Terry Testers!

Testing for Terry's latin cookbook has been loads of fun so far!  Everything is so much in line with what I like to eat anyway - whole foods, simple but interesting preparation, loads of lime and cilantro, and all the recipes mix and match very well, so every meal is a new surprise. 

Yellow Rice with Garlic ~ Columbian Style Red Beans

I had this for lunch today and it's probably my favourite thing so far!  They both take the exact same amount of time to cook, the prep is maybe 10 minutes, and ohhhhhhhhh it's good.  There's annatto and plantain in it and it manages to taste light and warm and sweet and earthy all at once.

Pickled Red Onions

These take possibly no time at all to make and they are delicious on sammies!  And burritos, tacos, the end of your fork, eaten right out of the jar, draped across the side of a heavier bean-y or fried dish... ultimately, they are good, and a welcome addition to the pickle collection my fridge has got going.  They are without doubt the prettiest member at the moment, too.

Mango Jicama Chopped Salad

I'm pretty sure that jicama is my new favourite vegetable, and this salad may be my favourite way to eat it... loads of lime, sweet mango, fresh herbage... mmmmm yes.  

So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce

See, I told you jicama was my new favourite vegetable!  I broke out my mandolin to do it up right.  I'll spill that there's lettuce in this sauce (among a myriad of other wonderful things), so it's kind of funny to think that this lettuce is dressed with itself but it works.  Oh, it works.  This sauce is pretty magical: zesty, creamy, spicy, cooling, and obviously an incredible shade of emerald.

Cilantro Lime Rice ~ Tofu Chicharrones ~ So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce

Ultra-fried smoky chewy chunks of porky tofu?  YES.  YES IT IS.  And you waaaaaant it.  Also, that rice has addictive properties.  All the rices so far have been hard to stop eating, actually.

Simple Sofrito

The basis for a few other dishes, it's super slow-cooked sweet browned onions + other things, and I am so glad I know the secret of this sofrito thing now.  It made a quick after-school meal taste like it had been cooked by experts all afternoon, just by me scooping some of this out of the container in the fridge and adding it to the pot.  Instant awesome!  Neat trick.

Next up I'll be trying some Pumpkin Soup and maybe the Mashed Potato Pancakes with Peanut Sauce (!)