Robin: Despite its appearance at first glance, this is not your average “salsa.” Question: Is it a salad, a dip, or a relish? Answer: Yes. Southwest Salad is amazingly versatile: eat it with tortilla chips, chicharrones, or even thin slices of jicama, or mixed with lettuce in a bowl, or on the plate with grilled…
Pork Chops a la Veracruzana
Robin: Veracruz port, on Mexico’s gulf coast, was for many decades the main hub through which people and goods passed on their way between the land of the Aztecs and other continents. It didn’t take long for resourceful cooks to adapt techniques and ingredients native to Mexico with those of Europe, Africa, and even the…
Peruvian Pumpkin Stew (Locro de zapallo)
Robin: Peru is a great country for comfort foods. It is, after all, the birthplace of the potato, a tuber that is high on most people’s list of soothing ingredients. Inhabitants of the Andes are also the creators of many one-pot, carb-rich meals, and what could be cozier than that? A locro is a warming,…
Banana-Blueberry and Banana-Cherry Breads
Robin: Last week somebody someone at work gave me some leftover bananas and half-jokingly said, “Here, make some banana bread.” So I did. It had been many years since I´d made any. Maybe decades. I mean, I do occasionally bake a killer pumpkin bread, and I love these zucchini-bread-like chocolate chip cookies, so quick breads…
Sweet and Sour Pasta Veggie Salad
Robin: I could very well have named it “surprise salad” to reflect the way people often react when they first taste it: despite its rather insipid appearance, this pasta salad is loaded with flavor. Folks see a mild-mannered pasta salad and expect something, well, ho-hum at best—but once they take a bite, it’s a party…
Coconut Merengue Cookies
Robin: I love the way that these cookies are familiar-feeling, yet different. They are a cross between a macaroon and a merengue, and as such, are both light/crispy and sweet/chewy. Their bright white color makes them a striking addition to an assorted cookie tray or dessert table. They taste good, too, of course! You might…
Easy Ham and Potato Chowder
Robin: If you’ve eaten baked ham for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, you’ve participated in an American tradition with centuries-old roots in Europe. When I was a kid, we’d most often have turkey on these occasions at our house, since my mom (the one who cooked) had had more than her fill of hams during her…
Basic Capirotada Bread Pudding
Robin: The origins of bread pudding are lost in the mists of time—which makes total sense to me, since it is an excellent way of putting stale or leftover bread to good use. One version of it, called capirotada de vigilia or simply capirotada, came to the New World via the Spanish colonists and evolved…
Chinese Café Sweet Muffins (Panqué de café chino)
Robin: Despite what some might consider a misleading name, these delicious quick-bread muffins are part of the same vast and amazingly varied universe of Mexican sweet breads to which the ultra-famous conchas and polvorones belong. One important sub-category of this delicious array of breads is the pan de café chino or Chinese café bread, so…
Deep Fried Jalapeño Slices
Robin: I recently came across huge cans (about 6.5 pounds each) of nacho-sliced jalapeño peppers being sold for only a dollar. I didn’t buy one right away, but a seed was planted; after mentally debating myself on the issue for a couple of days, I decided that I could not pass up this deal, so…