This is the first time I have participated in a “Craving Ellie in My Belly” event. I’m not sure how I heard about it, and I have never heard of Ellie Krieger or her cookbook before, but I really like the idea of creating one of her recipes each week along with several other food bloggers. If all of the recipes are as delicious as this first one was, we are going to be looking forward to it a lot each week! This weeks recipe was chosen by Marthe of Culinary Delights.
I’ve bought banana chips many times when living in North America, but have never tried drying them out myself. Since I had such a huge volume of excellent bananas, I decided to give it a try.
Summertime in the jungle is the time for fruit. They are all delicious and exotic, like the Chico Zapote fruit, which has always been one of my favorites.
The first thing I wanted to do with these incredibly perfect bananas was to try a new dessert. There must be a zillion dessert recipes that you can make with bananas, but a couple of months ago a recipe for Banoffee Pie caught my attention. I had never heard of it before, so had to google it to get some background.
It seems like just yesterday that we harvested our first racim of bananas from the palm tree in our back yard, and here already is the second. We cut the racim just as the first of the bottom bananas were ripening, and hung it in our dining area. Before I knew it, I was hearing the “thump, thump, thump” of ripe bananas hitting the floor and I was not even barely prepared to use them up. We gave away the first few dozens as the penkos ripened, and by then, I had given the whole banana thing some thought and was ready to start cooking.
I’ve always loved a good fettucini with white clam sauce, but I’ve never been able to find clams here in Peten, so decided the other day to make a similar dish with chicken and sweet red peppers.
One of the foods that I have missed a lot since living here in the jungle is a good whole grain cereal to eat for breakfast. Since the closest thing I can find in the local stores is oatmeal or cream of wheat, I decided long ago that the only way to solve this lack was to figure out how to make it myself.
I have wanted one of these Immersion Blenders for ages. It looks so much easier to use than a blender, especially since you can take the blender to the food, rather than putting the food in the blender. I finally found the excuse to buy an Immersion Blender when I began learning soap making and discovered that this type of appliance is highly recommended for the small sized batches that I am working with. The biggest advantage is that you can do the blending in the main mixing bowl and you don’t need to pour everything, batch by batch, into a normal blender. Finding an Immersion Blender here in the jungle, even with our new Walmart, was a bit of a challenge.
I remember that I used to own a crock pot many many years ago when they were in vogue. I can’t remember that I used it very often, probably because cooking in a crock pot requires foresight and planning, and I’ve always been a “last minute” kinda cook. I also don’t remember being too impressed with what I did cook in it.
So why would I go out and invest in a new Crock Pot now??
This almost colorless honey is from the Doncella Bees (as the local people call them) … a type of jungle stingless honey bee that produces this light, lemony sweet honey that is prized amongst the jungle people as an antibiotic as well as a lung curative, a cure for eye problems and a general overall tonic.
One of the great food advantages of living in the middle of the rainforest is the ready supply of inexpensive raw delicious honey.
I love the fact that this honey comes straight from the hive to a recycled bottle. The color can vary quite substantially depending on the location where it was produced and the type of bee that produced it. The ultimate, of course, is to have a hive in your back yard!
My Grandfather used to tell me that the first word I spoke as a toddler was “sish” and that I loved my Grandmothers “sish” chowder more than any other food in my maritime diet. As a matter of fact, for my entire childhood, the menu at my August birthday parties, which were usually held on various small deserted islands in the Bay of Fundy, was fish chowder with hot biscuits and buns, and deep dish raspberry/blueberry combo pies, lovingly prepared by my mother and carried in large pots down iron wharf ladders to the boat to be ferried, along with all the kids from the island village, to the site my father had chosen for the year’s festivities. But I digress.
A few short years ago, I would never have believed that I would find the combination of fluffy scrambled eggs, boiled black beans and stewed platanos, all with a sprinkle of my favorite hot sauce, and served with steaming hot tortillas (not pictured) to be so downright delicious. Of course, these boiled black beans are no ordinary black beans. These beans are slow cooked over a wood fire to give them their special taste. The platanos have been stewed with cinnamon and nutmeg. The only other thing that would make this dish even better, is a slice of fresh white cheese or a tablespoon of local heavy cream.
Bit by bit, I’m starting to learn more about traditional Guatemalan cuisine. This dish is an excellent example. It seems like such a basic dish, but the combination of Loroco and cream makes it outstanding! I have never experienced a flavor like it!
One of my neighbors gave me a slip of oregano a few months ago, and it has grown wilder than my wildest expectations!
Red Pitaya, also called Dragonfruit, is a type of cactus that grows, vine-like, high in the trees of the rainforest. It is chock full of vitamins, minerals and fibre.
This is my favorite sandwich of the month. Or of the year. I usually use more or less the same ingredients each time, but the option of adding just about any other vegetable you want is always there.
