For this week's new recipe, I returned to Extending the Table, which really is proving the point of this entire project: a cookbook we had scarcely opened is proving to be a font of many excellent meals! This evening it was picadillo de vainica, a Costa Rican dish known in English as "green bean hash" and found on 177.
The book mentions that any of the vegetables in the recipe can be substituted, but I am glad we used all of the vegetables and herbs mentioned (I went a little heavy on the herbs -- both parsley and cilantro). The vegetables included onions, garlic, green beans, carrots, and potatoes. All were chopped fine, in order to speed the cooking and minimize the amount of fuel consumed.
In addition to the herbs, the recipe called for a small amount of ground meat and bullion. I used soy crumble and vegetable bullion, adding water even though the recipe did not call for it. The meal needed about 15 minutes of active cooking on the stove top (in the indispensable cast-iron skillet) and another 20 minutes covered on very low heat.
I served it over some fluffy basmati rice, and it was delicious. (I had slightly overdone the black pepper, which I did not think was possible, but we all still enjoyed it.) "Costa Rican shepherd's pie!" I declared. Another item for the household repertoire: delicious, nutritious, easy, and cheap!
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