For Dinner: Green Been Salad

One of my favorites light, easy and delicious.

You just need green beans, red fresh tomatoes and onions.
Chop the onions and tomatoes and spice with salt and pepper. Reserve.
Wash and cut the green beans in 2-3 cm sticks and cook in the steamer.
Mix the green beans with the onion and tomatoes, add more salt and pepper if necessary and a trickle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Green Been Salad, done!

Sephardic Flavors: Rice and lentils (Yedra)

This is one of my "new" favorites. The cuisine of the Sephardi Jews is an assortment of cooking traditions that developed among the Jews of Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean (Turkey, Greece, Maghreb) and Arab countries.

Yedra is one of those simple delicious inexpensive dishes you can enjoy everywhere in the world.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of rice
1 1/2 cups of lentils
1 onion

Photo: guthrieschroeder Flickr

Preparation:

Wash the lentils and soak it for half an hour.
Boil the lentils until they are 3/4 cooked and keep the water
Slice the onion and fry it until it is caramelized
Fry the rice with the onion and add the boiled lentils
Put more water (up to 3 cups) and cook as a normal rice with a low flame

Serve with fresh thin sour cream (jocoque) and a salad made of cucumber, tomato, fresh leaves of mint, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

Enjoy with crunchy slices of pita bread!

Sunday with friends

There is not such a big pleasure in life than enjoying a rainy evening having dinner with friends. Yesterday we had a beautiful meal where we enjoy:
-Red Snapper Peruvian Ceviche
-Eggplant rolls filled with goat cheese
-Yedra (a priceless delight, see the recipe here)
-Caprese Salad
-Portobellos with pasilla

Photo: Jacobo Braun

An this little beauties are slices of garlic bread spread with blue cheese and cream decorated with a green grape cut in halves. This easy and delicious recipe I got it from my dear friend Soledad a couple of years ago and it's one of my favorite snacks.

Photo: Jacobo Braun

Finally the surprise was this Mexican fusion desert. It is a Mezcal Mousse with Xoconostle.

Mezcal or Mescal is an alcoholic drink from Tamaulipas, Durango, Guerrero, and Oaxaca (Mexico) elaborated through the distillation of different types of agave. Different from Tequila that is only made of blue agave, Mezcal can be mad of different varieties of agave or maguey.

Xoconostle is a fruit from the traditional Mexican cactus, slightly pinky outside and green inside with an intense red center the fruit is characterized by its extreme sourness.

Mezcal Mousse with Xoconostle recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lt of whipping cream
- 600 gr of cream cheese
- 150 gr of natural yogurt without sugar
- 100 gr of sugar
- 50 gr of gelatin
- 100 gr of butter
- 20 plain cookies
- 1/2 cup of mezcal
- 6 xoconostles in syrup

For the crust, mix the cookies in powder with the liquid butter and press the mix in the bottom of a hooped earring recipient. Refrigerate for two hours.

For the mouse, whip the cream with the sugar until  big peaks are formed, add the cream cheese, the yogurt and the Mezcal and keep mixing to get a uniform mix. Dissolve the gelatin in half a cup of boiling water and once it is cool add slowly to the mix.

Fill the recipient with the mousse and make sure to cover every edge. Take it to the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Remove the hooped earring and decorate with Xoconostles in Syrup.

Enjoy!

Photo: Jacobo Braun