, breeze, and salty sea air were quite refreshing.  Carnaval finally drew to a close for us and everyone gradually returned to their sites the next day.

The following weekend was Volunteer Day.  It seems to be they have a day for everybody in Honduras - Woman's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Worker Day, Children's Day, and I'm sure countless others.  I worked with World Vision in setting up decorations and prizes at the pool area, serving lunch, and collecting food tickets.  The event turned out much larger than I had anticipated.  It's held annually in appreciation of all the hard work community members have contributed to World Vision's projects.  Children from different communities participated in a talent show which included dances, singing, and reading passages from the Bible.  Delicious food was served, catered by our dance club's owner who is a wonderful chef as well.  After lunch, people lined up to play games and win prizes, while children donned bathing suits and went swimming.  I couldn't resist jumping off the diving platform so I did that a couple of times before I got roped into a watermelon-eating contest, which I won!  I guess it helped to be craving watermelon that day :)