Magic Stixx: Getting back to my Guatemalan roots

So I was really excited when I got an email from Nola Locavores that they were loving the posts and wanted to know if I could put together a breakfast, lunch and dinner recipe post for the challenge... Then the excitement that someone besides my mom was actually reading the blog wore off and I had my oh crap moment. What am I going to do? I've just been making things up as I go.

Thankfully when Lee stopped by to get some pralines to satisfy his sweet tooth, he said something that stuck in my head and finally set off that spark, "Don't be afraid to try something different--everybody's done the yogurt and fruit variation for breakfast."

That at least got me thinking about eggy breakfasts. I really had my breakthrough when my mom and I went to the Crescent City Farmer's Market and I picked up some green beans. She suggested I make some caites (I have no idea if I spelled that right and endless Googling has left me still clueless. My mom didn't even know how to spell it.)

My Mami Olga always made them and mom was super exited that I was going to make some since we haven't had them since my grandmother passed away a few years ago. She promptly invited herself over for dinner "to make sure you make them right, Yanna."

With the caites or envueltos de ejotes (wrapped green beans) as my inspiration, it was easy to build the other meals that would fit in. The green beans are usually served with rice and salsa and whatever meat you can afford (or none if you can't). I liked the simplicity of the veggie option for lunch. Since I would already need a salsa for the beans, huevos rancheros was the logical option for breakfast. For dinner, I did caldo or caldito, another staple my grandmother made with whatever veggies and meat she had handy--sometimes it had chicken, sometimes it had beef... maybe some yucca, carrots, green beans, garbanzo beans, potatos...it depended on the season.

So I made the caites for day seven dinner. I'll probably do huevos tomorrow morning with the left over salsa. Whenever I actually get around to buying something other than seafood, I'll definitely make some caldo.

Another fun experiment today was dessert. Canillas de leche!! It's been a while since I've had these because we usually only get them when my aunt comes back from Guatemala (with entire Tupperware containers full of candies). I never thought about making them until I was brainstorming sweets that I could make without flour. My mom was REALLY excited to be the official taste tester for these and I know my aunt will be psyched to know I've learned how to make them. Special props to my mom for helping me with the translation since all of the recipes I found were in Spanish and mine is quite...er...I think rusty is putting it mildly. Check out the recipe post on Crumby.

Here's the rundown for the day. Hopefully I'll get around to posting the candy recipe on Crumby soon.

Breakfast: Coffee. What? Who needs food when I can just have that heavenly deliciousness.

Lunch: Mom and I stopped at Mat and Naddie's and FYI, they're really only doing a dinner option for Locavores, so I did my best since we were already there. I'm not 100% if the rice was locally sourced. The veggies were actually from Florida but considering the rest of the options it was as close as I was going to get. The shrimp was great. We also split the blueberry peach cobbler.