Hispanic Eats

I (Katie) really have an excuse this time for not blogging in forever. I've been volunteering in Costa Rica and Honduras for the summer, but no fear I have a few things to post from my adventures.

First off is the Costa Rican inspired dish Bingham and I whipped up on my return to Louisiana.

Fresh Salad - from the fruits of Bingham's garden
Tomatoes

Cucumber

Banana peppers

Basil

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Vinegar

Chop and toss...ain't much harder than that

Pintos and Plantains

1 lb dry black beans

1 lb rice

Juice from one lemon

1/4 cup vinegar

Hot sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

2 plantains

Cook the beans and rice according to the package directions BUT combine the 2 for the last 10 mintues of cooking adding the lemon, vinegar, and spices

Saute the plantains in butter in a frying pan and serve over the rice and beans (or what the Costa Rican's call pintos)

While in Honduras not only did I find time to make a King Cake with my friend Meagan for the nuns and some other fellow volunteers from the states (which came out much better than any I've cooked at home, must be their flour or something), I also had the time to experiement with mango bread! Mangos, during the summer, and abundant in Honduras and since the mission I was working at owned a farm which grew them, we had mangos coming out of our ears. I adapted this recipe from banana bread (and also spent 30 minutes translating it into Spanish for one of my Honduran friends)

Pan de Mango/Banana
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed mangos and/or bananas
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup pecans or nuts (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Cream the sugar and butter, beat in the egg & fruit, add the flour and baking soda in fractions, finally mix in the nuts, salt and cinnamon

Those hard workin hands on the left are of my volunteer friend, Nicole and the bowl-licker is my other friend, Jess. Both from the foreign land of.....northeastern US! Didn't know I had a southern accent until I met them.

I also got to taste some interesting Honduran treats during my stay: full-fried Tilapia caught out of a friend's pond and cow tongue taco's. While the tilapia proved technically difficult to eat for us American (the Hondurans managed to eat everything but the bones), it tasted amazing. It didn't hurt that the fried fins/fish tails tasted like crazy seafood potato chips either! The tongue taco was pretty damn good as well (don't have a picture of that unfortunately, but it didn't look much like a tongue when it came down to the eating).

Oh, and I didn't hate the hand-made corn tortillas, pico de gallo and chile either.