Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Do it! It's one of my very favorites!!!

ohh yes the limeade! I've been drinking that sporadically year-round, in fact while I was pregnant I mixed limeade into a big pitcher with my red raspberry leaf pregnancy tea - it made it more than palatable, thank dog.
my partner made the arroz con pollo again the other day and I love that it makes a gigantic pan full because I'm about to go eat some leftovers right now! he's weird though because he feels like it "has" to have a topping - which I'm pretty sure "real" arroz con pollo never does - so he ate some Tofutti sour cream thinned with lime juice and cilantro on top. It was good but totally unnecessary, there's so many textures etc going on in that dish! love it.

This weekend, I made limeade (^I know, yum, though I haven't mixed it with anything else) and the potato and chorizo taquitos with red chile sauce and refried beans. All delish and totally doable for company. The taquitos are fried and I had one extra one so I stretched the servings out to six but it could also be that I wasn't that hungry last night. This is a great meal, though and I'm looking forward to all the leftovers. Refried beans are not the most attractive food, I will say that. I made with pintos, may try with black next time to see if the visual's better.

By far one of my favourite cookbooks. Latin American food is not readily found here in South Aus, so it's a whole new experience for me. I had a dinner party a couple of weeks ago using recipes from VV & everyone was really excited about things they'd never tried before. I made Arepas for the first time ever & they were absolutely delicious & surprisingly quick & easy (although definitely best eaten fresh & not reheated), the Venezuelan-Style Black Beans, & Potato Pancakes with Peanut Sauce. Served it with a crunchy slaw type salad with homemade chipotle mayo. Everything was great.

I've also made Pupusas, the Brazilian Orange Rice (which I loved & must make again soon), & a bunch of other recipes. I was a little concerned when I first bought the book that I'd have a hard time sourcing ingredients (for example, I've never seen plantains available here), but we're lucky to have a couple of massive food importers who sell all kinds of great stuff, so a trip there set me up with the right kinds of flour, etc.

I really do recommend VV to fellow Australians unfamiliar with Latin American food, for an exciting new food experience! And yes, I must make that limeade!

I just got this cookbook last week and read through it last night. So excited to make a bunch of stuff this weekend.

I have a question, but worry I'll sound like an ignorant jerk, ha ha. I really don't like the taste/texture of corn tortillas, so would it be ok to subsitute flour tortillas in any of the recipes featuring corn? I'm thinking specifically of the tortilla casserole. Has anyone tried it like that?

I cannot wait to try the seitan everyone's been raving about too.

I haven't tried that recipe but I say it'll taste like you used flour tortillas instead of corn. Since that's your preference anyway I say go for it! Corn tortillas are a little hard to find here and they are always a lot more expensive (~2x price of flour tortillas) and I don't really find them to be worth it so I hardly ever use them.

The limeade is probably one of my favourite drinks ever. It's so good! I love the dark, rich almost molasses taste you get from piloncillo/panela.

I also hate corn tortillas and have substituted flour in every Latin thing I have made, ever, including that tortilla casserole. It always works fine!

I just want to make a basic sandwich (nothing too fancy) so i am going to make my first seitan recipe - the red one or the white one, trying to figure which one myself.

I've never made the red seitan, but I've made the white countless times. I've tried several recipes, and this one always gives me the best, most consistant results. I use it in pretty much any recipe that calls for seitan (gyros, tacos, jerk seitan, pho, everything). It's delicious and extraordinarily versatile.

Agreed, the white is way more versatile.

I could eat arepas with black beans, coleslaw & avocado every single day!!

Have you ever made your own corn tortillas? The texture and taste of a fresh corn tort is nothing like the store bought ones. They are super easy to make (and cheap)...check out youtube videos if your interested.

I've been loving the seitan chorizo sausage from this book lately. Made another batch on the weekend to freeze for quick dinners.

I made the beans with dominican-style sazon and the latin baked tofu a while ago. It was the first time I've had success with baked tofu! It turned out chewy and super tasty, instead of the rubbery and "raw tofu"-y stuff I've ended up with after previous attempts. The beans were great as well. I haven't cooked much from this book, but now I'm really excited to try some more. Next up is the orange tofu and the caraotas!

I haven't but thank you for the suggestion. I might give that I try. I know corn is healthier, but I've always preferred flour. Thanks all for the responses.

Has anyone made the fejoida (sp? sorry) without using TVP? I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to get to the HFS to buy the chunks before Saturday and I have everything else I need for it. Can I use chickpeas or seitan or something instead?

I haven't, but i made a different recipe for Feijoada recently that used seitan, and it was great, so i'm sure it would work.

Yeah, I feel like seitan would be a better choice over chickpeas as a sub. Not that chickpeas wouldn't be all right, too, I just think seitan would be better. I've only tried the feijoada with TVP chunks myself and loved it! I think it's especially grand with the suggested orange Brazilian rice accompaniment.

Thanks guys. I'll make some seitan.

Since I've heard so much positive feedback about them, I made the crepes with caramelised plantains and un-dulce de leche. So good! I probably would have eaten the whole recipe myself if no one had been around to stop me.
I also made a batch of white seitan a couple of months ago and defrosted some last night to throw into some curry udon. It was perfect. I can see why so many people say that it's their favourite seitan! I've only got one small loaf left now so will have to make up another batch soon.

For anyone else who doesn't have access to poblano peppers, I made the roasted poblano casserole and just subbed green bell peppers for the poblanos and it was fantastic.

The buttery cookies with dulce de leche filling were very good. I was lazy about making the cookies and just formed them with my hands, so they weren't quite as nice looking as they could be, but it didn't affect the taste.

I defrosted two servings of the black bean soup for dinner today. Wasn't very impressed after I'd just made it a couple of weeks ago, but now I really loved it. Had it with some avocado. My mother commented that it looked gross, but what does she know about good food? She eats dead chickens ffs.

I just made the red chile sauce and it's really really bitter. I used a mix of dried chilles so something ere is probably the culprit. I'm going to be using it in tamales. Do you think it'll come through or will it mellow as it sits? Shall I add something? Has anyone made it?