Cooking Success!! Kinda..

At our Philly AHR (At Home Reception for you non-nesties) I had the lovely pleasure of meeting Ada, a friend of my mom. She has been a friend of my step-dad's family for years, but I only got to meet her just now. She's awesome! And soo sweet!! She bought Andrew and I How to Cook Everything as a wedding present (we hadn't even met and she got us a wedding present!! How nice is that?!?), and I must say, the book is amazing. It's HUGE and really has some great recipes in it! Last night I tried Arepas and mashed cauliflower.

Arepas are a South American cuisine that are quite simple and easy(ish) to make. Anderw and I were first introduced to them by our friend Maria, who is a native of Venezuela, at an amazing South American restaurant near us. I was hooked from the first bite!! It combines two of my favorite things...corn and CHEESE!! When I saw this recipe in the book I HAD to try it! The ingredients are very basic, I didn't have to go out to get anything! It's pretty much corn meal, corn, flour, salt and pepper, milk, an egg, and cheese. CHEESE! You mix all the ingredients together and fry them up. The first arepas we had were slightly different than the ones I made last night, but from what Maria tells me, these are more traditional than the restaurant version.

The reason I say that my attempt was *kinda* a success is because while I mixed all the ingredients together like a champ, the cooking threw me off a bit... The recipe says to heat up the oil to about 350 degrees over medium-high heat. Apparently my oil was way more than 350 because the last few rounds of the arepas were slightly burned... ok slightly charred... but only on the outside! The insides were still quite tastey! So yes, I am still learning! I didn't realize oil could be too hot really.

On to the mashed cauliflower. Another incredibly simple recipe that was a success! Kinda... The recipe consists of boiling 1 large head of cauliflower (I used frozen), mixing milk, butter, cheese and salt and pepper in a large pot on medium-low heat, then adding the cauliflower and mashing it. Well apparently the recipe is supposed to be the main course for like 10 people! I added the suggested amount of milk and cheese to the cauliflower and WOW was it soupy! I think I used the right amount of cauliflower for just Andrew and myself, so next time I think I will cut the milk in half, and not use quite as much cheese. I'll still use more than is probably healthy... Mashed cauliflower is supposed to mimic mashed potatoes in consistency (it's a low-carb alternative, although with the amount of cheese they said to use...I'm not so sure about that!). Well my version mimiced... well...soup! A very tastey cauliflower-cheese soup!

I would definitely make both of these again. I'm becoming more and more obsessed with South American cuisine (I haven't tried anything that I haven't loved yet!), however most restaurants specializing in this type of food are somewhat pricey!