Lazy Lazy Lazy

Soooo yesterday was NATIONAL LASAGNA DAY, so obviously I forced my family to celebrate with Vegetarian Lasagna Soup (: Apparently it was good, my social life called me away before it was done, but I'm gonna eat the left overs for lunch today.
But as to how I made it!
This dish was made in a crockpot...possibly the best invention of all time. Yeah. So the ingredients went as follows:

Can of tomatoes and okra
Can of italian-style tomatoes (whatever that means)
Two handfuls of mushrooms
Dried Basil
Medium-sized squash--chopped
Four garlic cloves--smashed
Half a medium sized onion
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Salt
Small can of tomato paste
Cup of water
Noodles

So I poured ingredients "Can of tomates and okra" through "Galic Salt" in my crockpot and turned it on "8 hours" I used 8 hours for the lower temperature, but it really only needs to be cook around 4-5 hours.
A good 45 minutes before you want to eat it I added the small can of tomato paste, water, and noodles. It doesn't really matter what type of noodles, I personally crushed lasagna noodles, but that is what I had.
After you add the noodles you need to stir it every 10 minutes to make sure all the noodles are cooked, and incorporated nicely.
I am pretty sure that is all I did with it. It would probably be really good with zucchini and eggplant, but I did not have those at my disposal yesterday. If I have left anything out...you'll be okay, just improvise (:

Soup Soup Soup

I Love Soup. Soup Loves Me. It’s a fact. Or maybe I am just really good at making soup, that’s probably it. I haven’t blogged in a while, but I plan on changing that (como siempre). You see, earlier, after I had made my Homemade Tomato Soup of the Gods, I thought to myself, “man I really need to record my recipes for other people” and soon forgot that thought UNTIL my good friend Tessa commented that I should start a food blog!

Mind. Blown.

Of course I should start a food blog! Except for I already have a blog! So now it will be a “Sometimes Food Blog” :)  for EVERYONE to enjoy! Yays.

Anyway, I shall now instruct you kind people of the internets on how to make my Homemade Tomato Soup of the Gods. I must put a disclaimer that I did not come up with this entirely on my own, however, I did add some personal tweaks :D

For this recipe you shall need:

TOMATOES: how many?? enough to fill a regular-sized cast-iron-skillet.
GARLIC: two cloves, smashed
ONION: half a large, or a whole small….color not important
BUTTERNUT SQUASH: a small one
Italian Seasoning: meh, whatever looks good
Salt: to taste
Pepper: a dash
Olive Oil: some drizzles
Lemon Juice: a bit

yummm. soup :)

So first you want to preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Second you cut the gross looking brown part off the top or the tomatoes and place them in the skillet as well as the smashed garlic cloves, preferably under some of the tomatoes. Next I drizzle them with olive oil, add some lemon juice, and season with the above mentioned seasons. I place this in the oven.

Now you cut your butternut squash in half, and then halve those so that you now have four large chucks of butter nut squash. Add oil and salt to these and put them in the oven. While both of these are in the oven you want to chop up your onion and put it to the side. Maybe use this time to clean up a bit. After about 15 minutes you need to take the squash out, flip it around, and add the onions to the pan. Place all of this back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Once the 10 minutes is up take the squash/onion pan out of the oven, let cool for a few minutes, and cube the squash.

By this time your tomatoes should be a bit shriveled and busting some. Take them out. Once out begin spooning all of the cooked ingredients into a blender, and blend (duh). You are probably going to have to blend this recipe in halves, which is okay. Once it is all blended you are done! You may need to add some more salt to taste, but that is it!
This soup is AMAZING with Mexican Cornbread, but I am not typing that recipe up, sorry.

Walk walk walk

As you may have presumed from my rather obvious use of foreshadow in my title, there was a great deal of walking done today. Our host mother was supposed to take us in the bus to our school, but we were late (imagine that, late) so she took us to another host mother who was gonna take us there via bus. Guess what. She was even later! So we took a taxi...a street taxi...an unregistered taxi. That was probably one of the most interesting experiences of my life, thus far. Volkswagon vs Micro (giantassbus). However, we eventually made it to school safe and sound :)

School...school school school. School is boring as shit. Like, wow. Maybe I just wasn't feeling it today, but THREE hours of Spanish, lunch break, then DOS MÁS horas de cultura! Ay. Que horrible. Anyway, whilst on our lunch break we walked for, pretty much, ever. All the way to the coast. Literally. 

What next, what next. Well after class we went shopping. I bought some things :) Two gifts. Though I'm gonna have to be honest with you, unless I has specifically told you that you are getting a gift, don't expect one. Sorry. I don't have the time, money, or emotional capacity to do so. Yikes, now that things are awkward (the way that I like them!) let us continue. So we bought gifts and such. Went to the pharmacy..tried to buy some vitamin C cause my throat hurts (PLEASE remind me to get a steroid shot before I go out of the country again), well, apparently a bottle of 100 vitamins cost 46 soles más o menos 18 doleres, which is relatively the same amount as the OVER THE COUNTER XANAX! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read me correctly, over the counter Xanax. Srsly? $18 for vitamins but you can sell me some cheep Xanax just fine?
**I would like to take this moment to announce that I have indeed not purchased the readily available and fairly cheep over the counter Xanax, but if I wanted to, I could.

Oh yes! Before the shopping and vitamin fail experience we did ride one of the vanbusesofdoom.
<< Right there. That is it. From the inside, obviously. That was a little crazy. It was crowded, there was the usual horrific driving, oh yeah, and THEY CHARGED US DOUBLE FOR BEING GRINGAS. Es la verdad! Apparently they have a Peruvian price, a gringo price, and a Chinese price. What.The.Heck. Oh well, it was only 1 sol. Nbd. So, possibly because of that experience, and possibly because we just didn't know what bus to take, Lyndsay and I walked home. It was a little confusing at first. I may have freaked out a bit, not too bad, but I may have got a little bitchy...whatevs. But we made it. After we got ourselves..whatever that word is that means you know where you and where you are going..we were set. The walk it a little over thirty minutes, so we plan on doing it everyday :)

Anyhow, I am getting tired and my clever, as well as my ability to type, are running on empty :/ I think I will go to bed.

nightnightnight

Bloggggggg blog blog.

Seeing how I have not blogged in possibly over a year, I figured I could do a few whilst I was here in Peru! :D As of right now I am sitting in my little bed, typin’ this up as the bright(ass) sun shines in through the 6x6 window that is in our room (in front of it is a lovely place to do yoga). We arrived in our home around 1 am this morning. So far all has been well. Our host mom is adorable and speaks fairly good English, so if there is some confusion in Spanish, we can clear it up with English.

We woke up around 8 am :/ and waited in our room until 9ish for the family to leave (maybe we’re a little anti-social, it’s whatever) before we went to go get breakfast. Sidenote, Mother’s Day is HUGE here, they left to go eat breakfast with the grandmother for Mother’s Day. Anyway, our breakfast was amazing, freshly squeezed orange juice, yummy coffee :D, yogurt, bread with cream cheese and strawberry jam. It was seriously delicious. Oh, and they have this super sweet doggie! She is like 15 years old…I don’t remember her name, but our mom calls her Negra, so I guess she answers to that ha!

 

After breakfast we came back upstairs to chill out and do some yoga. Lyndsay is amazing at yoga, I think I will see if she wants to do it every morning.

So after skyping with the love of my life aka Akeem Taron Moore :D, I brush my teeth…and realize…that I have forgotten Peruvian 101…I have bushed my teeth with unfiltered tap water three times now. I think I’m gonna be okay though. I certainly hope so. I really don’t feel like keeping filtered water up here for my teeth brushing. So hopefully I will be alive tomorrow. If so I’m gonna keep on doing it, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right?!
Well, that is pretty much a synopsis of my first 12 hours in Peru!  We have lunch with our family at two, and then orientation for school around four. After that we have dinner and a show of traditional Peruvian dances :). I am rather excited. I am also hoping that the school is much closer than what I think it is, I don’t mind figuring out the bus system, I would just rather walk…

Welp, adios! Hasta mañana (espero)

-Sarah