Shrimp Ceviche with Rellenitos

I have started practicing my cooking for living in Ecuador. Did I tell you we are going to Ecuador? This winter for three months all four of us are going to spend 3 months in Ecuador. Why? We have always wanted to go abroad for a while.  A whole year is to expensive and we would have to work. Thailand is out cause of a coup. We decided on Ecuador due to an inexpensive place to stay. We will have a language immersion time for the whole family and daily beach time. That is why I am practicing Ecuador cuisine.
I made rellenitos which are plantain cakes stuffed with sweet blackbeans. Then I made ceviche.

My backyard dinner table makes the best background for food photos. That is rose in the redhook glass.

SOUP PARTY

For many years my wife and I and now our whole family have had an annual soup party. Usually is has been early in December. We invite many people for an open house, make five or so big pots of soup and then sit back and let people come visit us (not as easy as it sounds). It is a great way to see and catch up with lots of our friends and feed them. Previous favorite soups have been Poppop's Fish Chowder, Tomato Fennel with Pernod, Carrot Curry, and Marcella Hazan's Minestrone. We use our favorite cook books and websites and family favorites. To see some family favorites go to my recipe page here at BigOven.
For 2013 we went to DisneyLand instead so we decided to throw a summer soup this year. Same rules as before but all the soups were cold and we sat outside in the backyard.

Review

Many thumbs up for the strawberry dark chocolate gelato. Thanks Stephanie and Kyra.

Fresh Gelato

On the way back from water fun in Snohomish Washington we stopped at Maltby Produce where we picked up among many things 4 pints of fresh strawberries. They have garnished our breakfast for the last two days and now the remainder are going into Gelato. Gelato deserves to be capitolized.

When we were in Italy in 2008 we had Gelato nearly everyday. The best was on Piazza Cisterna in San Gimignano.

Thanks to Marcella Hazan I had a great cook book during our stay. I used it to make a number of great recipies at our little house in Tuscany. Upon our return I used the Gelato recipie to great raves. The strawberries in the recipie can be replaced by any fruit you like and I have done lemon, lime, grapefruit, raspberry, plum and peach. Lemon is by far my favorite and will get a separate post. 

Today my niece Kyra who is visiting from North Dakota wanted to learn how to make Gelato. It is easy and a great use of seasonal yummyness. The recipie is in The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. For fun we sprinkled some shaved dark chocolate in at the very end. It is currently in the freezer and will be tasted tomorrow. Sometimes cooking is about waiting. 

Pickles

I have discovered that pickles are easy and yummy. Lately I have pickled radishes, onions with jalapenos and the classic cucumbers. This current recipe I got from Smitten Kitchen. Every Smitten Kitchen recipe I have tried has been great. My five year old cut the ends off the cucumbers from Costco and helped me manage the Cuisinart. I also got a thinner Cuisinart blade from Amazon.com which cuts down the use of the mandolin. I can't wait to see the results.

Here is the link- http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/07/easiest-fridge-dill-pickles/