Locro de Papa and aji criollo

Almost every meal in Ecuador starts with sopa (soup) and it is often some version of locro de papa, (potato soup).  This soup is not dissimilar to the french leek and potato soup, but with the addition of cheese and avocado. Saturday night we were having a reunion party with some of the participants of our epic to adventure to Ecuador last fall, and I offered to cook an Ecuadorian dinner. Obviously it had to start with this soup

It is simple and easy to make, but does require a good chicken stock. Fortunately in the process of making one of the other dishes I had a large amount of very flavourful chicken stock.  I suspect like all traditional ubiquitous dishes there are as many recipes as there are families making it, so I combined several making it the way that I liked it best. I made enough for 20, but it would be very easy to cut down the quantities to a make more reasonable amount of soup, so I will give the measurements for  6 servings.

1 large onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 pounds of yellow potatoes peeled and cut into 2 inch cubes
5 cups of chicken stock
1 avocado sliced
Crumbled queso fresco cheese, or a mild feta would work as well.

Place the oil in a large pot and add the onion and garlic, cook slowly over low heat until the onions are translucent. Then add one cup of the stock.

Pour this into a blender or food processor.  Blend until the onion is pureed and add back to the pot.

Crispy chopped salad

Saturday evening we were invited over to a good friends for dinner.  She was making Mexican lasagna and I offered to make a salad to go with it.  I love cilantro and I would usually have used it in this salad; but her husband really does not care for it, so I switched it up a little. Though it was a cold wet dark evening I wanted to make a salad that was crisp and light to compliment the rich slightly spicy main course.

Dressing

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 garlic clove grated
• Salt and pepper

Salad

• 1/2 bunch of large green onions chopped
• 1 container of small tomatoes halved
• Small bunch of basil chopped
• 1 sprig of fresh mint leaves chopped
• 1 heaped cup of bean sprouts
• 1 romaine lettuce
• 1 avocado chopped

Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and add the avocado to stop it from going brown.

Avocado Chicken salad

Avocado seems to have taken over from the quinoa as the new super food. It is high in antioxidants, helps lower cholesterol and of course it tastes great.  Though anything that creamy tasting has to have fat in it,  half an avocado has the same grams of fat as one and half tablespoons of mayonnaise, most of it being unsaturated. I saw this idea somewhere, I would like to give the due credit, but I am afraid I do not know where it was that I saw it, but it was an idea I had to try.

I had a cooked chicken breast left over last week and it produced chicken salad for one sandwich and topping for a salad for a quick dinner as well.

1 large cooked chicken breast (or perhaps left over turkey)
1 avocado mushed
Juice of one lime
4 green onions chopped
2 tablespoons of cilantro chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Mush up the avocado until there are few lumps and then add the lime juice, green onions and cilantro.

Mix together and taste for salt and pepper, and then add the chopped chicken.

Green and white salad for dinner on the deck

The first day of the July long weekend dawned with torrential rain and low clouds and I am ashamed to admit that we had breakfast at about 11:00 and did not get dressed until after noon.  We finally set out to the teeming metropolis of Maderia Park to hunt and gather for dinner and rent a movie for later.  At the liquor store they assured us that by 6:00 we would be able to enjoy a glass of wine outside on the deck.  Though at the time that seemed impossible her prediction came true.

At 6:00 we were indeed sitting out on the deck enjoying a glass of wine before dinner.  We had picked up some lovely baby back ribs from The Oaktree market and cooked them in a dry rub and finished them off on the barbecue.

Nancy made a delicious light salad with some spectacular local oak leaf lettuce also picked up at the Oakstreet market.

This made a salad for two.

Texas Ceasar salad

We were going over for a night of Texas Hold'm at a friends house really big stakes, $5.00 buy in and pot luck.  The theme for the pot luck was Texas food, I perused what others were bringing and I thought a salad was in order. I check on the Internet for suggestions and came up with Texas Caesar salad on epicurious.com of course I had to adapt due to what I had on hand, but the dressing sounded interesting and tasty so I decided to give it a try.

Dressing ingredients



1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped shallots
2 garlic cloves
1 jalapeño chili, seeded, chopped (use less if you do not want too much heat)
Juice of 1 lime
3/4 cup olive oil

Place all the ingredients except the olive oil in a mini chopper or blender.

Mexican inspired salad

I was wanting to make a salad this Saturday to go with my next daring cooks challenge (more about that on the 14th). It needed to have bright flavours and it was to go with South American food so this is what I came up with.

2 avocados chopped
Juice of one lime
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup of olive oil
5 Lebanese cucumbers
1/2 red onion finely chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
1 yellow pepper chopped
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro