Ingredients:
4 Servings
Meat:
- 1/4 cup diced tomato
- 1/4 cup minced onion
- 1/8 cup minced scallion
- 1 tablespoon minced cilantro
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon powdered bay leaf
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1 1/2 pounds sobrebarriga, clean
Hogao:
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 3/4 cup diced onion
- 3/4 cup peeled and diced tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon minced cilantro
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Directions:
- Combine the tomato, onion, scallions, cilantro, salt, bay leaf, and pepper and rub all over the meat. Refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight if desired.
- Cook the sobrebarriga in one of the two following ways:
- In the Oven: Preheat the oven to 250 F. Place the meat in a baking pan, add 1 cup of water, cover tightly, and bake for 2 hours or until tender.
- In a Pressure Cooker: Place the meat and 1 cup of water in a pressure cooker over medium-low heat and cook until tender, about 40 minutes. Remove from the pressure cooker, and place in a baking pan or oven proof serving dish.
- While the meat is cooking, prepare the hogao: In a large saute pan over medium heat place the oil and saute the onions, tomatoes, garlic, Worcestershire, salt, and pepper. Lower the heat to low and cook for 10 to 12 minutes. The raw onion flavor will have disappeared. Add the cilantro and set aside.
- Remove the meat from the oven or pressure cooker. Turn the oven heat up to 475 F. Cover the meat with hogao and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Serve.
Hindsight:
Let’s face it, we rushed this thing. If we were true to tradition we would have marinated for a night and baked for a day to maximize flavor and tenderness.
Summary:
This dish earned us the right to visit Colombia. We’ll cook this dish again if the time ever comes when having kitchen help isn’t so socially taboo.
Jay Davies submitted this to us:
Ingredients:
Serves 6
- 2 ripe avocados
- 3 red tomatoes
- 1 yellow tomato
- 2 green onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- olive oil
- balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
Directions:
- Dice the avocados and tomatoes into chunks.
- Thinly slice the green onion (the whole thing).
- Finely chop the garlic using a knife or press.
- Throwing everything into your serving bowl.
- Toss with olive oil and balsamic and salt and pepper to taste.
Hindsight:
Despite preparing it only five minutes before serving, the avocado texture turned gummy. It tasted good, but didn’t look too pretty. We’re currently researching how to prevent this, but we’re guessing something like lime juice might do the trick.
Summary:
Super easy salad for when you need something exotic in 5 minutes or less.
Alison Gerardot submitted this to us:
Ingredients:
Serves 6
- 8 oz linguine pasta
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced into thin strips
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 8 fresh mushrooms, sliced
- 2 green onions, minced
- 3 cups heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Directions:
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add linguine pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente; drain.
- Meanwhile, place chicken and Cajun seasoning in a bowl, and toss to coat.
- In a large skillet over medium heat, saute chicken in butter until no longer pink and juices run clear, about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Add green and red bell peppers, sliced mushrooms and green onions; cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat, and stir in heavy cream. Season the sauce with basil, lemon pepper, salt, garlic powder and ground black pepper, and heat through.
- In a large bowl, toss linguine with sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
Hindsight:
We’re not too sure if we cooked the cream to the right consistency, but as it was, we thought it might be best served in a bowl rather than a plate.
Summary:
Everyone but Courtney liked it. Too soupy, she says.
Felicia Sullivan submitted this to us:
Ingredients:
Filling
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (or more) sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 7 cups fresh wild or regular blueberries or 32 ounces frozen wild or regular blueberries (do not thaw)
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Crisp
- 3/4 cup rolled oats
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- big pinch of salt
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1/3 cup yogurt
Directions: Filling
- Whisk 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar and cornstarch in heavy large saucepan to blend.
- Stir in blueberries and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat until mixture bubbles and thickens, frequently stirring gently, about 13 minutes.
- Chill filling until cool, about 1 hour.
Crisp
- Combine the oats, flour, and sugar together in a medium bowl.
- Stir in the butter, and then the yogurt and mix until everything comes together in a dough-like texture.
- Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the blueberry mixture.
- In a 9” pie dish, add a rolled out pie crust. Add filling.
- Add topping, ensuring you distribute evenly.
- In a pre-heated 400 degree oven, place pie on rimmed baking sheet and bake until crust and topping are golden and filling bubbles thickly, about 25 minutes.
- Serve lukewarm/chilled with gelato!
Hindsight: We used a silicone casserole dish, but we now advise against this. Probably best baked in a traditional pie form.
We decided to get “crazy” and “just roll with crumble”. If you’re short on time or don’t want to make a crust it’s a good option. Although, without the pie crust ice cream or gelato becomes mandatory.
The crisp to blueberry ratio seemed lopsided. It felt like gallons of blueberries to teaspoons of crisp. When we make this again we’ll probably double the crisp — and add a bit more brown sugar.
We experimented with “Rice Cream” for the first time and loved it!
Summary: This is one of those recipes that taught us you can make something so delicious with such little effort. Domesticism, here we come!
We found this recipe from Andrea Tam:
Ingredients:
- White beans
- Garlic
- Olive oil
- Bacon
- Sweet onion
- Cherry tomatoes
- Parsley
- Crumbled blue cheese
- Verjuice
- Bread
Directions:
- Drain the can of beans and rinse well.
- Mince garlic, some olive oil, and heat over stove with bacon, until bacon is cooked through.
- Add onion and cook very slightly.
- Pan off heat, pour in the verjuice.
- Mix bean, cherry tomatoes, crumbled blue cheese together. Pour in the verjuice mixture. Add olive oil. Stir.
- Toast slices of bread.
- Toast on bottom, beans on top. Serve!
Hindsight:
This recipe was challenging because it didn’t have any exact amounts of ingredients to use. We went with 2 cans of white beans, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, and everything else to taste. Also, we omitted the bacon for our veggie friends.
Verjuice was something totally new to us. The food dictionary at Epicurious.com explains it is, “an acidic, sour liquid made from unripe fruit, primarily grapes”. Apparently, it hasn’t been widely used since medieval and Renaissance times. Who knew? Either way it is difficult to find in the US so we substituted apple cider vinegar.
The salad can be served slightly warm or chilled. We recommend popping it in the fridge for 15 minutes or so.
Summary:
Despite having nuked the bread into smithereens, the salad was good on its own; Probably best served next to a chunk of meat.
