Where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live. Your people will be my people for your God is my God.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Papas

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Known in the English language as potatoes. {Yes, this whole post is about about potatoes.  Feel free to stop reading now!

I love them and we eat a lot of them around here.  They are a great filler food and are very versatile.   Often times I will cube them up and throw them into whatever meat dish I’m making.  Ribs in salsa seca, for example.  I stir the cooked cubes in with the ribs, making sure they are good and covered with salsa. When it comes time to eat the potatoes and the ribs taste *almost* the same and a few pesos of ribs is stretched a long way. 

We also like empanadas de papa. Sounds fancy, but it’s really not.  When tortillas have been in the fridge a couple of days, they are not taco worthy.  But heat them up a bit, place in some mashed potatoes, double to form a taco, and then fry in vegetable oil, until both sides are golden in  crispy.  Let your empanadas cool off a bit and add cream, lettuce, and your favorite salsa.  It makes great Mexican comfort food and uses up your leftovers!  {If you have cheese and leftover shredded chicken, those make great fillings for fried empanadas as well. And if you make all three and some soup, you can get away with calling it a meal! At least that’s what I tell myself!}

We also like fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, the classic French fry, I’ll add potatoes to just about any soup, and well the list could go on and on.  The point is, we eat a lot of potatoes and enjoy it. 

As in most parts of the world, potatoes are cheap….a very attractive characteristic! We have found that they are even cheaper here if you buy them by the crate and not per kilo. A crate, I’m guessing is probably over 10 kilos, or enough potatoes to fill up two 5-gallon buckets.  So my suegra and I buy a crate together and each take home a five gallon bucket of potatoes. 

The other day when Rafa came home from work, I excitedly told him about our latest deal on papas. He then told me that a guy had stopped by their shop and left a lot of papas as well.  {Not an uncommon thing.} Potatoes are always welcome here!  So that night he came home with a backpack full. 

A five gallon bucket and a backpack full of potatoes = a lot of potatoes.  More than several months worth for our family of three. 

The trick to keeping potatoes for an extended amount of time {you don’t want them turning green or growing roots} is keeping them in a cool, dark, and dry place.  Think root cellar. It also helps that the potatoes that we buy have still have dirt on them. So I dug a hole a shady spot in the garden, put a black trash bag lined bucket inside and filled the bucket with potatoes.  I folded the trash bag ends on top, topped the bucket with a lid, and then filled the hole with dirt, only leaving the lip exposed.  I then put a cement block on top to help keep any unwanted critters out.

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When I want to get a few potatoes out, I’ll just take off the block and the lid, open the bag, pull out the potatoes and then close everything back up again.  Ingenious, I know! And more than a little redneck!  I come by it rightly! Now just to go through all the potatoes before planting time!

What’s your favorite way to eat potatoes?!

2 comments:

  1. Ingenious, indeed!
    I've been getting potatoes for 99 cents/10lb bag, so I add them to most anything, too...or if there's a potluck, you can pretty much count on a potato dish from the Mutilva household!
    Love you.

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  2. ingenious - yes! You are one smart cookie my granddaughter dear.
    Grandma

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