What to do with a rainy week

Make Bread

We've had clouds like these for the last 4-5 days with rain off and on. Hurricane Dolores passed well offshore but we got a little before and after weather from her. Working in the yard is not a lot of fun when everything is wet and there definitely is no painting or sealing the roofs. Last night we may have had the most rain and Melaque had it's normal flooded streets this morning. Took Yari into town for her next years school fotos along with a bunch more shopping.

Our rain clouds

Sitting in front of Foto Geity 

Followed a Ciabatta recipe

Really the best bread yet although a little moist/heavy inside. I even made a sour dough starter the day before which didn't get very sour so neither was the bread. This was a no-knead process that only took 4-5 hours rather than overnight like most others. I fed the starter after using some and it looks like what was described. I tried a little sour no-sugar yogurt to see if that will help

Beef and potato curry

Linda brought down some odds and ends as presents for helping take care of their house while they were gone for the summer. What I expected was a back scrubbing brush and she brought a nice one. We also talked about fish sauce for an Asian green papaya salad but I don't cook enough Asian to make it worthwhile. What she did surprise me with was this Shan curry mix.

There is a recipe on the back of the box but I decided to look around.  Most online recipes tell you how to make the curry but with this mix I only need to worry about the meat, potatoes, some veggies and eventually rice. I've been warned this stuff is very hot/spicy and enough to make 2-3 decent sized meals. Small sized trial projects are fine with me. I picture it looking like the bottom foto but we'll see.  I have all day to play with it.

Green Papaya Soup

I lifted an old branch on the tree to remove it not realizing a papaya was supported by it. The next day found a green papaya on the ground. Not wanting to throw it away I hit the Internet and just about all I found for recipes was an Asian Raw Salad.  I didn't have all the spices they use and definitely no Fish Sauce.   I even asked on a Mexican food forum and the only answer was use it as a meat tenderizer.  I did know that about Papaya but not that only green ones are used.

So I gave making soup a try by cutting it up in little spaghetti sized strips in a  chicken broth, some chicken pieces and lots of other veggies.   Spices and Nori to make it as Asian as possible and some angel hair noodles.  Actually came out very good but I'm still without any Mexican-ish recipes.  My neighbor likes it with lime and salt but she likes everything that way.

From Wikipedia

The unripe green fruit can be eaten cooked, usually in curries, salads, and stews. Green papaya is used in Southeast Asian cooking, both raw and cooked.[14] In Thai cuisine, papaya is used to make Thai salads such as som tam and Thai curries such as kaeng som when still not fully ripe. In Indonesian cuisine, the unripe green fruits and young leaves are boiled for use as part of lalab salad, while the flower buds are sautéed and stir-fried with chillies and green tomatoes as Minahasan papaya flower vegetable dish.

And from Dr Leslie Korn

Papaya is rich in iron and calcium; a good source of vitamins A, B and G and an excellent source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). The extracts of unripe C. papaya contain terpenoids, alkaloids, flavonoids, carbohydrates, glycosides, saponins, and steroids. Extracts of ripe and unripe papaya fruits and seeds are active against bacteria, which is why many women on the west coast dry the bitter seeds to prepare them as a tea. Fresh or dry crushed seeds are bacteriostatic, bactericidal and fungicidal.  

 Papaya / Paw Paw / Carica papaya