Fry Twice, Add Bacon

Sounds healthily delicious, right? Tonight we made Mofongo. It's a dish we tried in Puerto Rico and both loved, so it seemed the natural choice when Owen gave us a lot (and I mean a lot) of plantains.

It was a little labor intensive and didn't turn out perfect, but we will definitely try again (please note our awesome use of the LED lantern; our fluorescent light is flickering to the point that I'm sure it will cause an epileptic seizure soon, and there's no chance of buying one until tomorrow, although we're moving in just a couple days [have I told you that? I'm so excited], and I'm not sure it's worth the expense).

To do better next time: 1 - yellow plantains are too sweet, use green; 2 - raw garlic in large quantities is too strong, use less and cook it first somehow; 3 - bacon is only necessary if the mofongo is going to be the main dish, when eaten with chicken it's a little too much; 4 - it's worth using 27 paper towels per plantain slice, if that's what it takes to drain the oil off them after frying.
Conclusion: Trying new things is always an adventure, but there is much to be said for experience, which only comes from trying again. And again. And again (ah, that New's Year's resolution list looks like it's going to have to include exercise).

Experimental cooking

If you've ever spent much time with me in a kitchen, you know that I'm a bit of a haphazard cook. Sometimes that works out really well, such as when I tried frying plantains (yum!):


Sometimes it doesn't work out so well, such as when I used a glass plate as a lid for my rice pot (bang!):


It had worked three or four times before, but I guess that time was just too much. The explosion really shook me up. It wasn't my best night here, needless to say. The good experiment didn't quite out-weigh the impact of the bad. Meh. We're moving on. I scored a sweet rice pot from someone selling theirs on campus. There is much rice in our future. Plantains, too.