Cooking in the Campo with Catbay

I have mentioned this multiple times throughout the blog: Dominicans love to share (compartir). My elderly neighbor always loves to give me a huge gallon of milk every so often, but he does it with such frequency that I cannot consume the milk fast enough. Milk was never the preferred drink for me, an occasional chocolate milk would hit the spot but that's it. As a result, I've had to become inventive with my milk consumption. I made cheese a couple posts ago however, lately I've been making a l [...]

Rambutan and I, well, we go way back, 15 years to be exact but more on that later!This alien and hairy looking fruit is called Rambutan. Don't be intimidated by that spiky exterior, the fibers are soft and flexible and allow for easy opening to reveal a white flesh and a big pit. It is often confused with Lychee in this country for good reason because the fruit and the taste are very similar. Rambutans are larger in size and more tart in flavor. Natives to Malaysia and Indonesia, the frui [...]

iQueso = cheese in Spanish, however what I ended up making wasn't actually Domincan. I made Paneer, a homemade Indian cheese. As I have mentioned before, one of my neighbors is an older gentleman, a retired policeman who's only daughter lives in the states and seldomly visits. Often times, he gifts me a huge gallon of fresh, raw cow's milk which I subsequently boil and use just like regular milk. However, the amount of milk is just too overwhelming I decided to make the jump and make other dair [...]

This past week I was able to visit my fellow volunteer, Stan, at his site about a 20 minute moto ride away from mine. Twenty minutes and a long dirt road away is a line of bateys in the center of Monte Cristi. Stan lives in one of the four bateys in this particular part of the province.A batey is a community established in a highly rural and agricultural area. Bateys have a long history in the Dominican Republic. In the past, they were built by fruit/vegetable companies to house single mal [...]

Buen dia to all, I thought I'd post this here from my other blog www.deniseintheDR.weebly.com ​I love food. Anyone who knows me, knows this. Especially desserts and sweets but that's for another time/blog. The more time I spend here, the more I've come to realize that my love for food is stronger than most. As a daughter of Filipino immigrants but having grown-up in the American culture, I've developed an accepting and open mind to all different types of foods. My dangerous motto is: [...]