Hummus

 The wonderful thing about hummus is that you can flavor it however you'd like and there are a variety of delicious dippers- my favorites are carrots, tortilla chips, Tortees (Peruvian equivalent to Fritos), and toasted ciabatta bread.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of cooked garbanzo beans (garbanzo cocidos)
• about 1/2 cup ish of water
• 1 tbs. olive oil (aceita de oliva)
• salt and pepper to taste (sal y pimienta)
• 1 tsp. rosemary (romero)
• juice from 1/2 lime (jugo limón)
• 1/2 small red pepper minced (ají)
• 1 tbs. minced garlic (ajo molido)

Add all the ingredients into a blender, the most important thing about the water to garbanzo ratio is that you want to barely cover the beans with water, then blend it together and you can add more water a bit at a time if needed. I have also added a small sauteed red bell pepper chopped into the mixture, it'ssss yummmmy. Serve with your favorite dipper. ¡Buen provecho!

Chicken Fajita Salad with Cumin Lime Dressing

This is a tasty salad for one....not necessarily healthy but oh so yummy. It's fairly easy to prepare, enjoy!

Chicken Fajita Salad 

• Cumin Lime Dressing (see below)
• Chicken fajita meat mixture (see below)
• 2 cups of chopped romaine lettuce
• Guamacole (see below)
• 1/2 cup of crushed Doritoes or tortilla chips 
• Sour cream 
• Shredded cheese- I haven't tried this with sour cream or cheese since I don't have access to them but if I did, I'm sure they would be lovely additions.
• Optional: I love cucumbers I put them on all salads that I make-add a few slices if you'd like!

Cumin Lime Dressing 

• 2 tbs.olive oil (aceite de oliva)
• 1 tbs. fresh lime juice (jugo de limón) 
• Zest of 1/2 lime 
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano (orégano) 
• 1/2 tsp. salt or to taste (sal)
• 1/2" knob of fresh ginger, peeled and grated (kion)
• 1/4 tsp. cumin (cumino)

Whisk all ingredients together in small bowl and set aside. 

Chicken fajita meat mixture

• 1 boneless chicken breast sliced into thin strips (pechuga de pollo)
• 1 tbs. olive oil (aceite de oliva)
• 1 cloves garlic, minced (ajo molido)
• 1/8  tsp. sea salt (sal)
• 1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 
• 1/8 tsp. chili powder 
• 1/8 tsp. cumin (polvo)
• 1/8 tsp. paprika
• 1/8 tsp. sugar (azúcar)
• 1/4 tbs. lime juice or lemon juice (jugo de limón)
• 1/4 tbs. vegetable oil (for cooking) (aceite)
• 1 small yellow onion, sliced (cebolla amarilla) 
• 1 small bell pepper, sliced thin (pimiento)
• 1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (optional) (ají)

Make marinade by combining olive oil, garlic, salt, Worcestershire sauce, chili powder, paprika, cumin, sugar, and lime juice in a bowl and tossing it with chicken. Set aside to marinade for 20 minutes.

Heat a skillet with 1/4 tbs. of cooking oil and add onion, saute until the onions are almost soft then add bell peppers. Sear the onions and peppers until they're a little charred. Add minced jalepeños. Remove mixture and set aside to cool.

In the same skillet add the marinated chicken, do not add the excess marinade it will make the mixture less charred and crispy (aka less fajita-y), if you'd like a more wet mixture add the marinade.

Cook chicken for a few minutes on each side or until the insides are no longer pink (check with knife), add pepper/onion mixture back into the skillet with the chicken. Cook for another 2 minutes until the mixture is combined well. Put in a bowl and set aside to cool. 

Guacamole

• 1 ripe avocado mashed (palta) 
• 1 small tomato chopped (tomate)
• 1/2 small red onion chopped (cebolla)
• salt and pepper to taste (sal y pimienta)
• 1 tsp. cilantro diced (culantro)
• pinch of minced garlic (ajo molido)

Add all ingredients menos the avocado to a blender. Blend until preferrred texture. Add blend to mashed avocado.

Combine lettuce, cooled chicken fajita mixture, dressing, chips, sour cream, guac, and cheese to a large bowl.

Bon apetite!

Balsamic Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes and Broccoli

Last week I had a chat with my host family about cooking my own lunch. (I already cook my own dinner and breakfast).  Firstly, because it usually takes hours for my host mother to cook lunch and I'd like to be able to prepare something quickly when necessary. Secondly, because like most Peruvian mothers, she uses copious amounts of salt and oil when cooking and I want to be a bit healthier leading up to my half marathon. So I worked it out with my host mom for her to continue to buy me chicken and stuff for salad and I will prepare it; I googled some recipes for healthy ways to cook chicken and I came up with this gem which is a recipe for 4 people; I will be sharing how I adjusted it just for mi persona. 

 Spanish translation of ingredient in italic.

• 1-2 tomato (tomate) chopped into big chunks (the original recipe is for grape tomatoes but I have never seen them here, we have roma sized tomaotes so I just cut up one of those to the size-ish of grape tomatoes, if you have the grape tomatoes I'd use a handful. 
• 1 handful of fresh broccoli (brócoli) chopped 
• 1/4 tbs. honey (miel de abeja)
•  1/2 tsp. olive oil divided (aceite de oliva) 
• 1/8 tsp. salt (sal) divided 
• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (pechuga de pollo) (4-6) ounces, my host mamá bought a 1/4 kilo and I got about half that and I cut off the bone and skin. 
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper (pimienta)
• 1/2 tbs. balsamic vinegar (vinagre balsámico) 

Preheat the oven to 450° F (232°C). Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl. Place the mixture in a tin folied lined pan.

Bake for 12 minutes or until the tomato skin bursts and wrinkles, the broccoli will brown a bit. Stir once during baking, (the smell of honey will instantly hit you when you open the oven so rico). Stir 1/4 tsp. of salt into the mixture. While the tomato-broccoli mixture is in the oven, begin to prepare the chicken. Slice the chicken into slices, I did about 6 slices. Sprinkle with the remaining salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

Cook in a skillet with a tinsy bit of olive oil (about 1/4 tsp.). Cook the breast about 3-4 minutes on each side or until the insides are white (check with knife). Spoon the roasted tomatoes and broccoli evenly over chicken. 

¡Provecho!

Spinach Artichoke Pizza

I made spinach artichoke dip earlier this week and I was having another craving last night and decided to attempt spinach artichoke pizza, afterall, pizza is my favorite food and I had nearly all the ingredients. I look for 98% of recipes on Pinterest and since I am currently living in Peru I usually have to subsitute ingredients but I thought I'd give it a whirl since the dip I made turned out pretty well.  This is the original recipe I found for the topping with the fancier ingredients. 

Recipe: I ate about 3/4 on my own and shared the rest with my host family-bad idea, after garbling it down I had a bit of stomach ache-my tummy isn't used to that much dairy. I'd say it is a pizza for about 2 very hungry people or a snack for many. 

Begin by preheating the oven to 475° F (246° C) 

Dough

This is a no rise, no yeast dough that is super easy to make-there are other pizza dough recipes that I like a lot but this was fast and I needed carbs stat after my run. 

I'm putting the spanish translation of the ingredients for any of my fellow volunteers who may want to know what to look/ask for in the mercado. 

1 cup flour (harina)

1 tbsp. cornstarch (maizena)

1 tsp. sugar (azúcar) 

1/2 tsp. baking powder (polvo de hornear) 

1/2 tsp. salt (sal)

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. water (agua)

1 tbsp. olive oil (aceite de oliva)

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine water and olive oil separately and stir it into the flour mixture until the dough forms.  Turn the dough onto a lightly flour surface and knead it 3-4 times. 

Press dough into a circle (or circular-ish form) and put onto parchment paper lightly dusted with flour and roll out do a 12" circle. 

Lightly oil the pan or dish you will use to bake the pizza and place your dough into the pan.

Topping

1-2 cups of fresh spinach chopped (espinaca) I used 1 cup which was fine but I next time I think I will try to use a bit more because I felt the artichoke-spinach ratio was off.
1/2 jar/can of artichoke hearts chopped (corazones de alcachofa) 
2 tbsp. minced yellow onion (cebolla amarilla) 
1/2 tbsp. olive oil (aceite de oliva)
Juice of 1/2 a small lemon (lima)
*1-2 thinly sliced tomatoes (tomate)-optional. I just have a couple slices on the pictured pizza because I wanted to try it out and I really liked the combo but not everyone is a tomato fan!

Salt- I had some garlic salt so I used that instead (sal)
Pepper (pimienta) 

1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese (queso parmesano) 
1/4 cup of grated mozzarella cheese (queso mozzarella)

Sauté minced onion in olive oil until the onion starts to turn brown at the edges. Add spinach and artichoke hearts and sauté until the spinach wilts. Squeeze juice of the lemon onto the mixture and season with salt and pepper. 

Layer as so: Parmesan cheese first, sauteed spinach-artichoke mixture, mozzarella cheese, top with sliced tomatoes sprinkled with garlic salt.

Bake 9-12 minutes.

When I used to cook with my mom she taught me to put away ingredients as you cook with them. As you can see, I didn't keep up with this method. I prefer to make a huge mess and clean it all up at the end. I know I'm not the only one!

¡Buen provecho!