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CURRENTLY VISITING HAWAII!!

Hawaii

Hawaii
Akaka Falls

See the World for Free

The idea here is to TRAVEL THE WORLD regardless of time or budget. It dawned on me one day that even if I had unlimited time and money (which I definitley do not), I still couldn't see everything in the world that I'd like to see--I'm simply not going to live long enough to do it.

But I had a bit of brain wave and soon after the travel envelope was born. This is an actual physical envelope. I typed the name of every country in the world, plus every state in the US on little slips of paper which I then put into the envelope. In the beginning we (myself, my husband, Dave and daugher Catherine) would draw out a slip at random at the beginning of the month and that's where we would go---at least in our minds. We grab some books about the country from the library and put them in our bathroom to look at. We also check out some videos about the country if any. We check it out on googleearth, listen to the music, try the food, maybe even attempt to learn a dance or celebrate a festival.

After the first two years we discovered that even virtual traveling can be tiring, so we travel now whenever I happen to be in the mood.

It's great fun. I especially love it when people I meet have been to the place I'm "visiting" in real life, or get excited and have some virtual adventures of their own. I hope that anyone who comes across this blog will feel welcome to come with us on the trip!



You have a standing reservation to see it all!

Jan 20, 2013

Honduran Dinner

The results are in and tripe is officially terrible. Even the cats wouldn't touch it. You think the picture below looks bad? Our tripe came in frozen squares. Dave bought the smallest amount he could, but it was still more than a lifetime supply. Since the "Sopa de Mondango" sounded good otherwise, I cheated and made the soup without tripe, then fried up a little on the side. We each took soup and sprinkled on about 4 molecules of tripe a piece. Maybe there are better ways to cook it. My reciepe said to simmer it with lemon for about 2 hours. Another reciepe said to fry it in oil. I did both, and it was rubbery, vaguely fishy smelling and stil a sickly yellow color.

The rest of the dinner was fine. We went to the Mexican grocery store and bought all kinds of fun stuff for it. Cassava (yucca) root and a green plantain for the soup, Masa Harina tortilla mix (made from ground corn, but looks like white flour. Supposedly, this is the authentic stuff they use in Honduras). Mexican cheese and Mexican sour cream. The sour cream is just a little milder than the US kind. We made tortillas then put refried beans, sour cream and cheese on them, folded them in half and called them "Boletas." Delicious, and with the soup they made a wonderfully satisfying meal. We ate dinner while watching a kid's video about Central America.

The best part was dessert--the internet called this Honduran quesadillas, but it was nothing like what I'd recognize as a quesadilla. Instead, it's a really rich cake made with 1/2 rice flour, parmesan cheese and sesame seeds. Here's the receipe from allrecipes.com Delicious!

I made, (or rather Catherine made) 1/2 this receipe and it filled a 9x9 pan nicely. 1 1/2 C margarine

3 cups white sugar

2 cups flour

1 cup rice flour

1 TBL baking powder

6 room-temp eggs

2 cups lukewarm milk

2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup white sugar 1/4 cup flour 1/4 cup sesame seeds. Preheat oven to 350. Beat margarine, and 3 c sugar till fluffy. Add eggs one at a time mixing well. Combine 2 c flour, rice flour and baking powder and add them alternately with the milk. Slowly stir in Parmesan cheese. Pour batter into greased baking dish. In small bowl, mix the 1/2 c suar, 1/4 c flour and sesame seeds, sprinkle evenly over batter in cake pan. Bake 45 min at 350.

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