comida Guatemalteca | denna's ideas

My daughter has been bugging me because I haven’t started to decorate for fall yet….maybe she’s mostly just surprised that I haven’t. Well, I guess that mermaid party took a lot outta me!! September was a gorgeous month, but now with the start of October, we’ve also started with the chilly, and slightly wet, weather. So maybe I’m not decorating yet, but I’ve started cooking for it!!

Day before yesterday we had what Henry and I would probably call the ultimate fall comfort food (for us), I’m talking about a meal, not a dessert!! I made my mother-in-law’s “cocido de res” ( at least I tried to!!) I haven’t verified the details of the recipe with her lately, but I do have memories of her making it and how much I love it!! And love it more every time I make it!! I guess it could be called a stew? Well, maybe not, maybe it’s more of a soup with lots of chunks in it….not sure.

Sometimes I cook up the beef in the crock pot then add it to the soup, but this time I just browned some chunks of beef in the pot then added water for broth, and it worked out great. I’m not sure I remembered the seasonings properly, but I know bay leaf (hoja de laurel) is in there for sure!! Black pepper, salt, season salt….ok, I couldn’t remember if there’s garlic in there, but I thought not, so didn’t add that. Now throw in all sorts of root veggie type things, like sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes, acorn squash and corn on the cob….which I didn’t have so I just added frozen corn at the end!! (I take lots of shortcuts when I cook traditional meals! ) I also didn’t have a beef boullion cube, so I added some chicken stuff and thought that I had ruined it, but it was fine! whew! Now let that all simmer together and prepare some white rice ( I use basmati). Chop up some onion (white I guess) and lots of fresh cilantro. When serving time comes around, put some rice in each dish, ladle in some broth, add lots of the veggies and top with chopped onion and cilantro! Oh boy! That onion and cilantro just kick it up by several notches!!

One of my kids gave me 2 thumbs up and 2 big toes up for this meal!!!

When we ate the delicious leftovers yesterday we added an avocado! super yum!!

I should probably call Mamita to ask and see if I forgot anything…but we were happy with it and my husband is a sweetie and doesn’t say “this is good, but not a good as my Mom’s!” (he is also a very wise man).

What are your favorite fall recipes that you eat every autumn? I have lots of dessert recipes, but not so many “real food” recipes!

here’s a bonus photo that I thought I’d just throw in here: I don’t usually do anything fancy, but this day I thought I’d try and “fancy-up” plain jam and butter sandwiches for the kids, heehee 🙂 I guess they weren’t too embarassed at lunch time! 😉

A quick cozy lunch for my girlie and I, that was what we needed, after a “long” morning at kindergarten…(haha). I was so pleased to have a few carefully guarded packages of soup that traveled in my suitcase from Guatemala. Since it was a lunch emergency, I decided to use my last package of:It just seems like the soups from Guatemala are yummier than the ones I get here…probably a lot more MSG in them! 😉