Cheesecake, pecan chicken and a night out

Today I was planning on making pecan crusted chicken for lunch/dinner but I knew it was going to take awhile, so I decided to get a little something special for myself before I started cooking. I meandered off to MontHelado (I think that's what it's called) and got some marble cheesecake and a manzanilla (apple tea). It was fantastic, but huge.

Afterwards I headed off to a chino store to try and find a nutcracker. I had finally been able to find pecans at Carrefour (the biggest grocery store here) but they were still in their shells. I thought at least some of the chino stores were open during siesta, but appears they are not. As I was wandering around trying to kill time until 5:30 when the stores open I ran into Irene, who was having tapas with 2 of her friends. She is getting married and had just bought her wedding dress with her bridesmaids. Bridesmaids aren't a common thing here, but she studied in the US and decided she wanted to make that part of her wedding. I told Irene that I was on the hunt for a nutcraker and she laughed. Apparently not a common thing for a guiri to be looking for. Anyways, finally around 5:30 the stores opened up and I found a nutcracker. I ran home and began the nut cracking process. This recipe is not hard. In the US it would maybe take 10 minutes. Here, however, I probably spent a good hour cracking nuts with a crappy nutcracker and then smashing them (a couple weeks later I did end up finding pre-smashed almonds in Carrefour, so my life will be simpler from now on).

The recipe also calls for bread crumbs, which I didn't initally find so I bought these crouton-like things that I smash. Again, later I did track down breadcrumbs so it will be easier in the future.

Chicken, into greek yogurt, into mashed pecans with bread crumbs and spices.

Into the pan with olive oil (I've never used so much olive oil in cooking in my life. You can definitely tell I'm in the world capital of olive oil).

And I was even more impressed with myself that after all that the kitchen is still clean. I'm getting pretty good at multi-tasking cooking with dish washing.

The finished product. I wasn't totally convinced it was going to be worth all that work...

...but I think it was...I'll probably make it again, especially now that there are pre-smashed almonds available. I tried it with dijon and with tomato sauce. Mixing the 2 together ended up being best. Later I was planning on going out for tapas with Kristin. When she rang my doorbell I went outside and saw this...

 

 

...a small army of Santa hats. I have no idea what was going on, but they were all gathered outside of Chippies Bar and Restaurant. I headed off to Santuario with Kristin for tapas and Jessica met us there. We had a couple tintos de verano and some tapas for dinner, and then we headed off to Mentidero for more drinks and tapas. Bea, Alfonso and a couple other friends met us there too. 

 

Jessica, Bea, Kristin

 

Let me introduce you to vodka verde (green vodka) aka apple vodka, pretty darn good with Sprite. We were a little unsure at first because it's green, but turned out to be way better than our normal drinks. We stayed at Mentidero a couple hours, then eventually went to Azulejo and Kharma, although I didn't stay at Kharma for more than half an hour. I got myself dressed up hoping to trick myself into being Kharma ready, but it just didn't work. Oh well.

Autumn vocabulary leaves and thankful turkeys

Today we did an autumn vocabulary lesson for the 5th graders and the infamous turkey hands with the 4th graders. For the autumn vocabulary lesson I gave each student the images of 2 leaves and a piece of paper with 2 words in English (related to autumn). They had to write the word in English in the leaf, then look in the dictionary for the meaning in Spanish. I'm always surprised at how many kids are trying to learn a second language without knowing how to use a dictionary. Afterwards they wrote the word in Spanish beneath and colored the leaves in fall colors. Afterward they cut out the leaves and we glued them to our autumn tree in the hallway. The kids think I'm quite the artist because I drew the tree. Nothing like a group of kids to boost your self esteem.

The finished tree

For the turkey hand lesson first I explained what Thanksgiving was, why we celebrate it and what we do/what food we eat. They we talked about what we were thankful for. Afterwards I drew a turkey hand on the chalkboard so they could see what we were doing. They made turkeys then wrote "I am thankful for..." on the fingers/feathers.

After school I went home and the cooking extravaganza continued. This time peanut sauce pasta was on the menu. The sauce wasn't exactly peanut sauce, but close. It had pasta, chicken, peppers, carrots and onion, although next time I'd probably leave the onion out. Here's the recipe...

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/peanut-chicken-with-noodles/968b6e98-973b-44c5-b42f-8f8da4e6f00a#?term=peanut%2Bchicken%2Bwith%2Bnoodles&fv=AND(HasGridViewImage%3ATrue)&pi=1&ps=9

Success #2

Just a little add-on from the previous post...

The cooking extravaganza continued into dinner...I made nachos, which sounds like no big deal, but these were awesome. Here's the recipe...
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/skillet-chicken-nachos/9bf0c3be-09dd-4b1b-8cf4-a9cfa979b232

I used yellow, red and green peppers, and I added onion, but I didn't have cilantro. Again, it wasn't hard, but not something I would have done before. It was delicious! I'm glad I had 2 successes cooking today...hopefully that helps my motivation to keep it up. Not if only this stupid sore throat would go away so I can completely enjoy these new meals!

Note to self: Get that gym membership ASAP! :)

Repairs, Thanksgiving and good food!

Today I got up and as I was getting ready the Repsol delivery guy finally came by to drop off our tank of gas (for hot water). Thank goodness! No more cold showers! 3 days ago I got about a minute of hot water before we ran out of gas and the water went cold. The next day I didn’t shower, then yesterday I heated some water on the stove to basically give myself a sponge bath, and last night Kristin let me come over and use her shower. I was more than ready for that nonsense to be done. The gas people were supposed to come yesterday but never showed up.

After getting ready I headed off to Ruiz Jimenez. Today I went to the 2^nd year high school class, 4^th grade and 2^nd grade.  For the high school class we did a word jumble worksheet about autumn.

The kids did so well. I was amazed. Last week (when I had the other 3 high school classes and did this same exercise) I basically had to spoon-feed them the answers and they still couldn’t even write the answers down. This week I didn’t have to do anything except give them the vocabulary words initially. I was so happy and proud. I think it helps that I have this class in the morning though, before the kids are fed up with school for the day. This class is going to the theater on the 23^rd, the next time I’m scheduled to work with them. If it’s ok with Irene and the 2^nd grade teacher I’m going to go with them. Since I was planning on doing a Thanksgiving lesson with them on the 23^rd and now I won’t be able to, I decided to do a small Thanksgiving activity with the last 10-15 minutes of class. Each student (there were only 7 in class) got 2 stripes of paper and had to write “I am thankful for…” and something they were thankful for in their lives. We looped them all together in a paper chain that the kids actually thought was super cool. I was happy that they liked it so much, even though it was simple. Ana told me to start planning my lessons for Christmas. I was shocked for a minute, but it’s true! I only see each class every 2 weeks, and if these guys go to the theater for our next class, the next time I see them we’ll be talking about Christmas. Where does the time go? (I’m excited for my trip home for Christmas though!)

Their paper chain. "I am thankful for..."

("The beauty of life is hidden in the small details." Sign in the classroom)

After the high school class I had an hour to kill before the 4^th grade class. I went to the teacher’s lounge and the school library to print out the activities that I needed. With the 4^th grade class I brought drawing pages of different leaves and a list of autumn-related vocabulary. I gave each kid two vocabulary words to write in the leaves, and then they had to color the leaves autumn colors (orange, yellow, red and brown). While they were doing this I drew a tree on some butcher paper and when the kids were done with their leaves they taped the vocab-leaves on the tree. Unfortunately a couple of the kids really started acting out so Irene stopped the lesson. I think I’m going to do the same activity with the 3^rd graders. After they do it I will post a picture of our autumn tree.

When I went into the infantile/1^st grade/2^nd grade building 2 of the preschoolers came running up to me to give me a hug. I don’t even have class with them this year. Haha. I don’t know them, but they certainly know me. The second graders were so happy to see me too. Since there is the possibility that I won’t see the 2^nd graders again until after Thanksgiving we did the good ol’ Thankgiving hand turkey lesson. I explained to them what Thanksgiving was and they were being a little stubborn, saying they couldn’t understand me. However, I was speaking in Spanish and their teacher said I was saying everything correctly…they just didn’t want to listen. After I explained Thanksgiving, we learned the phrase “I am thankful for…” and words like family, friends, health, house and pets. The kids are so funny. I think they only half understood when I asked for things they were thankful for. They were saying “Head! Feet! See!” Overall the activity was a hit.  I was especially impressed with one of my typically-trouble children. He did a great job, then wrote all the words himself and went over them in black (which I helped all the other kids with) and colored the turkey well. His behavior problems are pretty intense, but today he did well. I may do this activity with the 1^st graders. If I do I think I’ll make the body of a turkey on poster board and use their hand turkeys as the feathers on the bigger turkey. There weren’t enough students to do that part with just the 2^nd graders (again there were only about 7 in class…kids at Ruiz Jimenez miss school a lot).

After school I went home and began day 1 of my adventures in learning to cook. I was supposed to start 2 days ago, but by the time I got home yesterday it was 11pm…not exactly a great hour for patience in preparing dinner. Today an herbed chicken and cheese panini was on the lunch menu. The recipe is here…

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/herbed-chicken-and-cheese-panini/d699f291-f937-4c45-9819-f2629e930f2c

It was fantastic, and it was amazing how much having good food changes your attitude. I’ve been so bored with my meals lately, and this was really enjoyable. It’s not hard, it’s just something I wouldn’t have thought to make. I used some focaccia bread that I got at Ceres instead of pita bread and Havarti cheese since I didn’t have any cheddar…and can I please point out that I voluntarily put tomato on something I prepared? J  I may have used a little too much of the spices, but it was tasty anyways.

The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning the bathroom, the kitchen and my room. Nuria cleaned the living room and hallway yesterday, but I ended up doing part of the hallway again. Let me tell you…the amount of hair around here recently is ridiculous. Jesus (our landlord) also stopped by to fix our leaky faucet. Last night was ridiculous...falling asleep to the sound of trickling water...our own little fountain, INSIDE OUR HOUSE. He was in and out of the apartment 3 times trying to get the right parts and tools. Thank goodness that’s fixed too! All of us could hear our water bill creeping up with every trickle of water.

Now I’m just chilling (literally…it’s cold) in the living room, trying to get this darn blog caught up. Over the course of the last week I’ve spent several entire afternoons ‘encerrada’ (holed up) in my room. Our couches aren’t very comfortable, and if I close the door to my room I can turn my heat on and keep things nice and toasty, but Nuria came in a couple days ago and basically told me to get my butt into the shared areas of the house. Ironically, I’ve spent my evenings in the living room ever since, but I’ve been the only one in here. The good/bad thing I recently discovered…there’s a setting on the TV that I can change, and it plays the TV shows in their native language, so Grey’s Anatomy, Sex in the City, Friends and CSI can all be viewed in English. Yay for enjoyment and relaxation…bad for learning Spanish. I don’t think I’ll change it often, but it is nice when I’m using the TV as background noise and can’t actually pay attention to what they’re saying. Plus, I can only change it when I’m home alone. I’ll probably go make dinner now, plan my lessons for tomorrow, and hopefully get in bed at a decent hour. I can’t believe it’s already 9pm. Seriously…where do the days go???

Anyone have a magic oven they want to give me?

I wish cooking came naturally to me. I have several friends who seem to be able to just wing it and out of their magical ovens appear these amazing, glorious meals. That’s not me. Pasta, chicken, salmon, repeat, perhaps with different pre-made sauces. Let me tell you…I’m pretty tired of it. It’s good, but you can only have something so many times before it gets boring. My frustrations are as follows:

-Nothing seems to stay good in our fridge for more than a couple days. That means almost daily trips to the grocery store (in between working at 2 schools, taking 2 university courses and doing all the lesson planning and homework associated with them).

-I don’t know what to make!

-I need recipes with really basic ingredients. Nothing fancy. Trying to find anything even slightly unusual is nearly impossible here.

-I have to come up with some sort of system, because I’m the type of person who will end up not cooking because by the time I get home I’m hungry, and I’m hungry now, so planning a meal that takes 20 minutes to prepare and another 20-30 to cook just isn’t going to happen.

-I don’t have an oven…not even a convection oven, or a toaster for that matter. Stovetop and microwave only.

I seem to have this problem every time I come over here. I’m totally stuck and bored with food. I know there are so many good recipes but I don’t know where to start. Blaaaaaaaah.

I’m thinking of taking a cooking class at the Universidad Popular next semester, but I don’t know if I’ll have room in my schedule. I hope so, although that doesn’t help me much until then. I wish I could find some woman to take me in as her pet project. I bet there’s someone around that would love that.

I’ve started looking here http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/preparation/stovetop-recipes

and am already salivating.  I hope these turn out to be easy enough for someone cooking-impaired like me.

Between these recipes, the song playing in Itunes talking about key lime pie, and a friend on Facebook posting a picture of his chocolate-peanut butter cake, I’m beginning to think my lunch didn’t quite hit the spot.

Back to the recipe search…