Cilantro Bruschetta

Last Thursday was a friend's birthday, so we gathered in her honor and BBQ-ed on the terrace of another friend, which overlooked the whole, gorgeous city of Quito. I wanted to bring something to the shin-dig (my mother once told me never to show up empty-handed), and the birthday cake had already been dibbs-ed, so I opted for an appetizer. Bruschetta. But the more I thought about it, the less I wanted it to be something normal (this food blog obsession is starting to be a problem--or something really AWESOME).

How could I make bruschetta different? I could look for a recipe online, I could do fruit, there was a whole section in the Martha Stewart website. But no. I was going to make it Ecuadorian-style. What does this mean? Here 'tis, too bad I don't have a photo.

Bread
Olive oil
Several tomatoes
An onion
A bunch of cilantro
An avocado (or more, we used it as spread)
Lime juice (I didn't actually have this as you had to buy a whole BAG of limes, and really, who needs that many limes--me apparently as I am making a lime yogurt cake for another birthday this weekend)
Dash o' salt

I chopped everything up, put olive oil on the sliced bread, toasted it over the BBQ, and then served it up. Done.

It sounds a lot simpler here than in real life...with people complaining that they were starving to death...I almost didn't survive (fortunately someone handed me a glass of "Valle de Mar" vino...$4.39 at MegaMaxi).

Queso Fresco probably would also be good on this, that is, if I liked queso fresco :)

Cooking Crunchy, Crispy Rice Treats, Ecuadorian-style

So as tomorrow is Thursday, which I think is my new dessert day, I decided to bake tonight. This weekend whist we were all in beautiful Mindo and up to all kinds of shenanigans, the subject of peanut butter--mantequilla de maní--came up. There simply isn't enough in Ecuador.

(Several of us had talked to our host mothers about it--we also brought it up with our incredible Spanish prof, Evelyn. Apparently peanut butter is a North American thing. People in the rest of the world just don't like it. Here they use it to season their soups. My mamá said that she loves peanuts but in butter form, no dice.)

But back to Mindo. So we are talking and I decided that I really really really wanted to make those peanut butter rice crispy bars with chocolate on top. I facebooked my brother's girlfriend for her recipe but she still hasn't gotten back to me (I really should just quit trying to use Facebook to get recipes, it just does not work). So, in my incredible genius, I went to MegaMaxi to purchase baking goods--before finding a recipe. I got the Ecuadoriano version of Rice Crispies (Vanilla Arroz Crocante, it also comes in strawberry and chocolate in case you were curious), some Jiff peanut butter (imported it cost $7 for a 24 oz jar!) and some melting chocolate (it wasn't semi-sweet, bad choice). After class I began to search for a recipe--this is difficult because I only had certain ingredients and at this point it was too late--aka dark--to walk to the store and I didn't know what my family had/didn't want to steal their baking goods). I found a basic recipe, but who wants basic? And ended up with a triple layered thingamajig.

As per usual, I didn't follow the directions well ( I doubled it, kind of). And as per usual I didn't have all the ingredients, so here is my adapted recipe and I will let you know the taste-results mañana.

(Adapted from Ali, http://blissfullydomestic.com/2008/sweet-treat-cho-2)

16 oz chocolate
A large hunk of butter and a bit of Ecuadoriano Crisco-type stuff (about a cup in all)
About 20 oz peanut butter
A bag of Arroz Crocante (about 6-7 cups)
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
oil

a) Put a bunch of oil in the bottom of a 9x13 pan

b) In a saucepan, melt half the chocolate (ish) and 1 TBsp of butter. Take off burner, add 2 cups peanut butter and 4 cups cereal. Stick this in the pan, spread evenly, refrigerate until hard, about 15 minutes. During this time, I cleaned the saucepan so I could use it again.

c) I melted the rest of the butter with the salt next, and thinking that we had no confectioners sugar, added about a cup of granulated sugar and a tiny bit of water to make it dissolve. Then, of course, I found the powdered sugar and thus added about 2 cups, stirring until all was mixed in. Spread half the peanut butter mixture over the choco-crispies, refrigerate. Add the rest of the cereal to the mix.

d) Toss in the rest of the chocolate (I added a bar of dark chocolate I had lying around because I had eaten too much chocolate at this point for the recipe to work), I melted it over low heat while I mixed. Spread evenly over peanut butter layer and toss in the 'fridge for about 45 minutes or until hardened.

e) You're supposed to cut them up after 45 minutes--I haven't hit that point yet. And then enjoy!


(Apparently you were supposed to top the peanut butter layer with the rest of the cereal, not mix it in, which would yield a prettier result--I blame the advert that was blocking the directions on the blissfullydomestic website. Whatevs--when was the last time I successfully followed a recipe?)


Notes on Ecuadorian baking supplies:

Arroz crocante: NOT the same as Rice crispies. They are much less airy, we'll see how this denser treat goes over tomorrow

Butter/Mantequilla: Weird. And smells bad--pretty strongly. I don't think it had gone bad, but we'll see...

ADDENDUM: After my mental breakdown of last night (when I thought that I had completely messed up the recipe and wasted a ton of PB and chocolate), this morning was a pleasant surprise. I cut up the bars and put them in a few tupperwares to bring to the center this afternoon. They were messy but actually pretty tasty. Very rich, but tasty. They got rave reviews at the center and almost all of them were eaten. I will suggest halving this batch (as the original recipe called for) and this was just way too much chocolatey, peanut buttery goodness :)