Albondigas

Basically means meatballs but there are a number of ways to prepare them.  Most floating in a tomato salsa or soup. Some fotos like the below are much sexier than mine but the meal is still good. 

Nahima was over today helping mom clean my house and she always want's some of my spaghetti. I had just seen that Albondigas foto and asked if she would prefer that. Needed hamburger, some veggies and rice or bread crumbs so not real different. Off we went in the different direction.

Lorena had made these a few months ago so I knew that would be good. Opened my brown rice and it was full of mites. Had to send Yare off to buy some white rice and a few veggies. Came out great if not as sexy as better fotos.

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