Joha's Table

Tratar de no estancarme en la misma rutina culinaria, muchas veces puede convertirse en un verdadero desafío., porque cocinando bajo presupuesto, es muy fácil caer en la misma rutina repitiendo platillos. Pollo y arroz, por ejemplo, representa zona de comodidad para mí (y creo también lo es que para muchas otras personas que cocinan comida casera). Para ahorrar, compramos pollos enteros y los corto en partes. Siento que puedo sacar mas provecho del pollo que yo misma desmenuz

I try not to get in culinary ruts, which can be a real challenge. When cooking on a budget, a rut is a pretty easy thing to get in to. Chicken and rice, for example, is a comfort zone for me (and many other home cooks, really). To save money, we purchase whole chickens and break them down. I find that the chicken I butcher myself goes much further than a package of just breasts, or just quarters, and it costs less. I end up cooking a chicken dish with rice at least once a wee

Hoy, estaba revisando dentro de la nevera, pensando en ideas para la cena. Había algunos productos que sabía que tenía que usar pronto, antes de que expiraran, así que decidí experimentar poniendo verduras frescas de nuestro jardín, con arroz, salchichas y algunos otros artículos. Cuando mi esposo volvió a casa del trabajo, entró a la cocina y abrí la olla para mostrarle mi “experimento”. Vio dentro de la olla, y me dijo con indiferencia: “oh, hiciste jambalaya”. “No”, pensé.

Today, I was going through the refrigerator figuring out dinner ideas. There were several items that I knew I was going to have to use soon and decided to experiment by throwing together fresh vegetables from our backyard garden, with rice, sausage and a few other items. When my husband returned home from work and settled in, I opened the pot and showed him my “experiment.” He looked down and nonchalantly said, “oh, you made jambalaya.” “No,” I thought. I didn’t make jambalay

He escogido piña fresca en el pasado, pero la verdad siempre me ha costado elegir una buena. Mientras estaba allí tocando una de las espinosas frutas, mi esposo regresó del otro lado de la tienda con un galón de leche en la mano. Colocó la leche en nuestro carro y se dio cuenta de que yo estaba viendo fijamente las piñas. “¡Me encanta la piña!” Dijo, como si estuviera leyendo mi mente. “Deberíamos comprar una.” Se acercó al estante en donde estaban las piñas, y tomó una que s

We were at the grocery store the other day and I was perusing through the fresh produce when I noticed some delicious looking pineapples. I’ve selected fresh pineapple before, but the truth is I didn’t know how to pick out a good one. As I stood there fondling the prickly fruit, my husband returned from the other side of the store with a gallon of milk in hand. He placed the milk in our cart and realized I was staring at pineapples. “I love pineapples!” he said, seemingly rea

Hace un par de semanas compramos maíz fresco de un mercado local. Mi marido tenía la intención de cocinar algo con él – ya fuera el pan de maíz de su bisabuela, o grits, o algo más. Honestamente, no recuerdo lo que estaba planeando cocinar; Pero a medida que la semana progresaba y la vida siguió avanzando, el maíz permaneció sobre la mesa, sin cocer. El otro día estaba viendo las mazorcas y decidí hacer un bocadillo que atañe a mis raíces mexicanas – Elote Cocido. Elote cocid

A couple of weeks ago we bought some fresh corn from a local market. My husband intended on cooking something with it – either his great-grandmother’s cornbread, or corn grits, or something else. Honestly, I don’t remember what he was planning to cook; but as the week progressed and life ensued, the corn remained on the countertop, uncooked. So, the other day I was looking at that corn and decided to make a snack that speaks to my Mexican roots – Elote cocido Elote cocido (co

Ayer, mientras estaba contándole a un amigo sobre este blog, me pregunto ¿Qué significa “Joha’s Table” (la Mesa de Joha)? ¿Por qué ese nombre para el blog? Mi reacción inicial fue responder con un poco de sarcasmo y broma – quería recalcar que el nombre de mi esposa es Joha, y la comida se pone sobre una mesa. Cuando estaba a punto de responder, me detuve y decidí ir en diferente dirección. “La mesa es el lugar en donde regularmente encuentras comida”, comenté. “Pero también

Just yesterday, I was telling a friend about this blog and they asked me what “Joha’s Table” means. Why name the blog that? And my initial reaction was one of sarcasm and silliness – I wanted to snidely remark that my wife’s name in Joha and food is on a table. And as the words fell out of my mouth, I stopped and decided to answer in a different way. “The table is about food, sure,” I remarked. “But it’s also a place where families sit and talk about their day. A place where

Las Arepas de Maita. La arepa es la comida tradicional venezolana, esta es la receta de mi abuela, asi es omo se hacen en Venezuela. Sigue e

Maita’s Arepas We have a market near our home that sells locally grown fresh vegetables for great prices. Like green, red and yellow bell peppers for $ 0.69 each, or bags of large carrots for just $1. It’s wonderful to my husband and I, because we budget a certain amount of money each week for groceries and also because it allows us to purchase great fresh produce for healthy meals. Last week we bought some fresh sweet corn – my husband intended to either make grits or cornbr

Amo Tailandia! Todo sobre ella: su gente, sus paisajes, la comida… Si… especialmente, la comida. Hace unas semanas – a principios de Abril – cuando se acercaban las fechas en que se celebra el Año nuevo Tailandés, quise celebrar con uno de mis platillos tailandeses favorito: Mango Sticky Rice (Postre hecho a base de Arroz con mango y leche de coco) En 2011, pase un poco mas de un mes en Tailandia. En aquel tiempo, acababa de llegar a Singapur, y tenia un contacto en Tailandia

I love Thailand. Everything about it, I love: the people, the scenery, the food. Oh, the food … I especially love the food. So, a few weeks ago – toward the beginning of April – when the Thai New Year rang in, I wanted to celebrate with one of my favorite dishes from Thailand: Mango Sticky Rice. In 2011, I spent a little more than a month in Thailand. I was living in Singapore at the time and had a contact in Thailand who ran an orphanage, so I decided to go help at the orpha

Me paré en mi cocina el Domingo por la tarde y empecé a acomodar los trastes que se habían quedado desde la noche anterior secando. Teníamos amigos que nos visitarían para la cena y quería asegurarme de que todo estuviera en orden. Mi esposo acababa de prender la televisión en la sala y vino a la cocina a preparar una “botanita” (pasapalo) que nos mantuviera sin tanta hambre hasta la hora que nuestros invitados llegaran para la cena. Abrió el refrigerador y buscando entre los

I stood in my kitchen Sunday afternoon and began putting up washed dishes that had been left out overnight to dry. We had friends coming over for dinner later in the day and I wanted to make sure everything appeared to be in order. My husband had just turned on the television in the living room and came into the kitchen to make a light snack to hold us over until our dinner guests arrived. He rummaged through the refrigerator and found the remains of a log of Russian salami w

Hay ocasiones en que sabes con exactitud que cocinar y buscas los ingredientes necesarios para preparar la comida. Otras, lo que sea que hay en el refrigerador (nevera) lo determina. Eso me ha estado pasando mucho últimamente. Hoy, abrí el refrigerador y chequee entre los compartimentos tratando de pensar en que cocinaría para la cena, de pronto, note que en el fondo de una de las repisas había dejado olvidado algo que compre la semana pasada en el mercado – una cabeza de “Bo

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to cook and you get the right ingredients for that meal. Other times, the contents of your refrigerator dictate what your next meal will be. That’s been happening to me quite a bit lately. Today, I opened up my refrigerator door and browsed up and down the shelves wondering what would be our next dinner, and I took notice of something on the bottom shelf that I had nearly forgotten I had purchased a week earlier – a head of Bok Choy. I

During the Easter season in most Latin American countries, many people refrain from eating meat. The month leading up to Easter is the Catholic season of Lent – and most Latin American countries have deep rooted Catholic backgrounds. This is a time when lots of seafood is consumed. Growing up, though, my family wasn’t Catholic. So during the Lent season, we were one of the only families around that was eating meat regularly. (Also, my mom didn’t like cooking seafood because o

“You are what you eat.” I guess it’s true, in a sense. Many times, you can tell the personality of someone by his/her favorite foods. What is your favorite food? What does it say about you? I, for one, am a chameleon of sorts. I am strong when I need to be; tender when the time calls for it; vibrant and colorful, yet neutral. I’m passionate and determined, but have insecurities and fears. Sometimes I feel underestimated, and others have the potential to bring out the best (an