Tico Food

When we first got here I bought milk and cereal and some fruit.  The milk comes in these shelf-stable boxes that you don't have to refrigerate till you open them. The cereal is actually more expensive then in the US as are most foods that are prepared, processed, American type foods.

Ticos (Costa Ricans) eat rice and beans for every meal, usually with some meat or eggs. I picked out the things I recognized at the mercado; avocado, eggs, rice, potatoes, queso fresco (or what I thought was queso fresco) and got home and realized that these are the things that my dad cooks/eats all the time. Haha, funny how it makes sense now.  Anyway I was pretty bored at the idea of eating rice, beans. eggs or potatoes every meal (I have not tried cooking meat yet, we've only had it in restaurants) but we have been eating a lot of it and I haven't really gotten sick of it (yet), they are very filling, satisfying foods, good when well seasoned! Apparently I haven't even learned how to cook it the true Costa Rican/Nicaragua way yet either.  It's not just rice and beans it's gallo pinto! That is my next task.

I've also decided to get creative with the things I have to work with and start learning to cook new things.  This week I cooked 3 dishes with platanos (plantains).  The first one was simple, ripe platanos sauted in butter with a little suger.  It was a yummy desert, Ivan liked it.

Then we made platanos verdes, fried green plantain chips.  They turned out so delicious!  I don't like to eat too much fried food, and I'm usually terrible at frying, but these turned out great the first time. I used sunflower oil for the frying. They're yummy with ketchup, and the ketchup here is SOOO good. Max asks to eat it plain all the time, haha. They were actually a lot greener than they look in this photo.

Thirdly, I made this recipe which was so moist and delicious, I will definitely make this often!  The only measuring instrument I have right now is a coffee mug that marks 1,2,3 &4 cups, so I have been pretty lucky that anything has turned out good at all.

 One thing to note is that platanos are not overripe until they are quite black. These are moderately ripe ones.

I also discovered why Ticos don't usually bake.  Three reasons;

1. Most don't have ovens, a typical home, usually has a stove but not necessarily an oven.
2. It gets SOO hot in the house when you bake, and it is already really hot here.
3. My neighbor pointed out that the oven is electric, and electricity here is pretty expensive,  it can get costly to bake often.

It was tricky finding the the baking soda and baking powder but I finally found some with the help of the local hippie surfers.

There is a lovely farmer's market on Mondays with a variety of new things to try, several of which I don't recognize, so I am going to continue trying new things every week.  If you have any recommendations I should try, please share!!

Next week I am going to try cooking with yucca root!