Latin American Night
For this meal, we had chayote squash from Brazil, burro bananas from Panama, steak in the Argentinian style (no seasonings except salt and pepper), an avocado from Mexico, and... well, a malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. We also had a slivered jicama appetizer and potatoes, because the other palate had eaten nothing but a couple apples all day and needed food NOW.
Clockwise from left: burro bananas, chayote squash, 12 oz beef (defrosting, right), and avocado (center).
The malbec, jicama, and potatoes are not pictured because they weren't part of the initial meal plan and I got too busy once the other palate got home to continue photographing. I'm a terrible food blogger - I can never remember to take photographs once I have a hungry audience in the house, whether that's me or another person.
Anyway, as usual, let's survey the damage first.
Costs:
Bananas: 0.38
Squash: 0.50
Steak: 2.07
Avocado: 0.69
Jicama: 0.22
Potatoes: 0.14
If you don't count the negligible costs of salt and the tsp of olive oil that went into this meal, the total for two people was $3.94 or $1.97 a meal. We also have to leave out the wine, but hey, you can't buy wine with food stamps anyway so it's not really cheating (as we know, there are people on food stamps who still drink alcoholic beverages, they just buy these from their "splurge" budget and not from their food stamps budget, just as we are doing here). This is double the dollar a meal budget on food stamps, but we are talking about a multi-course meal with steak. At some point I'll blog about the food stamps challenge in enough detail to convince you that splurging tonight with steak still fits into the overall budget of a food stamps diet.
As for WW points plus, we lose about 5 points to 4 oz lean beef, a further 2 to half a potato, a further 2 to plenty of avocado, and let's count an extra 1 for oil. Everything else was "free." I'm being over-generous here in my estimates of potato, avocado, and oil points, but the steak wasn't that lean, so it probably all evens out in the end. The total for dinner then is 10 points plus, which isn't bad given this was a Friday night multi-course splurge meal and all.
In summary: $1.97 and 10 PPV for the meal. Worth it? I'd say yes, but only as a once-a-week pleasure.
Protocol:
Let's be clear here. I'd never prepared chayote squash nor burro bananas before tonight. This was an experiment, but I know I'm a decent cook so I went for it. I looked up hints on what to do for both online, and it basically looked like chayote squash you can treat like any other summer squash (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it dry then drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and spices), and burro bananas hold together well enough for cooked preparations like frying (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it).
First, let's address the chayote squash. I'd read that they have one big seed in the middle. I didn't know whether this was like an avocado seed or like a typical zuchinni seed, so I cut the chayote carefully around the perimeter and twisted it like it was an avocado. I wound up with this:
That in the middle is half the seed, which sheared right in half when I twisted the squash. It has roughly the same texture as the rest of the squash, which is rather like the flesh of a very firm cucumber and smells odd. My husband variably compared the aroma to pumpkin bread and horses, even when cooked. It's not unpleasant, but definitely odd, and probably why these inexpensive foodstuffs are not a mainstay in American kitchens. I decided at that point that the seed must be just as edible as the rest of the squash, and chopped it up without thinking about the seed again.
Anyway, we grilled slices of the squash, then drizzled in a bit of olive oil, sprinkled them with salt, and ate them like chips. They were crisp and firm like a fresh cucumber, even after being well-cooked, and the flavor was not wrong for a comparison to cucumber. In fact, they were close enough to cucumber that the other palate in the household broke out a tupperware of tzatziki dressing I had made a few days earlier to dip them in. All in all a good experiment, one I would recommend every person undertake, but unless they are cheaper than typical summer squashes, I'll stick to zuchinni. Maybe. Once I tried putting a sliver of avocado on top of a slice of chayote, I was pretty hooked. The flavor combo and mix of crisp and creamy was so amazing that I'll definitely do the chayote again, just to see what I can do with this new ingredient. Perhaps treating it like a zuchinni substitute was incorrect and I'll learn with time what the best way is to prepare this interesting new ingredient actually is.
Next are the burro bananas. I read online that I should slice them thin and fry them. When I peeled the first one, which for all intents and purposes looks like a short, fat relative of the standard Chiquita banana or a ripe plantain, it looked like a normal banana, tasted like a normal banana, but I was impressed with how well it held together with handling both pre and post peeling. A light-bulb went off in my head, "Ah, we don't cook normal bananas because they'd turn to mush upon heating! This banana obviously can stand up to the heat! Now I wonder what it will taste like grilled?!"
Well, here's the answer: heaven. They got nicely browned on the outside, and formed a tough (by banana standards) coat around the perimeter. This served to keep the tasty, sweet, creamy mush on the inside in one place. The tough perimeter was actually no tougher than say a typical banana. In other words, despite my language here, these were like little banana cream filled packages of goodness, and the crust was just a really good sweet and savory slightly chewy skin that lent the perfect contrast of texture and flavor to the super sweet and creamy interior.
At one point the other palate suggested that the only thing missing from the burro bananas hot off the grill was ice cream, and I immediately started fantasizing about the perfect banana split. I've never really liked banana splits, I've always just eaten a couple bites of ice cream and been done, but a banana split with hot grilled burro bananas, the ice cream getting soft and melty where it hits the hot banana, the creamy goodness of the grilled banana.... suddenly I understood the attraction, that's all I'm saying.
The rest of the meal was pretty standard. Sliced jicama as an appetizer, avocado as side dish, appetizer, and garnish, and of course, the steak. By the time we got to the steak, we were pretty full on everything else, and it wasn't even appreciated as much as back when we'd have 4x the quantity of steak per person. The other palate only ate half his, and I offered to cook it with eggs in the morning and he was like, "Why would we have steak for breakfast? I'll take this to work as lunch on Monday." We're talking about 4 oz scrap steak, here, people.
As an aside, when I went out into the world, I left a home where beef was such a staple that we ate it with every meal. It was considered dog food if the steak was too fatty or bony to be easy to eat, because the meat was as close to free as you can get (and that poor dog isn't quite too fat to run yet, obviously he needs more meat). It's a very different world I live in now.
I'm so blessed to have experienced such abundance in my life. I never go hungry, I am never wanting for variety, and I can almost always find something new at the market to bring home, look up on the internet, and try. Rarely am I unpleasantly surprised, and sometimes I find a new "staple meal" to add to the weekly rotation. I know the hubby is already looking forward to the next "Greek night" as he calls it when I make the Mediterranean tour, and I'm looking forward to his "Mexican night."
He still talks about burdock root from our Asia food tour wistfully, so I know that one will be making a visit soon. The only reason I haven't brought it back out is that it does require a fair bit of prep work what with peeling, soaking, etc..., so it's a special occasion food. And honestly, I liked it a lot, but not enough to do all that work on a daily basis! If we're going to bring in another "blast from the past" I'd prefer to bring in bitter melon again. It was easy and relatively tasty. Cactus is on sale right now, maybe next you'll be honored with photos of me pulling catcus splinters out of my fingers. I've done that one a few times, and honestly? Cactus is a LOT of work. I can't imagine any reason you'd eat that unless you had to, or unless you were just in love with it. It's like eating turtles. I can't imagine why you'd do it unless you had to or if you were one of an odd few who just really loved it.
Well, sorry to leave you with the image of cactus turtle soup in your head, but good eats to all, and to all a good night!
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