Next...

Okay, so one down and lot more to go. The next one will be three recipes down. Mariquitas (p. 36); Mariquitas Salsa (p.38) and Bistec Empanizado (p. 108). Plantain chips, sauce, and breaded fried beef. I had an amazing night with the last one so hopefully this one will turn just as successful. My wife loves her garlic sauces so she'll be into this one. I'm sitting at our dining table now, full of food, my son just had his spoonfuls, as much as a 13 month old can have and I'm laughing on the inside because he's rounding out the cuban with a grilled cheese, grilled with spanish love.

I'm also looking forward to the first dessert on the list, Arroz con Leche. Like a rice pudding. I grew up eating the stuff, my dad would make it like it was no big deal and some spanish restaurants sell it like its special. On my list of recipes it number 7, but Amanda just let me know that i need to switch some things around, I think that means I need to bump this one up a little. We'll see where it ends up.

Well, I'm off to bed, full of memories and back to the Monday through Friday work grind. Later.

1. Bollitos and Arroz con Pollo

So bada bing. The first item on the list is done. Bollitos and Arroz con Pollo. Went shopping earlier with my lady and baby at our local Kroger to pick up some things I didn't have on hand. After searching for a few minutes i gave up on looking for Bijon seasoning. Apparently a very common latin spice that I had never heard of until now, and something Knoxville, TN hasn't heard of either. So I had to use some Sazon Goya for my rice and chicken.

I cleaned up our kitchen and got to work. Cooking some bacon then browning the chicken in the bacon fat. Removed the chicken and then added diced onions and green peppers, then a bit of garlic. Got the stock pot out and mixed up some chicken broth, Michelob Ultra; since it was the last beer in the house, tomato sauce, salt ,pepper, cumin, bay leaf, and then the chicken, rice, bacon and left that on the stove. Then on to the Bollitos, like a hushpuppy made of beans. Pureed black eyed peas and garlic, added some sauteed onions and peppers and salt, cumin and some lime juice. Scooped those out into some oil and browned them up.

So in the end I got it all done, the bollitos were crisp on the outside, delicious on the inside. I have to be honest about one thing though, my chicken and rice was pretty good according to my food critic Amanda but my rice was a little moist when it should have been fluffy. "Andrew, it tastes good", is what I heard and that was good enough for me. So through it all it came out pretty good for two recipes out of the cookbook. I feel Cuban tonight, and leftovers will be consumed.

The first recipes

So one thing I ran into in undertaking this project is money. It always comes down to money. So anyway, grocery shopping is pretty much done for this week so I'll see what I do about my first task. Bollitos(p.11) and Arroz con Pollo(p.106), pages for anybody out there that wants to follow along. From what the book tells me Bollitos are like hush puppies but made with ground black eyed peas and fried. So we'll start with that. Arroz con Pollo, basically a classic of rice and chicken. I just wanna get started as soon as possible.

In the beginning.

So last night out of nowhere sitting in our kitchen, by our I mean me and my Wife Amanda's, I looked through some cookbooks and decided I need to do more cooking in this house. I hear it often, since I went to culinary school, but by cooking at home consists of cereal with milk, the occasional omelet, since eggs are not a favorite of my wife, and heating up frozen food. With this I decided to do something about it and picked up Cook Cuban from Three Guys from Miami and decided that I would cook through the book. After looking at the list of recipes, 100 in all, i broke them down into 51 days of meals. Some are an appetizer and a main course, others just a snack, but I'll go through them all. Of course I did skip some over as this book contains some recipes which are pretty much the same but switch out an item, (Beef empanadas, chicken empanadas, crab empanadas, chicken and cheese empanadas, you get the idea...) so i'll do things as I go. Join me in completing the challenge, i'll keep ya posted and let you know how it goes.