survived one of the most insane day’s i’ve had at work, to date, and grateful to be off to hawaii tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aloha

anyway, spread the jellies on toast and went for it. overly sweet. probably wouldn’t buy it again.

big day today! not only is it D -day for wedding invitations, it’s also chili cooking friday!! we picked up the trophies for tomorrow’s chili cookoff before settling into many hours of invitation making/stamping/addressing/etc followed by prep and cook work on our award winning chili! while making the big grocery run at pancho villa we grabbed a cactus pear for the sampling.

a woman at the market gave us a few serving suggestions, but we chose to just eat it plain and raw. the flesh of the fruit is a nice texture, kind of hearty and soft at the same time. but the flavor is seriously sour. no wonder the lady at the store said it’s often used in salsas and ceviches in place of lemon juice. i ate the whole of my half, anyway….jacques however, took one taste and quit.

the wild boar meat was purchased at iowa meat farms in grantville. as one of the many (not so secret anymore) secret ingredients in our chili, we sauteed the goods and sampled before placing it in the chili pot. i thought i was going to hate it, not being a fan of anything gamey tasting, but it was really delicious – tender, lean, and flavorful. a lovely addition to the chili. onward to first place!!!

what’s for dinner!? cherimoyas and boston beans! well, those will do for appetizers anyway.

on first introduction, i thought jacques had purchased an under-riped or deformed artichoke. native to northern peru, the flavor of these funky fruits has been described as ‘banana-vanilla-apple-pineapple-papaya-strawberry’ or just ‘exactly like a blend of bubbalicious bubblegum flavors’. it was very, very sweet and i can certainly see where people would describe it as a variety of familiar fruity flavors. i would prefer it in s milkshake though, as the texture is that of the mealy-est pear you can imagine…and mealy just doesn’t appeal to me.

the boston beans were an impulse buy by jacques at the farmers market earlier today. they were tasty, kind of like peanut m&ms but much sweeter.

first off, let me just say that until today i didn’t know chayotes existed in the world, and secondly, even after visualizing them, i was shocked to discover they are a vegetable….a squash, at that.

chayotes look like bright green pears, only with a waxier complexion. these are of the gourd family, native to central america, found in traditional central amercian cuisine but also adopted into the repertoire of chefs worldwide! the whole of the plant has been historically used for a variety of reasons from home remedies to dinner recipes, to farm animal feed.

we found endless recipes, our options were pretty much limitless. jacques chose to cook the chayote – sautéed in the pan with oil, red chiles, garlic, pepper, salt and sugar. they were spicy and delicious. almost the flavor of a sweet potato, but the texture of a cucumber. i will remember to pick this little squash again, the next time i am at the market.

the chickenless cutlets were picked up at trader joe’s on a whim. jacques didn’t appreciate the texture much, but i almost prefer the texture of soy to that of real meat…as strange as it sounds, my rationale is that with soy products, there’s never the potential to bite into some freaky, unidentifiable cartilage bit – that’s one bit of ‘beef’ i’ve had with eating meat since i was little! ha ha. i’d eat the again, tasty.

today we needed a quick fix for something new. lucky for us we had some “Saladulces Hola” just laying around. and better yet it was sweet & sour salted plum flavor?? i picked this up the other day at poncho villa just in case we needed something quick and easy. Hola, for people who haven’t seen it, is a mexican bagged candy in some thick funky liquid. i have seen it all over the place but have never been adventurous enough to try it. i thought it was decent, but I would be fine if i never ate it again. i only ate one plum. christine also only had one plum and felt about the same. needless to say, we didn’t finish the bag. the only plus i got out of it was that it was the first mexican candy i have had that did not have chilis in it. yee haw

i must begin with a special appreciation note for Alan Chiang, the MVP Assistant Blog Master. he has accompanied jacques and me on several of our challenges and this time, he provided the food which we ate to fulfill today’s challenge! a couple weeks ago alan went to an iron chef theme party (an idea i absolutely aspire to copy!…or at least participate in). the iron chef challenge food was peanuts, so alan whipped up his version of the senegalese stew called ‘mafe’ – it includes a peanut butter base, with chicken and various veggies. he set aside and froze a serving for jacques and me, and today, we finally got around to sampling! it was very flavorful, i loved the carrots…familiar flavors of a stew with a serious twist…mmmm. because we were hungry and didn’t want to wait for rice (the recommended accompaniment) we served it with black beluga lentils, which lended themselves perfectly to the dish. kudos alan!!! MVP!!!! we both had seconds

on the way home, i stopped at Venissimo Cheese and picked up some Pappe Goat Bits. these were some african peppers stuffed with goat cheese. i was not very fond of them, christine thought they were all right.