Alright ya’ll I know I’ve been away for a while, but I
decided I should take up blogging again. Mainly because it’s a great
time-filler for those long winter nights and of course because I wanted to fill
everyone in on what’s goin on here in PY.
Speaking of winter, its cold here! I woke up this morning to
a brisk 40 degrees outside AND inside my house. I could see my breath in my
bedroom! The other day it was like this I spent the morning curled up in my bed
with a book and mate, but today I had to jump out of bed and ride my bike to
Caazapa to do our weekly TV show.
The TV show is something we’ve been doing for a while. Every
week we pick a topic or series of topics and do a short educational segment
about it. This week we talked about biodigestors (topic of a future blog post)
and fogones. We have even started doing a cooking segment once a month for one
of the shows, which of course is my favorite. I feel a bit like Juilia Child.
Cooking has actually been a big part of my service so far.
From building and designing the stoves people cook on to having a weekly
cooking club with high schoolers my favorite projects here have all had to do
with food.
Which is why I decided to start blogging again…I wanted a
place to share all my good recipes and food stories with my friends!
I still cook lunch for my nurses at the health post at least once a week. I try to cook healthy things using all ingredients that they normally
would have on hand just used in different ways. Usually we rely on
tried-and-true favorites that I have made for them before such as fried rice or
frittata and I know they like.
But today I had a special guest ingredient: heavy cream. My friend Ana
said that she had bought it to make some kind of pasta with cream sauce but she
didn’t really know how to make it and wanted to know if I had a recipe. I told
her I didn’t but I could give it a shot!
Cooking here in PY has made me so much more adventurous. I
don’t think I’ve ever attempted cream sauce in the states since it sounds so
tricky. And also when the version out of the jar is tasty, why not just do
that? But my lack of prepared food here has forced me to whip up things I
wouldn’t even think of taking the time or effort to do in the states like
homemade tahini, tortillas, refried beans, and in this case, cream sauce.
The basic recipe was vodka sauce, but I was lacking the
vodka. Not a problem since Paraguayans would probably think I was completely
nuts if I started cooking with booze (not a feature of PY cooking). I wanted to add some more vegetables as
always, so I grabbed the fresh peas I had in the fridge at my house and brought
them over. Living in the US, I barely realized that peas had a non-canned form.
I had no idea what I was missing! Fresh peas taste nothing like those little
green mushy balls you get out of a can. Since I learned last year that pea
season is short (only a month or so) I’ve started stocking up and had plenty to
throw in a few for this recipe.
Cream sauce was deceptively simple and came together super
fast. I had to preface lunch with “you know, we can’t eat this every day since
its pretty unhealthy, but this is a special treat…” They didn’t listen. They
already want me to make it again!
Pasta with cream sauce and fresh peas
400g pasta, cooked and drained
2 T olive oil
3 large tomatoes, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh peas
½-1 cup water
1 cup heavy cream
2T fresh basil, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Sautee the garlic and tomatoes in the oil for about 5
minutes until the tomatoes start to soften. Add the peas and the water and
cover the pot and cook until the peas are cooked but not mushy (around 10
minutes) adding water if the mix gets too dry. Stir in the cream, basil, salt
and pepper and continue cooking until the mixture thickens. Serve over cooked
pasta topped with some grated cheese.
And yes, I know a food blog has to have pictures. I’m workin
on it for the next one J
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