I know, this is very late for a Christmas post, but, well, better late than never!

For Christmas this year I was gifted with four books from my wish list, which was very exciting. Among those books was an international cookbook I had been toying with purchasing for the past year. It is even better than I could have imagined.

As I was perusing the pages looking at all the delicious sounding recipes from around the world I realized that there were certain recipes I had already decided were not ones I was going to make, mainly those from the mid and southern African regions. It’s not that they didn’t sound good, it’s more that I found myself already deciding that they were too exotic for us (which is strange since we eat things from every other section of the world). Aware of my own personal bias I made the decision that I was going to make every single recipe in the book and decide from there which ones I liked and which I didn’t, regardless of their country of origin.

My goal is to make at least 4 recipes every week until the book is complete. There are some times I will need to modify recipes due to my allergy to red meat (which is a real bummer), but in the cases where I can’t I will try and make them for the rest of my family while I make a fish dish for me.

I made my fist recipe today. The book gives a description of the dish as the name followed by the actual name with the pronunciation. I like that they did it this way. Due to copywrite laws I will not be posting them, but I do encourage you to purchase this book instead (there is a link to the Carmichael’s page).

Recipe #1

Salvadorian Quesadillas (They call them Cheese Muffins)

When it comes to making intimidating recipes we are unsure we will like this was NOT in that realm. Honestly anything from either Mexico/ South America, the Middle East, and India are cheats for us. These are typically our go to meals and we are very familiar with the flavor profiles. I will need to make sure these recipes are interspersed with more adventurous ones so I’m not relying heavily on recipes I know I will like.

These are DELICIOUS. They are not the same as the cheese filled Mexican quesadillas that we are all familiar with. Instead they are more like a sweet breakfast cake (or in this case a muffin). They are also supposed to have sesame seeds on them, but we were out, c’est la vie. I can add them next time. We also used parmesan cheese instead of queso duro blando that is traditionally used in El Salvador. I am going to try and locate something similar for the next go round.

After doing some research on the land of Google I discovered that these muffins are often made in cake form and are made with rice flour instead of all purpose flour (a great win for those of you who are gluten free). We will also be making this switch in the next round as well. We like to try and get as close to authentic as we can.

These muffins will definitely become part of our regular breakfast and snack routine, YUM!