Food – Work hard, and flourish

Ok so I love fried plantains. And I love black beans. So I was destined to love rellenitos, which are basically fried plantains stuffed with black beans. Honestly it doesn’t get much better than that.

This week my Spanish school offered a cooking class, where we learned how to make rellenitos, and they were surprisingly easy to make. Basically you boil the (ripe) plantains until they are soft, then peel and mash them, then add powdered cinnamon.

Next you grab a chunk of the mashed plantains, and flatten it in your hands. Then in the center of your bed of plantain, put some pureed black beans (which here in Guatemala you can buy in a bag from the grocery store, but I guess if you can’t find that in the States you’d have to mash up your own black beans, sorry guys). Then, fold the flat plantain together so that the black beans are on the inside. Roll the plantain around in your hands and shape it into a ball.

*Rellenitos* are supposed to be egg-sized but clearly we missed that memo.

Now all you gotta do is fry those bad boys until they get nice and golden-crispy on the outside and there you have it: rellenitos. Top them with a little crema and sugar and you are good to go. Qué rico.

*LOL* at whoever got ambitious with that monstrous *rellenito.*

I’ll for sure be making these when I get back to the States–if I can ever find ripe plantains in the grocery store.

¡Buen provecho!

-S

(PS: Shouts to Grant for being my personal photographer while my hands were covered in mashed plantains–that’s real friendship.)

My Spanish school encourages its students and teachers to use one half of a class period every week to venture outside of the school and practice Spanish out in the real world. This week, two of my best friends from medical school (who are doing the same summer program as me, ayyy) and I decided to take full advantage of our field trip time. First we went with our teachers across town to a Mennonite bakery (random, right?) called Bake Shop.

This place is delicious. They sell basically any carb you could ever want: everything from bread to cookies to muffins to donuts to pastries and more. I got a huge blackberry-filled donut, some banana bread to take home to my host family, and we brought back more donuts to share with some classmates. My stomach was happy.

Then, we strolled through the market on our way back to pick up some ingredients to make a black bean and mango salad, which we brought to the school graduation/potluck dinner. (The salad turned out amazing by the way.)