Hungary for Valentine's Day

HUNGARY, yes I am. 

This was our choice for week 2, and more specifically on Valentine's day.
We went with the most common known Hungarian housewife meal to make: Goulash.
This is a hardy soup, almost close to a stew.The women of Hungary always make this soup there own with ingredients they personally prefer, so I do like I usually do and looked at several recipes and made it my own. As a budget cut I replaced the beef (which is wicked expensive in Norway) with pork and it still turned out amazing.

How Goulash is supposed to look like. Got the recipe from http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/hungariansoups/r/gulyasleves.htm
but added for example bay leaves

My soup

Tasted great

Because it was Valentine's I had to make the meal somewhat more special than the everyday meal. Last year my husband made me a surprise three course meal when I came home from work, so this year it was my turn to spoil him. So, I created "Couple's Cafe", and idea I got from a great dating site called Dating Divas (http://www.thedatingdivas.com/). 

The Table at Couple's Cafe

The menu 

The Check I gave him after dinner.

Couple's Cafe made the whole night special. He had to pay back with kisses and foot rubs during the whole evening. Of course I gave him a back rub too.

52 Countries in 52 Weeks

COLOMBIA

This year is going to be the most exciting year of our lives. We are having a little baby girl in May. There are going to be a ton of new experiences and lessons to learn. Another factor is that it is going to be tight economically and as the 'travel junkies' that we are we have be creative to get our 'travel fix' this year. So we figured in case we don't get to travel anywhere we just have to bring culture into our own home. One of our favorite hobbies is to cook together. On our honeymoon to Thailand we even went to a Thai cooking class. So the plan is that we will explore 52 new countries by preparing 52 new meals within our budget and the availability of the produce needed. This week we started with a country we have never traveled to; COLOMBIA. We made:

Coconut Chicken with Coconut Rice

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 3/4 cup finely chopped white onion
• 1 red bell pepper, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 package Sazon Goya seasoning (con azafran)
• 1 13.5 ounce can coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon flour

(Arroz con Coco)

• 1 13.5 ounce can coconut milk
• 2 cups rice
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 3 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-2 tablespoons sugar

How it was supposed to look like

How it ended up looking like

It tasted delicious and was really not that hard. Rice with coconut flavor is a winner. And I was surprised how good the raisins fit in. The sauce ended up truly creamy. Too bad I had to eat it so fast because I had to rush to an appointment. 

I'm excited which country we will choose next week.