The ingredients in this cook blog do not include:
gluten, dairy, red food dye, lamb, beef, watermelon, asparagus, high fructose corn syrup, wheat, spelt, rye, banana, mango, mushrooms, garlic
In an earlier blog post I mentioned how hard food is for my team. We have all the allergies. This month we were privileged with cooking our own food. This is hard enough with the limited ingredients that we could use BUT lets add limited cookware.
I would like to introduce you to our kettle. Not only does this fine piece of cookware work for boiling water for tea, it also works as a pot or literally anything you need it for.
Next we have a frying pan and if anyone has seen the movie Tangled they know exactly what it is used for.
Now let me fill you in on a few things before we get down to the nitty gritty of this cook blog. Our budget is $4 dollars a day per person. We are in Peru and the currency is Peruvian Sol. $1 USD = 3.25 Peruvian Sol. Math is hard and that is why I am not the team treasurer. Shout out to Jordan.
Here is our meal plan. The beautiful Danielle found an app that helped create this.
We just repeated our favorite meals for the next couple weeks. It did get really hard there at one point because the store ran out of chicken…Yes all the chicken was gone. We could have gone to the market to get chicken but I will just show you a photo as to why that wasn’t our first or last choice.
***Warning this image is nasty and the smell was worse***
Oatmeal:
-Oatmeal
-Hot Water
-Sugar and Cinnamon
-Common Sense
-Fruit is optional
To make oatmeal you must put water into the kettle and turn on the stove. Let the water boil for three minutes otherwise you will get sick. Put the amount of oatmeal, sugar, cinnamon and fruit into a bowl. Add the hot water and stir. Make sure you don’t get any on the counter otherwise the ants will rise.
Arepas:
I actually don’t know how to make arepas but Danielle wrote a blog about it so go check it out —-> http://daniellebabb.theworldrace.org/?filename=arepas
The hardest part about making arepas is finding the correct mix. The first time Jordan and I went to the market and ended up with corn starch. The next time we ended up with corn bread. Finally we ended up with the correct mix and we got the picture above. Fun fact all the food at the store is in Spanish and I still can’t speak Spanish.
Loaded Sweet Potatoes
-Sweet Potatoes
-Butter
-Syrup
-Sugar
-Cinnamon
-Marshmallows
This meal is perfect on long stressful days. You fill the kettle half way filled with water and add the sweet potatoes. Let them boil in the water for around 45 mins. Then take the sweet potatoes out of the kettle. Add the toppings to your liking.
Chicken Rice and Avocado:
Um yeah the ingredients are in the name.
I forgot to mention that we have a rice cooker. So put the rice in the rice cooker. If you don’t know how to cook rice learn because rice is life. Cut up the avocado and get all of the meat off of the rotisserie chicken you bought at the store. Put it all together, add salt and enjoy.
Nachoish:
-Gluten free chips
-Beans
-Lettuce
-Salsa
-Avocado
-Maybe some rice, why not.
The only thing you have to cook in this meal is the beans. Cook those in the pan while someone else, or you, cut the avocado. Set everything up and allow everyone to add as much of everything that they want.
Lentil Stuff:
-Lentils
-Zucchini
-Carrots
-Onion
-Pork
-Any leftover veggies that might go bad soon.
You can cook lentils in the rice cooker! Put all the veggies in the kettle and add some oil. Cook them. Cut up the pork and cook that in the pan. Throw it all together, add salt and enjoy.
The Big Kid Meal:
-Chicken
-Zucchini
-Sweet Potatoes
-Onion
-Butter, of course
-We had left over salsa so I used that on mine
Cook the potatoes in the kettle, only fill halfway full of water. Allow the potatoes to cook for 45 minutes. Cut the zucchini and onion then cook the veggies in the pan. Pull the chicken off of the rotisserie chicken.
Chicken Patties:
-Chicken Patties
-Rice
-Lettuce
-Find some form of sauce
Cook the rice in the rice cooker. Cook the chicken patties in the pan and cut the lettuce. Boom! Simple meal and yet so filling.
Loaded Baked Potatoes:
-BACON!!
-Potato
-Butter
-Chives
-Beans
-Zucchini
-Onion
First start the potatoes in the kettle because this will take the longest. You have one pan to cook everything else. Good luck. Cut the veggies and then cook in the pan. Cook the bacon in the pan. Cook the beans in the pan and cut up the chives. We got to cook this meal for a family here in Peru and they went crazy for bacon. Very happy we got to bless them with bacon.
Salchi Papas:
-Fries/Potatoes
-egg
-hot dogs
-sauce of your choice
We never actually made this but it would be very easy. Also its so good and there are no allergies on that plate!!
Best Meal Ever:
-Money for a mototaxi
-Personal money
-A friend
Sometimes you get sick of having all the allergies and you sneak to the mall to get Pizza Hut. How many times did this happen? It is really hard to say. Four times, it happened four times.
I didn’t take a picture of every meal because some of them looked really gross. The week that the store ran out of chicken we ate a lot of hot dogs. I hope this helps any future teams with cooking for a month. Or if there are any poor college kids out there this blog is for you.
