In My Kitchen, January 2024

We started the year in Costa Rica, as I’ve said, at the birding lodge called Rancho Naturalista. I'm starting my January kitchen wrap-up with photos of the kitchen there. 

On the table beside the stove in the first photo are two trays of stuffed baked potatoes, one of the dishes we enjoyed at a couple of dinners. The main Costa Rican dish served from this kitchen was Gallo Pinto, which was offered each day at breakfast: black beans, rice, onion, and spices. Several bottles of salsa were always available to flavor the rice and the various sorts of eggs and other breakfast dishes or whatever was served at other meals. The food at lunch and dinner was good, but more North American in style, like the roast turkey dinner for New Year's Eve, or a simple grilled steak or breaded fish filet, almost always with salads and vegetable dishes. (For more about the cuisine, see "What is Costa Rican Food?" in Eater.)

Before breakfast was served, coffee and small snacks were available on the balcony 
where guests gathered to watch the early-morning bird life.

Back in Ann Arbor

Since we returned home, we’ve been trapped indoors by some of the worst weather we have ever lived through. January has been sunless, freezing cold and icy or just chilly and damp, and very depressing. We haven’t seen a ray of sunshine since our return to Michigan. So we have cooked a lot. Here are some photos from our own kitchen and dining room.

A New Sauce from Costa Rica

We bought some of the special Lizano brand sauce that we had in Costa Rica.
Also a new chili sauce from Trader Joe’s.

Soup for Cold Nights

A Costa Rican specialty is Aztec Soup — a tomato and tortilla soup. (link)
This is the only Costa Rican dish we have tried at home.

I tried this dish in Costa Rica-- it's also popular elsewhere in Central America.

Also at home: this corn chowder mainly made from leftover vegetables and a can of cream-style corn.

Weather like ours demands lots of flavors of soup! Mostly, I make soups without a recipe.

Winter Salads

Preparing broccoli salad with the new sauce. No recipe!

Champignons à la grecque: a French classic dish of mushrooms with cilantro and lemon.
We had this as a side dish with chicken legs and vegetables. 
Julia Child's recipe, which I wrote about in the past, is more complicated. (link)

Main courses with or without meat

From Fuchsia Dunlop's book Every Grain of Rice.

Crispy potatoes: we ate them as a main course with a salad. Another New York Times recipe.
I haven't given links to NYT recipes because they are behind a paywall.

Sweet Pastry

A “Pompe” — that is, a large apple turnover in flaky pastry.
Details of the two apple pastries that Len made were in yesterday’s post (link).

These cardamom buns were a nice treat on a snowy afternoon.

Tuna and Salmon for Salads

I make tuna or salmon salad often. No recipe.
Mayo and pickle relish are essential!

New Refrigerator Magnets

From our trip to Costa Rica: magnets of sloths, birds, a bat, and a folkloric painted farm cart.

That’s my kitchen for January — not much new "stuff." I’m sharing my kitchen post with Sherry’s once-a-month blog party “In My Kitchen.” All photos © 2024 mae e. sander.