Beggars

These last few weeks have been very busy for us as we are in what we hope to be our last few weeks before leaving for Mexico once again...we are working to raise our support to the level it needs to be in order to leave for the field by the end of July.  We were hoping to go by the end of June, but have had to push that back a month; not really a bad thing, really, just a disappointment, but we're dealing with it.  :) 

So we've been visiting friends, family, supporters and potential supporters, casting our vision for ministry and sharing about our work.  We've either had guests in our home or been guests in somebody else's home just about every single day for about three weeks now...sometimes more than one somebody's home in one day!  On the days that we are home, we've had the challenge of catching up on all the housework we've neglected with all of our busyness...and I don't really want to talk about the pile of dishes over there in the sink.

As is normal with such a busy time, we aren't exactly operating at full capacity since we're getting tired and pulled in many different directions.  We've been handling it fairly well, for the most part, with only some minor issues and conflicts...encouraging for me since I haven't traditionally handled stress all that well in the past. 

So this last Wednesday night, we were driving to our supper appointment which was about 30 minutes away from our house.  About halfway there, Miguel noticed that we were about to run out of gas, so we stopped at a gas station close to our friends' house to fill up.  But when Miguel asked me to give him the cash from my wallet, I discovered that my wallet was not in my purse!  I had taken it out for some reason and hadn't remembered to put it back.

Miguel said, no problem, I'll just use the debit card and went to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.  He got a really funny look on his face, however, as he realized that he didn't have his wallet either!  He had taken a shower right before we'd left and his wallet apparently never made it back into his pocket. 

So there we were, no gas and no way to buy any and 30 minutes from home!  It was rather embarrassing to show up at a supporter's house, enjoy their hospitality, eat their food and then have to ask them for some gas money on top of that!  It was either that or spend the night with them, LOL!  We felt like beggars.  Fortunately, our friends saw the humor in the situation and we all had a good laugh about it...don't think Miguel will be able to live that one down very soon, though. 

Okay, gotta go clean up the house a bit...we've got company coming for supper!  I'm making arepas and fried plantains...hope they like Venezuelan food!

Recipes for a Venezuelan meal

Okay, we'll start with the arepa con carne mechada since that picture loaded first...

Arepa-the Venezuelan "gordita"

Arepas are made from a pre-cooked corn meal that is generally available at Latin food stores in the U.S. It might be hard to find in other parts of the world outside of Colombia and Venezuela. The most popular brand in Venezuela is the Harina PAN, a bright yellow package that is easy to spot in the stores.

I do not measure the water that I add to the corn meal, but I would say that recipe should go something like this:

2 cups corn flour
1 tsp. salt
3? cups of warm water (I think it's about 1 1/2 cups of water per cup of corn meal)

I add the water and then continue to mix the dough for a few minutes since the corn meal tends to soak up the water...sometimes I get it too hard and have to add more water after it's 'set' and that's hard. Anyway, the mix should be somewhat easy to handle, not too sticky and wet, but not so hard that the sides crack when you form the arepas.

Make a ball with the dough, then gradually start flattening the ball to form a cake...I generally just grab a handful and make them all relatively the same size. Fry the arepas on a griddle with a little oil until browned and crispy on both sides.

Colombians eat their arepas with the meal like bread, but Venezuelans cut them open and stuff them with many different kinds of fillings, ranging from butter and cheese to scrambled eggs to beef, pork, or chicken. The arepa in the picture below is stuffed with shredded beef, called 'carne mechada'.

Carne Mechada

Boil beef (chicken, pork, or other meat could be substituted) and cool, then shred
--For seasoning, add salt, garlic, onion, etc.

Sauté chopped onion, garlic, cilantro, peppers, and tomato in oil
Add the meat and simmer; add a little bit of the beef broth if needed to keep the meat moist
For added seasonings, comino and/or adobo can be used.

Meat cooked this way is also great over rice or to accompany beans!

Arepa with carne mechada

Venezuelan Potato Salad

Potatoes

Carrots

Beets

Mayonnaise

Salt to taste

Optional ingredients: boiled eggs, onions, pickles, chopped cilantro

Boil the potatoes, carrots, and beets. Sometimes I just throw the potatoes and carrots in the pot together and then peel afterwards. Or, the carrots can be peeled and chopped and then boiled, but that's a bit more work... The beets can be boiled whole, but it doesn't take as long if they are cut up in several pieces. They do tend to lose their color, but adding a bit of lemon juice will help.

Peel and dice the potatoes, carrots, and beets. Add mayonnaise and salt. Sometimes I add garlic powder for extra flavor. I also like to grate onion and then add just the onion juice-it avoids the crunchy burst of onion, which Miguel doesn't care for. If you add the boiled eggs, onions, or pickles, chop first...

Venezuelan potato salad, fried plantains, and arepa with carne mechada (cheese on the side)

I really commend you if you are still reading!!!! This is turning out to be a loooong post...maybe I should have broken it up. Oh well. I did want to add a note about frying plantains...

Tajadas (fried sliced plantains)

Venezuelans love their fried plantains (plátano)! They eat them nearly every day. Generally, tajadas are made from ripe plantains. Just peel and slice at an angle, then fry in oil. I have found that the riper the plantain, the more greasy they get...the exception to that is when I've used coconut oil and then they don't seem to be as greasy. To avoid frying, sometimes I sauté the tajadas in butter or a little oil and that seems to work pretty well, too.

There are many ways to cook plantains. The green ones are best fried like chips, with salt. I also like to add green plantain chunks to soups, but I think that's an acquired taste... The riper ones can be boiled (with or without the peel-cut each plantain into several pieces), roasted on the grill or in a fire (with peel-poke holes to allow the steam to escape), peeled and baked in the oven (they can be cut open and lined with cheese or slathered in butter and brown sugar!), etc. I've even had a sort of lasagna once that had fried plantains instead of the noodles! We eat them raw (ripe, only!). :) I guess the possibilities are endless...

Got a picture this time!

Company again last night...a great excuse to have one of our favorite Venezuelan meals! Same menu as the other night and we're doing better at keeping batteries in the camera...so here you are:

arepa con carne mechada, queso, ensalada de papa y zanahoria con betabel (remolacha), y tajadas

(arepa with shredded beef, cheese, potato/carrot salad with beets, and fried plantains)

close up of the arepa

Recipes to follow soon!

International company

One of the things I love about our ministry is the variety of people that we get to meet! For instance, over a Venezuelan meal at supper tonight (arepas stuffed with shredded beef, fried plantains, beet-potato salad, and brown sugar lemonade), I found myself rather amused by the different backgrounds each of us has:

Miguel: Venezuelan, now U.S. citizen, resident of Arkansas also has spent time in Colombia, now living in Mexico

Becky: American, family from Oklahoma, MK from Colombia, now Arkansas resident, also spent time in Venezuela, now living in Mexico

My kids: Venezuelan-Americans living in Mexico

Guest #1: Austrian missionary to the Philippines, currently visiting Mexico

Guests #2 & 3: Texans, missionaries in Latin America-most recently Paraguay, studying Spanish in Mexico on their way back to Paraguay

And all of us sharing a common bond in Christ!

Posted below is a picture of an arepa stuffed with cheese...

just in case you were wondering what those might look like.

I really wanted to take a picture of the arepas I cooked tonight, but alas!

No batteries for the camera...

The arepa is a food staple in Colombia and Venezuela,

made of a pre-cooked corn flour.

Most people there eat them every day!

Since we can't get that kind of corn flour here,

they really are a special treat for us these days (there is a Latin food store

across the border where we can buy it).

In Venezuela, it is common to stuff them with many different fillings,

including shredded beef, chicken, or pork-also scrambled eggs,

cheese, tuna, deviled ham, boiled quail eggs, beef tongue, etc.

Add to that some garlic sauce and you have a wonderful meal

for breakfast, lunch, or supper!