Let's Talk About Food!

This Month's EtsyMetal blog carnival topic is Food. So, what is a Blog Carnival? It is EtsyMetal members who write an article on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. This month's EtsyMetal blog carnival topic is: "Lets Talk About Food!" 
"The weather is cooling, Fall cooking season is 'round the corner. Tell us about some of your eating habits, philosophies, favorite foods and share a seasonal recipe!"

Preparing stuffed Achojchas with different mixtures of vegetables, grains and cheeses.

Achojchas ready to be put in the fire oven. These are filled with my interpretation of  pico de gallo salsa.

Achojchas filled with quinoa, vegetables and cheese.

Ready for the oven.

Always tasty. Never boring.

Zucchinis with olive oil, cheese and something else I had at the moment but can't remember what (looks like tomatoes?)

Tomatoes stuffed with rice and tuna.

Zucchinis topped with olive oil and cheese.

My vegetable garden

A crop from last summer.

Apple crop (I had to pick these before the parrots did).

Figs

Fig preserve.

Zucchini and peppers

I've had a serious vegetable garden for the past three years, so vegetables have been a large part of my diet lately. I eat a lot of salads, stir-fries and frittatas in the summer,  and a lot of spicy one pot dishes in the winter. Since I live in the country, a few miles from the nearest market, I try to minimize trips to town for groceries. This means I should probably be more organized and structured and plan ahead when it comes to cooking, but I have a hard time with that, so I need to be resourceful and improvise for a tasty meal, which makes it so interesting and a lot more fun.


If you read this far, you're probably wondering what these "achojchas" are. So did I until just recently. My sister in law visited Bolivia last summer and brought me these really interesting looking seeds. We had no idea what they tasted like and how they grew. Well, at the end of summer the 2 plants had practically overtaken my vegetable garden, and I had achojchas to feed a nation. I hate to see things go to waste, so I came up with a lot of recipes and excuses to invite people for lunch :)


I owe you some recipes. Maybe next week, or when I have some extra time in my hands.


Thanks for reading!


For other metalsmith's food stories and recipes, be sure to click on the links below:


Inbar Bareket - http://www.inbarbareket.info/blog
kate jones - http://www.katejonesdesign.blogspot.com
nova of sweden - http://www.nova-designs.blogspot.com/
Beth Cyr - http://bcyrjewelry.blogspot.com
Nodeform - http://nodeform.blogspot.com/
Rebecca Bogan - http://www.AdobeSol.com/blog
Panicmama Jewelry - http://panicmama.blogspot.com
Evelyn Markasky  http://markasky.blogspot.com/
2Roses: http://www.jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com
Jenny Baughman (Gecko J): http://ridgeschool.blogspot.com/

Food for Thought

Today's EtsyMetal blog carnival topic is about food.

Well this could be a very long post, but I promise to keep it as short as I can. I love food, and love to cook. I feel very fortunate to live in the country, where we grow most of our food. We have an organic vegetable garden, a dairy cow, chickens, and bees. I live in Argentina, the world's leading beef consumer, so we do eat a lot of red meat, but since we've had more time to work on our vegetable garden we have been making it bigger and bigger each season we are slowly weaning out of meat, and we feel great. I love to do stir fries and one pot dishes. I don't like deep frying anything, and I find it difficult and boring to follow step-by-step recipes. I usually look at recipe pictures and get inspired with my own ingredients, flavors, and tastes. I rarely measure anything. My cooking is very creative and I am usually very resourceful.

But today I want to talk about our latest project: an adobe oven. These ovens are very old, and part of our tradition. Gauchos have been making and cooking on these ovens for centuries. This construction was inspired by a native bird we have in the pampas called the "Oven Bird", of course. These birds construct their nests out of mud and grass, because that is what was available before Europeans brought trees to the grasslands. 

Oven Bird Nest where the gauchos got the idea.

Using the string to measure the distance

As the wall gets taller, the string pulls the walls closer forming a dome

Mud is placed between half bricks.

Peter mixing the mud, straw and horse manure for stuccoing

There are different ways of constructing these, but in our case, my son, Peter was the architect and constructor. He decided to build it with bricks, mud, horse manure, and straw. He first bilt a wooden structure with wire mesh, to which he added the straw and mud. He then broke about 40 wine bottles to place on the bottom of the oven for better insulation. A brick floor was placed on top of the broken glass and a string was secured in the middle of this floor. The string was used during the laying of the briks to make it into a dome. As the oven got taller, it also got narrower. The bricks were layed with the mud, straw and manure mixture instead of mortar or cement. An old iron door and a vent (he used a clay pot with its bottom sawed off) was placed in the process. After the last brick was layed he smoothed out and gave it a little more volume to the walls with more of the mixture. The oven was left to dry for about a week, and then my husband cooked some homemade bread.

Before final stucco

Heating the oven with a fire

All fire must be extinguished, but bright coals must be hot.

Last week I made a homegrown pumpkin with a roast, potatoes and sweet potatoes. It was delicious!

For other food for thought stories, check out these Etsymetal member's blogs: 
nina gibson
victoria takahashi
stacey hansen
thomasin durgin
inbar bareket
lauren anabela beaudoin
maria whetman
beth cyr
ann Hartley
caitlyn davey

Beer Bread - a recipe

I just feel so excited about this recipe. It is one of Jacquie's secret recipe that she was nice enough to share with me during my vacation at her place. It is so easy to make and so delicious it is insane.

Ingredients:

3 cups self rising flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 can of beer

• Stir ingredients till lightly mixed
• bake in muffin molds at 375º till almost golden
• melt 1/4 cup butter and pour equal amounts on top of each
• return to oven an extra 10 minutes till golden