Orange peel magic!

Scott and I have been eating more oranges than we should over the last few weeks. I’m beginning to wonder if someone can overdose on vitamin C… The navels that have been at the Broadway QFC of late are delicious! We’re seriously eating so many orange I go back to restock almost every day. (I have two/day or so. Scott has a variable amount, up to 6.)

I’m generally not a huge orange fan because I don’t like peeling them. Casey introduced us to this amazing the book “orange peeler”  a few years ago. We’ve had it tucked away in our kitchen and it made the move into and out of Perú storage. I didn’t come to love the tool until our recent orange binge.

The nub on the top is used to make lines in the peel (like what you might do with a knife), and the bottom part slips under the peel to get it off. No fingernails necessary.

Irish Whiskey Theme Day

I had a chance to try out some recipes I’ve had on my “to try” list for a long time. Both of them used Irish Whiskey.

First, I whipped up some homemade Irish cream liqueur (from The Hungry Mouse) during our time in Whistler. It was so good, I’m making some more for New Year’s Eve tonight. Here are the ingredients… You just throw everything in a blender and whip it up. Then strain the liquid to catch any remaining egg or coffee granules.

The Hungry Mouse’s Homemade Irish Cream Whiskey

• Half of a 750ml bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey
• 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbs chocolate syrup
• 2 tsp instant espresso
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

I used the same Perrier bottles as The Hungry Mouse did, after some serious scraping off of the label. (It was really stuck on there.)

*****

I’m eating the remaining frosting from these brownies as we speak. Making the Irish cream liqueur sparked my memory of this one on the list. A fellow Capitol Hill blogger, Wesa, got an honorable mention for her recipe at The Kitchn. I did not use dark chocolate, so they didn’t turn out as beautiful as hers. But VERY yummy.

Wesa’s Irish Coffee Brownies

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup Irish Whiskey
• 2 tbs instant coffee crystals
• 2 oz bittersweet (70% or higher dark chocolate) shavings

Melt the butter, sugar and cocoa powder in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly.Remove from heat. Add eggs and 1 tsp vanilla; beat lightly just until combined. Stir together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl; set aside. Stir together milk and whiskey; stir in coffee crystals. Add flour mixture and milk mixture alternately to the chocolate mixture, beating by hand after each addition.

Pour into a greased 15×10x1-inch baking pan. Sprinkle chocolate shavings on top. Bake for 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven (or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean). Cool in pan on a wire rack.

Wesa’s Irish Coffee Brownie Glaze

• 2 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbs Irish Whiskey
• 1 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 3 to 4 tbs brewed coffee

Stir together ingredients until of drizzling consistency. Pour over brownies once significantly cooled.

*****

The last recipe I tried didn’t include Irish Whiskey, but I was helped along by my coffee and Bailey’s this morning. Close enough… I wanted to make the famous NY Times chocolate chip cookies. I haven’t actually baked these yet, because the dough needs to chill for 24 hours. Will have to wait until next year to eat them… Har, har.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! May it be full of sweets and Irish Whiskey!

Eating my parsley.

Yesterday I was making guacamole for our taco dinner, complaining about the state of Seattle’s produce in comparison with the produce we bought super fresh and local in Perú.

I pretty much went on and on reminiscing about how you could ask for avacados that were ready to eat that day (“paltas para hoy día”). And then, as I was pulling the leaves from the stems of the green herbs in front of me, I started in on the cilantro and how fresh and fragrant it was in Perú… 

“See, this stuff might look pretty and green, but it doesn’t even smell,” I told Scott, holding it out to him.

He took one whiff. “That’s parsley.” Oops. It made for odd guacamole.

Taco Bell. Aaah, we meet again.

Before you read on, you must watch this video:

Scott wanted an alternative title to this post: “Allison & Scott Go to Taco Bell”, a la “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”. Our search for Taco Bell during the 15 hours we had on US soil in between flights to Sydney was slightly different than the movie though. First and foremost being that it wasn’t pot induced. We also didn’t run into Neil Patrick Harris.

Our search was travel induced. We’ve been in Perú for the last 6 months! Although we found some great food down there, I felt like I hadn’t been truly satiated for our entire trip. For one thing, often times when you’d order something American, like pizza, you’d end up with a Peruvian version of it, which was good, but always a little disappointing.

Anyway. The possibility of being able to find a Taco Bell got into Scott’s mind somewhere between Quito and Miami. And the search was on. The Miami airport didn’t have one, so LAX was our last chance.

Immediately off the plane we started looking for one of those maps that shows you all of the amenities available in the airport. We ended up wandering through two different terminals with no luck.

This part in our story is similar to when Harold & Kumar get to where the White Castle used to be to find a different hamburger joint. They go through the drive thru anyway, resigned to eating generic burgers, and the employee at the window ends up telling them where there is still a White Castle. Well, we walked up to our security gate, resigned to eating at the generic Mexican restaurant, and met a super friendly TSA agent who suggested taking the free shuttle to the Westin where there was a Taco Bell located across the street.

The rest of the story is short and sweet. We made it to Taco Bell! I ate 2 supreme soft tacos and 2 bean burritos. Scott ate 4 hard tacos and 5 soft tacos. We shared a root beer. Taco Bell! Aaah, we meet again!

As I was bringing the tray full of food to our table, a young English couple enquired as to why we were eating so much food. Once we had explained that we had been in Perú for the last 6 months, they totally understood our plight!

We took the shuttle back to the airport, and walked triumphantly up to the security gate. The TSA officer had vanished, which was oh so a la Harold & Kumar!

p.s. I would be misrepresenting the good Taco Bell vibes if I didn’t note that they were cut somewhat short. We were thrown back into negative America-land when an entitled white man started yelling at the staff behind the counter at Taco Bell. He had been in the drive thru and thought it was taking too long, so he took the time to drive around, park and come inside to start screaming at everyone.

Another man, black, started yelling as well, saying that the staff would have called the cops immediately if the initial yelling white man had been black. The police did arrive soon after, although both men had taken off. The white man at the insistence of this wife and crying young daughter.

The aggression and self-entitlement of the incident is definitely something I haven’t seen for a long while. I also haven’t felt threatened like that, even though I was just a bystander, in a long while. Big downer.

Cusco Coffee copycats.

To mix it up a bit last Friday, Scott and I spent the afternoon at Cusco Coffee in downtown Arequipa. Scott was able to work on their free wi-fi, and I took a few books to read. It was a nice break from moping around the apartment grieving my laptop, which is what I’d pretty much been doing all week.

Cusco Coffee is set up to be exactly like a Starbucks. The beverage options are identical. The fonts on their menu and signage are the same. And they have a very similar round logo, the only difference being that the mermaid is replaced with a coffee mug overlaid with a shot of Machu Picchu. Their staff also relentlessly speaks to you in English.

I remember rolling my eyes when I first saw Cusco Coffee as I was flying by in a taxi cab. Our Spanish teacher Ericka had recommended it though, so I gave it a chance a few weeks later.

Now I find their copycat-ness totally endearing. There aren’t any actual Starbucks’ here in Arequipa. The owners are obviously catering to their main clientele (tourists). You can’t blame them for doing what works…

And they really do “Starbucks” right, as compared to the other copycats I have seen. Yes, there’s another cafe up the street with a similar logo. Although their interior and menu items are very different. Way less charming.

A is for Arequipa Adobo

Scott and I went to our local picantería for lunch today. I had a very traditional Arequipean meal… adobo de chancho with Kola Escocesa to drink.

Adobo is a spicy, Chili-esque, soup with a piece of very tender pork. So delicious! And Kola Escocesa is a soda made not far from Arequipa.

I’m having a hard time finding a recipe for adobo de chancho on the internet… Note to self, I’m going to have to pick up this Peruvian recipe book when I’m back in the States.

When I'm not eating candy…

I’m eating these banana chips.

I vaguely remember trying these in my childhood and thinking they were gross. Maybe it’s this particular brand… sweet and the tiniest bit salty.