A Costa Rican Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

As many of you know, I was in Costa Rica a couple of weeks ago. We ate and had so many wonderful things. The fruits there are just wonderful. Above is a fruit stand at one of our rest stops.

Anyone know what these are? I'll make you guess. When the fruit hangs from the tree the greenish gray part is face down and the colored part is the top. The Costa Ricans drink the juice form this fruit though here in the US I've never seen it. I have seen what comes from the bottom though. It is poisonous unless cooked. I never knew how they grew before. Personally I eat a lot of them. It is one of my favorites. And if you still can't guess, you can mouse over the photos and see how I labeled the photo.

For breakfast the Costa Ricans eat something called Gallo Pinto for breakfast. If you know me, you know I love beans. And this is basically a black bean and rice dish. They use lots of cilantro in the dish and it is delicious. Since I had just picked a ton of cilantro it seemed to be a good choice to make.

My "Gallo Pinto" isn't true to form four two reasons. I didn't have any black beans left. Well I had a few but they were not cooked and I was using my canned beans. Next year I need way more black beans. They really are my favorite bean. The other reason is that I put a bit of cumin it in. This is not normal for Gallo Pinto. Oh and normally there is about half as many beans as I add. I do love my beans.

I can't give you an exact recipe since I didn't follow one and sort of just threw things in. But I'll give you the gist of it. Start with some onion. I used a very small onion. Saute it in tablespoon or two of oil for a couple of minutes then add a cup of rice and about 1/4 c of cilantro. Saute for a couple of minutes more. Then I added about two cups of chicken broth. Maybe a bit less and cooked it until it was done. I tossed in two jars of cooked beans. Mine were Apache Red, but to be authentic it should have been black beans. I added another 1/4 c of cilantro, about a 1/2 t salt, and a 1/2 t of cumin. I didn't measure really. I'm guessing here. Then heated it all through.

Yum. I love beans and rice. Though the photo doesn't really show it they looked a bit like Christmas beans and rice since the beans were red and the cilantro green. I didn't have mine for breakfast, I had mine for lunch along with some Tzatziki, cold cooked beans, and carrots. Is it wrong to combine Costa Rican food with Greek food?

Actually the Tzatziki is left over from my husbands birthday party. I love it so I'm eating it up at every chance. Above is another meal with it. The beans and cukes are left over from the party too. I buy in bulk from Costco for the party. Our birthday parties tend to be large (this one was probably 50 people) and nerdy. They are gaming parties and we play Euro games from 1pm until I finally kick people out after 11pm. Oh and back to the food. The fried rice has cilantro, asparagus, and kale. Those at least were from the garden. The asparagus was only half from my garden. The other half was also leftovers.

Many people wondered what I'd do will all that cilantro I picked last week. Well here are two dishes that used it. Cilantro is widely used in the world. It is used in many Asian countries (certainly in Chinese, Indian, and Thai food) and many Central American dishes. I see it a lot in more upscale US restaurants. It is a wonderful flavor if you like it. Some hate it as they have a gene that makes it taste different than it tastes to me. I keep waiting for it to be on Iron Chef. I really want to see it in the ice cream machine. Anyone up for cilantro cinnamon ice cream? It seems like it would be really tasty. Or maybe it would be terrible. I don't have the skill they have of guessing what something would taste like without trying it. Hmmm maybe cilantro lemon would be better.

Join Robin over at The Gardener of Eden for the rest of the Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard posts.