I love Sunday afternoons. In fact, I’ve always loved Sunday afternoons. Granted, while I was both working full time and going to school full time, Sunday afternoons were typically spent doing homework. I remember one Sunday afternoon last year (either in the fall or spring… no snow, but I don’t remember when) that I didn’t have any homework. I grabbed a blanket, went to Grotto Park, and laid on the blanket and read In the Presence of My Enemies.
Since I usually ride to and from church with the pastors, we are are the first to arrive and the last to leave. Today I decided to ride back to my neighborhood on the bus with some others who live around here. It was nice to arrive home about 12:30.
I spent the afternoon cooking and resting. (Cooking is very relaxing for me…) For lunch I attempted “Lomo Saltado” (a Peruvian dish… it turned out pretty good). What I really wanted to share with you, though, is what I just finished making: root salad. That’s just my made-up name for something that I didn’t make up… basically a glorified potato salad.
We had some beets and carrots in the fridge that really needed to be used, so I cooked them…
One common root vegetable here is the ñame. A couple of weeks ago, the mom of one of the girls at church gave me two big ñames. We used one for mote de queso (my favorite Colombian food… I’ll save that for a different blog) and still had the other one. Thursday, a friend brought me some plantains, guavas, a coconut, and two smaller ñames. I decided that I’d better start eating them! I peeled and cooked one of the smaller ones.
The gas stove was well-occupied today. The pot on the front is the cooking ñame. The one behind it is water boiling (the water delivery guy hasn’t come, so I’ve been boiling water for drinking) and the pot on the back right is a pot of boiled water that I decided not to use for drinking water because the pot left a pretty nasty flavor! Sticking with the little pot!
Here’s everything chopped up:
I also ended up adding some potatoes to make a bigger salad. I finished it off with chopped green onions and mayo. I’m pretty excited to eat this salad very cold for lunch tomorrow! (We’ll probably add some shredded chicken to really make it a good lunch!)