On the Menu: Dulce de Leche

When Robinson was a child, his parents would make this delicious treat for him and his brothers. 

Sometime during our courtship, Robinson made me dulce de leche in his parents' pressure cooker. At that point, I had never made anything in a pressure cooker before, so it was fun to see the transformation of sweetened condensed milk to a thick, caramel pudding. 

The boys loved it, too!

If you don't have a pressure cooker or can't borrow one, you might be able to find pre-made dulce de leche at your local specialty store or supermarket. 

Pressure Cooker dulce de leche

Serves 4

1 can sweetened condensed milk
4-6 tsp vanilla
dippers (apples, bananas, pretzels, and anything else that might be good with caramel!)
pressure cooker

1. Fill the pressure cooker with 1" of water.
2. Take the label off the can of milk and put it in the pressure cooker. Close and heat.
3. Get the pressure to 15 pounds. Process it at 15 pounds pressure for 15 minutes. Let cool.
4. Open the condensed milk can and scrape into a medium bowl. Add vanilla to taste. Eat with whatever dippers you'd like!

"Mi Chacra"

Besides answering the boys' questions about Argentina, Oldpa also taught them a popular Argentinian folk song called "Mi Charcra" ("My Farm"). He happily shared the lyrics to the song as well as the translation:

"Mi Charcra"

Vengan a ver mi chacra que es hermosa.
Vengan a ver mi chacra que es hermosa.

El pollito hace asi: Pio! Pio!
El pollito hace asi: Pio! Pio!

O vas camarade, vas camarade, vas, o vas, o vas.
O vas camarade, vas camarade, vas, o vas, o vas.

Otros animales:
El perrito hace asi: Guau! Guau!
El gatito hace asi: Mi-au!
El cordero hace asi: Ba-a! Ba-a!
El patito hace asi: Cua! Cua!
El chanchito hace asi: Oinc! Oinc!
El ternero hace asi: Mo-o! Mo-o!
El caballito hace asi: Nu-uh! Nu-uh!

***

"My Farm"

Come, come see my farm for it is lovely.
Come, come see my farm for it is lovely.

The baby chick it goes like this: Peep! Peep!
The baby chick it goes like this: Peep! Peep!

Oh come my friend, oh come my friend, oh come, oh come, oh come.
Oh come my friend, oh come my friend, oh come, oh come, oh come.

Other animals:
The little puppy goes like this: Bow-wow!
The little kitty goes like this: Mee-oow!
The little lamb goes like this: Ba-a! Ba-a!
The little duckling goes like this: Quack! Quack!
The little piglet goes like this: Oink! Oink!
The little calf goes like this: Mo-o! Mo-o!
The little colt goes like this: Neigh! Neigh!

On the Menu: Locra with Chipas

Truth be told, it took a bit of searching to find an Argentinian meal with beans in it. (And in the picture it looks kind of like fassolatha, doesn't it? I promise it isn't!)

Locro is traditionally made with meat (beef or pork), corn, and other vegetables. It can be made with beans, squash, and onions as well. This soup is an exception to our usual vegetarian bean dish, as I made it with some pork shoulder I had in the freezer and some chorizo I bought at the store.

Another interesting component in this dish is hominy. We don't eat much hominy in our household - mostly because I don't have many recipes that include it - but the boys were quite taken with the soup, hominy and all. Even Balin, our pickiest eater, liked it.

The chipas is a bread made from mostly tapioca flour and cheese. It has a light, airy texture and complimented the hearty Locro nicely.

Locra (original recipe here)
Serves 12

1 cup dried small lima beans
1 cup dried chickpeas
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 lbs pork shoulder, cut into 1" cubes
12 oz chorizo, sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs tomato paste
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 bay leaf
10 cups water
1 small acorn squash, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1 28 oz can hominy (white or yellow)
juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tbs)
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

1. Soak beans for 8 hours or overnight; drain.
2. Heat olive oil in large pot. When oil is hot, add pork in batches, cooking until browned. Season well with salt and pepper. Transfer to a plate.
3. Add chorizo and cook until fat renders. Add garlic and onion. Cook until soft.
4. Add tomato paste, oregano, cumin, and bay leaf. Return meat to pan with lima beans, chickpeas, squash and 10 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cook until beans are tender, about 1 hour.
5. Add hominy and lemon. Heat through. Serve immediately sprinkled with green onions.

Chipas (original recipe here)
Makes approximately 15 rolls

1 egg
2/3 cup milk
6 oz Italian cheese, finely shredded
3 tbs butter, melted
1 3/4 cups tapioca flour
1 cup self-rising flour (or 1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 1/4 baking powder)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking sheet and set aside.
2. Stir together egg, milk, cheese, and butter in a large bowl. Sprinkle in tapioca flour and self-rising flour; mix to form a dough. Knead for about 2 minutes, then roll into golf-ball sized pieces.
3. Place onto the baking sheet and bake until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes.

Argentina Week: Interviews with Oldpa and Hugo

One of the goals of this project is to help our kids learn more about the different places and people in the world.  Besides eating the food from the countries we "visit" we also try to learn interesting facts as well.

For Argentina we really lucked out since both my father and my brother-in-law lived in Argentina.  My dad spent a couple of years in Argentina as a missionary when he was in his 20s.  And Hugo was born and grew up in Argentina.

So our kids got to ask them questions about Argentina and their time living there.

We had the boys come up with some questions they wanted to ask:

• Why do penguins live there?
• Have you ever seen a penguin there? (Can you see a theme here?)
• How do sea lions get in the water?
• What sort of other animals live there?
• What is the weather like?
• What do kids do for fun there?
• What kind of songs do the kids sing?
• What language do they speak in Argentina?
• What are the houses like?
• What kind of foods do the people eat?
• Where did you live in Argentina?
• What was your favorite thing about Argentina?

Oldpa lived in Buenos Aires and Rosaria (which is near the jungle in the north of the country).  He showed us all sort of fun "artifacts" he got during his stay there.  I think the kids most liked learning about the gauchos (basically cowboys in Argentina).  Oldpa showed them a polca (a whip used to herd cows) and a bolo (three round stones on a string used to tangle up the legs of cows…sort of like a lasso).

Oldpa also showed the kids pan pipes and a special cup and filtered straw for drinking tea.  And, being the great storyteller that he is, he told the kids a legend of the oven bird (a story popular among the native peoples of Argentina).

Hugo, my brother-in-law, grew up in La Placa.  He told the kids about growing up in Argentina and about what it was like to live there.  He said the houses are typically smaller than in the U.S. and that they don't have very good heating systems (although it's very common for the bathrooms to have bidets).

Hugo said his favorite part about Argentina is the food (which he said was an interesting mix of Spanish and Italian cuisines).  He especially likes these butter croissants served with ham and cheese (he said they were popularly called "Sacraments").

The kids were very interested to learn that the seasons are the opposite in Argentina from where we live here in the north.  When it is summer here it is winter in Argentina and vice versa.  

For fun, the kids play football (or soccer as we call it).  And they liked to sing songs.  He even sang a fun song for the boys about a girl turtle that wants to impress a cute boy turtle  She thinks she's not pretty enough, so she travels to Europe to get a new look but ends up taking so long to get there and back that she looks exactly the same by the time she gets back to Argentina.   And of course, the boy turtle loves her just the way she is.  

He also told the kids about some of the animals that live in Argentina:  snakes in the jungles in the north and llamas on the border with Bolivia.  He showed them a musical instrument called a chorango made out of an armadillo shell.

And, yes, Hugo has seen penguins in Argentina -- although they were at a resort area called Mar de la Plata and were basically there to beg food from the tourists (not exactly the penguins natural habitat).

On the Menu: Matahambre

I think Robinson's father (affectionately known as "Oldpa" around here) was more excited about Argentina Week than the boys were.

He spent two years in Argentina for his mission and loves telling stories of his adventures and displaying the artifacts he brought home.

Oldpa also brought back a few recipes from Argentina and wanted to share his recipe for Matahambre (literally "kill hunger") with us. Gauchos would make this the night before and eat the cold leftovers while they were working.

Matahambre
Serves 6 to 8

2 lbs flank steak, butterflied*
1/2 cup red wine vinegar or red wine
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 lb fresh spinach or kale
8 whole, cooked carrots
4 hard boiled eggs, quartered
1 onion, sliced 1/8" thick
1/4 cup fresh parsley (optional)
1 tsp chili peppers (optional)
1 tbs salt
3 cups beef stock
1-3 cups cold water
kitchen twine

1. Combine red wine vinegar or red wine, garlic, and thyme. Pour over flattened butterflied steak and let marinade for 6 hours.
2. Lay steak flat. Layer ingredients in the following order: spinach, carrots and eggs (alternate rows of carrots and eggs), onions, parsley (if using), chili peppers (if using), and salt. Roll into a cylinder and tie with kitchen twine at 1" intervals.
3. Place roll in a large roasting pan or casserole dish. Add stock and water to cover half way. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. Serve hot or cold.

* Flank steak is already very thin, so you may have trouble getting your butcher to butterfly it. We ended up having to butterfly it ourselves. Robinson's mom used to pound it with a rolling pin to make it even thinner. The goal is to make the meat as thin as possible without getting holes in the steak.

On the Menu: Roasted Vegetables with Cimichurri Sauce

It's a joke, isn't it, that Argentina has the most delicious pesto-like sauce? Of course, this sauce is suppose to go on top of meat, but we opted to enjoy this refreshing sauce on top of roasted vegetables.

Since there's still snow on the ground, we had to roast our vegetables in the oven - but if you live in a warmer climate, you certainly could roast them on the grill.

I'm curious to see how cimichurri enhances meats. Maybe one of these days I'll use it as a marinade or as a seasoning sauce, like I'm supposed to.

Roasted Vegetables with Chimicurri Sauce (original recipe here)
Serves 3-4 (as a main dish) 

For the roasted vegetables:
2 peppers (red, yellow, or orange - your choice)
1 medium zucchini
1 medium yellow squash
8 oz mushrooms
8 oz cherry tomatoes
1/2 lb asparagus
any other vegetables you'd like!
up to 1/4 cup olive oil (depending on the amount of vegetables you are roasting)
salt and pepper, to taste

For the chimichurri:
6-8 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cups parsley leaves
1/4 cup oregano
2 tbs red wine vinegar
salt, to taste
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Prepare the vegetables for roasting, except for the cherry tomatoes. Pour olive oil over the vegetables and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Coat vegetables well with the olive oil. Put in oven. Set timer for 10 minutes.
2. In the meantime, prepare the chimichurri. Add garlic, parsley, oregano, and red wine vinegar into a food processor and process until everything is finely chopped. Add the salt and olive oil and process again. Pour the chimichurri into a bowl.
3. Check on the vegetables and if they are almost finished, add the cherry tomatoes. Roast for another 5-8 minutes.
4. Remove the vegetables from the oven and toss well with the chimichurri.

Argentina Week: The Menu

Argentinians love their meat, which caused a bit of a concern during our menu planning. Although we do eat meat, we eat it sparingly - usually only twice a week. We were informed by numerous people, however, that there is a heavy Italian influence in Argentina and, as a result, pasta has become a favorite there.

This week we will be eating:

Roasted Vegetables with Chimichurri Sauce

Mata Hambre

Locra with Chipas

Dulce de Leche

Alternative Menu Ideas:

Gnocchi
Sorrentinos
Carbonada Criolla
Asado
Milanesa
Guiso

Argentina Week: February 15-22

It never ceases to amaze me how the Internet (particularly social media) promotes an interconnectedness we wouldn't have had 30 years ago, back when I was a young child.

I put out word on Facebook that we'd be studying Argentina in the days leading up to this week and received many responses! Most of them were menu ideas, which was great because I needed recipes, but one friend of mine posted pictures from her trip to Argentina. The pictures were of a penguin and sea lions, both of which live at the southern tip of South America. She said that she thought the boys would appreciate those pictures more than anything else she could have posted.

Man, she was right. Arthur stared at the penguin and said, "But I thought penguins lived in cold places!" Balin instantly fell in love with the sea lions. (Until he discovered that sea lions eat penguins!)

Despite their boundless interest in the animals of southern Argentina, we were able to convince Arthur and Balin to come up with some interview questions for their Uncle Hugo (who is originally from Argentina) and their Oldpa (who served his mission there) that didn't involve penguins or sea lions.

Here are the boys' interview questions:

1. Why do penguins live there?
2. Have you ever seen a penguin there?
3. What is the weather like there?
4. What do kids do for fun there?
5. How do sea lions get in the water?
6. What kind of songs do the kids sing?
7. What language do they speak in Argentina?
8. What sort of other animals live there?
9. What are the houses like?
10. What kind of foods do they eat?
11. Where did you live in Argentina?
12. What was your favorite thing about Argentina?