Cooking / Meals

Last night when I was about to cook dinner, the oven would not heat up. We finally figured out that we were out of gas. Stoves/ovens here are fueled by a "gas bomb" as they are affectionately called (imagine a gas grill fuel tank but 2x the size). You can buy new ones on campus which we will hopefully do tonight or tomorrow, but thankfully there's no cooking today. We went to our first Sunday lunch at the Cafo: roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, carrots, beets, rolls, and apple pie with whipped cream. I don't think I could've quite provided that at this point! Of course, Andrew only ate a roll, but the rest of us enjoyed the delicious Sunday dinner (lunch as the children correct me).

We took a trip to the Dukas and bought a little bit from each of the vegetable ladies (they're very competitive), including some homemade english muffins and tortillas. Only difficulty - it is a huge hike back up the mountain with heavy bags. We weren't sure if Andrew would make it back. We had to stop for many breaks, but did make it back with our bags full of provisions.

Here are a few successful meals that I've created thus far:

Curried stew with cauliflower and butternut squash, over rice

Penne with chicken and broccoli in a cream sauce

Lentil soup (with carrots, cauliflower and potatoes)

Beef Tacos

Bean and Beef Chili with cheese quesadillas and guacamole

lots of eggs (scrambled, fried, etc.)

pancakes

french toast

Desserts (I think Alex would like me to expand this category:

custard and bananas (made by Alex)

oatmeal raisin cookies

Cooking challenges:

butter is very expensive - back to margerine

cheese is very different and very expensive

meat is very expensive

haven't yet found black beans

hard to control stove burners (high or very high)

Menu ideas for this week:

brocoli quiche

pumpkin bread (first need to roast pumpkin)

roast chicken and sweet potatoes

squash soup