chayote

Is interesting how much the food could make you feel away, one of the things I could saw we all miss from our countries is the food, the familiar flavors af everything. Sunny talk to this subject in her blog too. Last night for Alejandra´s birthday I made rice and beans, the most basic and simple dish in Costa Rica, and was better than a fancy dinner in a expensive restaurant because we had four weeks without eating those things. In my country we eat rice and beans every single day for lunch, is the base of our alimentation and mixed, they provides the daily amount of protein the body need. We eat that with a salad, usually lettuce and tomatoe or cabbage, carrots and tomatoe and some meat dish, ussually some "picadillo" that is chopped beef meat with some vegetable like potatoes, chayotes, plantains or another. That way the meat is included in the dish in a cheapest way than a steak or some other. The picadillo could be eated with a tortilla, that the mexican people call a taco and costarican people call a gallo. This plate is ussually called casado, that means married, maybe because is always the same! And for dessert we have the fried plantains.

picadillo

plátanos maduros with cheese

When the rice and beans are for breakfast they are mixed together with onions and red pepper in a saucepan, spiced with our signature sauce, Salsa Lizano, a brand who signifies Costa Rica wherever you go. But that is not a casado is a gallo pinto and normally is eated with eggs fried or scrambled, tortillas and sour cream and of course coffee. Obviuslly this is not a daily breakfast, is for weekends or holidays, not only because take some time to do but because after eating you don´t want to do nothing!!!

gallo pinto