November is for parties

The kick off to my third decade of life came with great memories and an even bigger cleanup.  We opted, after searching in vain for quinchos (think rugged banquet hall), to host 50 of our closest friends at our home and the stars aligned to bring us a clear, warm spring day.  Pre party, My lovely Macho and our good friend Loure prepped hundreds of Chilean style shish-kababs (anticuchos in Spanish) while I prepared cupcakes both strategicly chosen to eliminate the need for table ware.  As we started the barbeque, our friend Nony who moonlights as the fantastic DJ Urbano set up his turntables and  professional club lights.  By 10pm all anticuchos were eaten and the dancefloor was full.  We danced until 5am.  And, as today is Thanksgiving, one of the things I’m feeling thankful for is that 30′s not too old to throw a good bash.

On the menu: Anticuchos (Chilean Kebabs) and Cupcakes in chocoalte or vanilla with manjar cream filling and manjar buttercream, vanila with strawberries and cream filling and cream cheese buttercream, dark chocolate with chocoalte ganache

On a clear day there's no better place for an asado than our backyard

Me and DJ Urbano

Happy birthday to me

Taking stock of my 20s

This Friday, I turn 30! Truly a big number. One that comes, I think, with big possibilities. But my 20s weren’t half bad either. So here, in celebration of these last 10 years which treated me so well, I’m counting some of the blessings I’ve enjoyed in the last decade
1. WSU Cougar Soccer 98-99. My stint was brief but those girls still inspire me today
2. The McDonough Reidl wedding in Kauaii, Hawaii which led to the happy coincidence of me finding my dream masters program at University of Hawaii
3. A year in Hawaii studying business, Chinese and how to work beach blanket
4. Good genes: My mom still looks 20 and if I have half the mojo of just one of my siblings, I’ll be set for life
5. My internship at IMG Shanghai and Annie Wang, colleague, who invited me to the birthday party where I met my Macho
6. Discovering “my” pumpkin pie recipe-the pumpkin pie that will define my holiday celebrations from this day forward. Click here for the how to.
7. My “Goodbye” pilgrimage in South East Asia
8. Moving to Puerto Varas, Chile. The South of the world.
9. Friends who are with me where ever I go
10. Finishing my first Marathon, October 11, 2009, Buenos Aires, Argentina

A quick “wow” dessert: Dulce de leche custard

I’ve been experimenting with Sospiro Limeno (pronounced limen-yo) for close to a year now, ever since I began to note the raves it recieves from my Latino friends. Sospiro Limeno is a dulce d leche custar topped with merienge. I count it the most crave worthy treat from the Chilean kitchen. Although not a Chilean original-Sospiro Limeno is named after Lima, the famous food capital of Peru, Lima from which it hails. Still its wildly popular and any Chilean “postre” chef worth their salt knows how to make it well. I learned the traditional method of preparation from my lovely friend Fran while in Shanghai. When cooked over the stove-as it is traditionally prepared-the custard requires constant stirring and a good eye for subtle changes in texture which signal things like when to add the eggs, the dulce de leche, etc. Of course, when done right, the result is magical. But it’s not easy. I once sabotaged a batch of custard by adding the eggs while the milk was too hot. The result was a delicious treat of hot milk and scrambled eggs. I had heard from a friend that he heats his milk in the microwave befoe adding the eggs to assure it doesn’t cook too quickly. So on a recent lazy Sunday when my Macho mentioned he had a craving for Sospiro Limeno, I decided to try a lazy girls version of the treat. The custard-which, let’s face it, is the best part-turned out so rich, creamy and smooth that I’ll never go back to those days of stirring and melting my mascara over a hot pot.

I hope you enjoy this custard recipe as much as I do. It is quite possibly, the greatest reward for the least amount of effort you can garner in the world of sweets. So here goes..

Super Fast, Super Wow Dulce de Leche Custard

3/4 cup cream
1 egg
1 cup manjar (If you can’t find manjar in the grocery store as you can across South America, I suggest boiling a few cans of sweetened condensed milk in a big pot of boiling water ahead of time. It takes 3 hours for the manjar to be ready but the cans can be saved for weeks or months)

Heat cream in microwave on high for 1 minute. Remove and whisk in egg until smooth. Add manjar. Return to microwave and cook on high for 1 1/2 mins. Remove and stir until smooth. Repeat 3 times until the sauce has thickened to the consistency of custard. Use the custard as a base for Sospiro Limeno (top with mereinge and dust with a bit of cinnamon), parfait or serve as is after refridgerating for at least 30 mins.

My "caramel-a-misu". Layer crushed ladyfingers, dulce de leche custard and whipped, refridgerate for 30 mins and serve.

An adictive chocolate cake

I like chocolate. I like beer. Chocolate and beer; chocolate and beer. In this recipe the two come together famously. I made this batter, adding 100 g of chopped dark chocolate before baking and poured into a round 10 inch baking pan. I topped the cake with chocolate ganache and served with whipped cream. The result was adictive. I realized I had a problem when I woke up the next day and devoured a piece for breakfast and promptly gifted the leftovers to friends.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
Courtesey of David Lieberman at www.foodnetwork.com

Ingredients
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes (I did 1 cup)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purposeflour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch fine salt
• 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened at room temperature
• 3/4 to 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 (1-pound) box confectioners’ sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.
In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.
Lightly grease 24 muffin tins (I greased 6 muffin tins and a 10 inch round pan and dusted both with cocoa.  Both the cupcakes and the cake turned out beautifully but the cake required an extra 20 mins to cook). Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.
For Ganache
Melt 200 grams dark chocolate (about 2 cups) with ½ cup cream in a bowl over a pan of slowly boiling water. Spread warm and allow to cool for at least 1 hour before serving.

The perfect food done better

I’ve long been of the opinion that eggs are the perfect food. Of course, I’m not alone in this. It’s a documented fact that a single egg, dense in protein and other nutrients, provides a happy little package of daily requirements of vitamins and minerals including vitamin B, calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene, and vitamin E. Scrambled, poached, soft boiled, fried and sunny, boiled and salted-these are just a few of my favorite ways to eat the perfect food. But wait, it gets better; it gets, specifically, it gets farm fresh. And this is the variety we are always treated to at my Macho’s family property in Lago Ranco, Chile. Here the caretakers, Cristina and Aurturo, raise chickens and turkeys free range on the property. Farm fresh and free range eggs have half the cholesterol of the mass produced variety. Their shells are typically brown or blue and their yolks bright yellow to orange; the taste, buttery and magical. Because of this breakfasts at Lago Ranco are exquisite: farm fresh scrambled eggs with fresh baked pan amasado, small white-flour based rolls which, Cristina bakes each morning in her giant wood stove. It doesn’t get much simpler; and trust me, it doesn’t get much more delicious.

Breakfast on the terrace at Lago Ranco: farm fresh scrambled eggs and Christina's amazing pan amasado

Cueca brava

A traditional cueca where the dancers are dressed as gausos-Chilean cownboys. The opposite of the cuecas bravas or choras but still pretty cool

We met our good friend Nony last night for an event at the arena he runs: Cumbres Guachacas-a popular Chilean style party that’s touring the country. Guachaca is Chilean slang. Wikitionary (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guachaca) defines it as “rascal” but its also used to describe the average guy-like ordinario or tipico-who is perhaps a bit of a rascal. The Cumbers Guachacas celebrate the real Chileanos or in the words of one poster event poster: “somos the envase de cultura…we’re the carriers of the culture” 4,000 people, a whole lot of pisco, cool cumbers and cuecas. Cueca is the Chilean national dance where both partners twirl around each other while waving handkerchiefs. Children all learn and practice it at school and around September 18th, the Chilean national day celebration; they’re paraded out to town squares like ours in Puerto Varas in the best traditional regalia. In these occasions it’s a very cute, quaint expression. This, however, was not what I saw on Saturday night. What I saw Saturday was real, raw and sometimes even sexy. The cueca, when danced by hip, young Chileanos, rivals the tengo for cool factor. It has everything Chileno: the fun, flirting, pride, defiance. After Saturday I can truly say: Viva la cueca!

Check out a more modern adaptation of the cueca here (the English subtitles will give you an idea of its cheekiness): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDeYHVzKW7Q

Lentil Soup

I love lentil soup. Moreover, I love lentils. They remind me of the first days back in Pullman when the WSU campus is beginning to refill and the weather is still good enough for sunbathing in Rainey park and they remind me of Lentil Fest. The National Lentil Festival (http://www.lentilfest.com/) is a yearly celebration in Pullman that includes a parade of local rodeo queens, marching bands and WSU athelets through main street, micro brews and fine lentil-y foods.

Another reason Pullman, WA is the happiest little town in America. National Lentil Festival!

Owing to two facts-1) it has been raining almost nonstop for two weeks 2) my Macho and I are trying to eat healthy after feasting like Royalty in the two weeks following the marathon-I decided to make lentil soup today. Actually my day went like this: woke up early to do pilates, took my Macho to work, stacked a whole lot of wood, made lentil soup. Rustic, no?

So here’s the recipe which I adapted from Martha Stewart, Great Food Fast. My version has an exotic flavor due to an addition of crushed cumin seeds and rich saffron color owing from the Pallea seasoning.

Lentil Soup

1 strip bacon (Martha uses 3, but we are trying to be light here)
1 large onion, chopped
3 carrots, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 cups lentils (Martha’s more conservative with 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 Tsp dried tyme
1/2 Tsp cumin seeds, crushed and roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
1 pack pallea flavoring disolved in 2 cups hot water (substituted for Martha’s chicken broth)
1 Tbsp wine vinegar

Drop a knob of butter into a large pot. Add bacon, onion, garlic, carrots and cook until the onion is translucent. Add lentils, spices, tomato paste, broth and 2 cups hot water and cook over low to medium heat until the broth begins to thicken. For me this was two hours but my gas flame stove is barely sputtering these days.

Stir in vinegar. Pour in soup bowls and top with light sour cream, diced tomatoes, chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Rustic cabin lunch: Tangy lentil soup and arugula salad with parmesan

A not so average routine

Sundays tend to follow an easy if not altogether familiar rhythm in laid back Puerto Varas. And I like it!

Morning: Wake up late-ish: this means between 9 and 10 for me. 9 if Sunday is preceded by my perfect Saturday, which is staying in, watching Gossip Girl while eating a Manjar sundae free of guilt because I know I’m saving calories by not drinking. If, however, this Sunday was preceded by a typical Chilean gathering which doesn’t wind down until 4 am, then the wake up will trend towards 10 am or later.

10:30: Read Saturday’s paper while drinking coffee (me) and dozing off (my Macho). One article take’s me more than an hour as I need to look up all the vocabulary I don’t know in my Spanish to English dictionary but it’s a great warm up for the conversating I will do later

1 pm: DVR the best NFL games

2 pm: Prepare for or head to the asado. As it is Sunday, this is a more relaxed kind of asado (BBQ) with fewer people and more time to catch up on each others lives. The menu also tends to include something unique in addition to the traditional carnes. Two weeks ago, I made fish cakes. This weekend a duck was roasted in Diego and Xime’s gorgeous brick oven.

Brick oven roast duck. Diego and his father built this brick oven using two concentric industrial style barrels

3-7:30pm: Stuff ourselves with grilled goodness. I like choripan (which is like a mini polish dog from Costco but better) but most people come for the steak.

8 pm: Watch the Sunday night football game in bed or watch one of the better games I’ve DVRed (hopefully the Seahawks are included in this list but not always). Fall asleep happy.

So you can go to sleep happy tonight…here’s my recipe for Manjar sundae.

Manjar Sundae

½ cup manjar (buy in supermarket’s Latin or foreign foods sections or make your own by submerging a jar of sweetened condensed milk in simmering water and boiling for 3 hours. If the water level reaches below the top of the can, add hot water to cover. Otherwise the milk will burn)

½ cup condensed milk

1 cup sliced strawberries

2 scoops vanilla ice-cream

Microwave the milk on high for 30 seconds. Add manjar and microwave for another minute. Mix until smooth.

Divide ice-cream in two bowls. Top each with half the manjar and strawberries. Serve immediately.

My moment of glory

I wish they had told me they were taking my picture. I could have tried to not look like I was dying

Eating our rewards

At Cabana las Lilas, this is how you're greated. All this before ordering

I love going to restaurants where the staff brings you delicious things you didn’t even order. To treat ourselves after our hard work my Macho and I went to Cabana las Lilas in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires for a gluttonous feast. The experience was incredible and started from the moment we sat down at our patio table which afforded us a beautiful and entertaining view of the river front (Puerto Madero being a renovated customs port along the River Plata). Within seconds…surprise! A plate of antipastas was brought to our table along with fresh oven baked cracker bread. We ordered apetizers and mains while the wait staff plied us with buttery rolls and air-light popovers fresh from the oven. If these were on the table long enough to cool, they were immediately replaced by the attentive staff.

Ribeye with mashed potatoes. Pure heaven

For appetizers: grilled proveleta and Iberian blackfoot ham, both crazy good.  The ribeye (ojo de bife) my macho ordered was incredible! So tender and flavorful. We’ve been to parilla joints on both sides of the Chile and Argentine border but this was by far the best. Perhaps owing to the fact that Cabana las Lilas owns and operates the cattle ranch that supplies thier beef.

And my new favorite desert: dulce de leche creme brule.  Hello!  Why didn’t we think of that?

A jar of dulce de leche

I love breaking into the crispy carmelized crust of a creme brule.  It probably has something to do with the fact that my first taste of creme brule was during my very special sweet sixteen dinner.  I had asked my mom to take me to a fancy restaurant.  One that we could never afford as a family back then: Stanley and Seafort’s in Tacoma.  My dad was against but somehow my mom convinced him.  For desert I ordered the most exotic sounding thing on the menu: creme brule.  It was perfectly delicate and powerfully rich.  I was enchanted.  I feel the same excitement every time I get to break through the delicate crust of a creme brule.  This time the surpise inside was even better: dulce de leche custard!  In Chile we get manjar.  Similar to dulce de leche, its made by cooking sweetened condensed milk until it carmelizes.  Dulce de leche is made by adding sugar to condensed milk and cooking slowly and the result is somewhat smoother. Both are sinful.  But to sin with dulce de leche is more exotic.  After what we went through, it was delicious avarice.

It looks simple. But it's sooo not. Creme brule with dulce de leche

The river Plata from Cabana las Lilas in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires

Me and my Macho. After a serious day a serious meal