Remember The X-Files?

It was a great show about skeptical Scully and gullible Mullible - I mean, Mulder - who sleuthed ceaslessly for psychic sightings. (I'm having too much fun with my alliteration!) At any rate, one thing I remember is that, at the VERY end of the show, after the credits, there was a little "home movie" type clip and a child's voice saying "I made this".

This mountain village, Boquete, is famous not only for its coffee (judged best in the world at more than one international cupping) but for its other agricultural products. We have onions, potatoes, tomatoes, yucca, name (should have a tilde over the "n" and is pronounced Nyah-may), bananas and oranges. The mountain slopes hide a treasure of natural foods.

We have fresh-squeezed orange juice in one of my favorite pitchers sitting in the fridge. When I can buy ripe oranges for less than 4 cents each (I bought 50 oranges for $1.75 the other day AND got a couple of local bananas as a freebie) and juice them with my KitchenAid mixer attachment, it only makes sense to do so. I had to look on line to be sure the bright green orbs I bought were ripe and ready for juicing. Did you know that oranges only turn orange if they get cold enough to kill the chlorophyll or they get exposed to ethylene gas? You could buy processed orange juice if you wanted to, but why bother? And there is no frozen concentrate that I have found. Again, why bother?

I have looked in the Supermercado for jars of spaghetti sauce - I've found Ragu, but it is terribly expensive (like $4 a jar), and tomatoes are really cheap. So I made fresh tomato pasta sauce the other night. It took some time, but both of us really enjoyed it. (Thank you, Julia Child.) Next time, I'm going to quadruple (or more) the recipe and package it for freezing. Despite the fact that it takes longer than opening a jar, it's worth the little bit of extra effort every couple of months, I think. And I can make "Mama Brandy's Frozen Dinners".

I went to a lecture/demonstration Tuesday morning on cooking with native plants. The lecture concentrated on root vegetables: yucca, name, and taro root (which has a Spanish name that I forget). I am looking forward to incorporating them in my cooking - the suggestion is to use them in crockpot stews in place of potatoes or carrots. There is also a way to prepare yucca that sounds really neat for lunch: boil the peeled root for about 15 minutes, mash it with a little salt, let it cool, then pat a couple tablespoons into a sort of oval, place cooked meat (hamburger, roast chicken, etc) or cheese in the middle, form it into a little cigar shape and brown it in a little oil. (Or deep fry it and drain WELL.)

I can see myself, more and more often, reaching the end of the day putting my feet up and saying "I made this!"

Speaking of same, there are a ton of tomatoes in the kitchen right now, calling my name...