Well, the cat’s out of the bag. We’re moving. We are so happy but sad to leave. Where to you may ask? Wonderful Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m going home.

We have absolutely had the time of our lives living here in Bogotá, Colombia. I wouldn’t want to live in any other place to be quite honest. We came here with the intention of living forever here as a newlywed couple. We got married here, had our honeymoon in Cartagena and were planning for our future here. However, life sometimes gives you lemons and you just have to make a fabulous lemon meringue pie with it. So that’s what we’re doing.

My parents have been so supporting throughout this whole process and have been with us every step of the way. It has been a stressful and worrisome few months trying to get this whole process executed correctly. But it has made us a closer and stronger family.

What this means is that I am swamped trying to pack up a house, still organize my life and cook meals. The clock is ticking and we only have a few more weeks before we leave. So A Touch of RoJo will be absent for a while until we can get settled into our new location. I hope you all can understand and look forward to showcasing some new, inspiring and tasty posts.

El maracuyá is a fruit that is typically cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical areas such as: South America, Hawaii, Central America and in some parts of the United States. The color generally varies from a dark purple color to a goldish-greenish yellow color as pictured above. The leaves of this fruit can be used for various medicinal purposes: menstrual cramps, colic or as a sedative.

Here in Colombia, you will generally see the pulp of this fruit used in juices, jams, jellies, smoothies and desserts. Because el maracuyá is so easily accessible, the purchasing price of it in the local market is comparable to buying apples at your local grocer. Anyone could walk right into a Wal-Mart, Harris Teeter, Piggly Wiggly, Path Mart or any supermarket chain and buy apples for practically nothing. But finding passion fruit in the States isn’t as economical nor easy. Well here, it’s just the opposite. Apples aren’t as inexpensive around here because most are imported, however, passion fruit is so inexpensive that you could buy a pound of them for about $.50. That’s right, $50 cents or $800 COP.  Feeling like making a move down south?

The “shell” of the fruit is generally hard and has to be cut upon with a knife, cutting at the diameter of the fruit. Once open you just scoop out the pulp with a spoon. If making a juice, you just spoon the pulp into the blender with water and blend on high. Pour the blended pulp into a sieve and drain. Add the desired amount of sugar to the juice and serve. The pulp on its own is very sour. Therefore depending on your desired taste you generally have to add a sufficient amount of sugar to the juice in order to make it sweet.

Now to the tricky part, ‘How do I pick out a ripe one?’ My husband, the master of all things Colombian, gave me a 101 class on how to pick out the best  maracuyá. Whether or not the skin is wrinkled or not really isn’t a determining factor. Although some grandmothers would argue that the more wrinkles it has the more ripe it is. I disagree and so does my husband. The trick is weighing it. No need to pull out a scale, just weigh it in your hand. If you feel that it heavy, then that means it’s fully ripe and has a great amount of pulp in it. If not, put it back. If you’re going to pay a lot for it, it’s best to get more bang for your buck.

All this talk about passion fruit just reminded me that I better get back into the kitchen and whip up some jugo de maracuyá (passion fruit juice) for my husband before he gets home. It’s only the most common juice here in Colombia aside from the blackberry (mora), guanabana (guanabana), and guava (guayaba) juices. In the meantime check out this recipe for passion fruit pudding. Maybe I’ll post about these three juices and more in future posts. Stay tuned.

So my husband leaves for work at 5am in the morning and before he heads out he says, “Amor? Me haces un favor? Puedes hacer una sopa de avena, por fis?” (“Honey? Can you do me a favor? Can you make oatmeal soup please?”) To which I respond half out of it and half confused because I’d never heard of it before and it is still too early to process information, “Sopa de ¿qué?

¿Qué es sopa de avena? ¿Cómo la hago? (“What soup? What is oatmeal soup? How do I make it?) Well, he rattled off a few ingredients and directions and then screams before shutting the door, “Bueno, nos vemos chao!” (“Ok, I’ll see you later, bye.”) And now I’m left trying to figure out how I was just given cooking instructions at 5am for a dish I have never heard of and I’m supposed to make this work. I think he has a little too much confidence in me.

Well, I did make it and to my surprise he comes home and takes a sip and says, “Wow, amorcito está rica. ¿Cómo la hiciste? No lo puedo creer, está muy deliciosa, mejor que las que he probado.”  (“Wow, sweetie this is good. How did you do it? I can’t believe it, it’s so delicious. It’s better than any I’ve ever tasted.”) So, I guess I CAN cook. I mean if I was able to crank out a soup that I had never heard of before and make it better than what my husband is used to, then I might just be on to something. 3 bonus points for me!

Ingredients:

3 large carrots, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock (I didn’t have any so I made my own chicken broth and used that)

salt/pepper

1/2 tbsp thyme

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp cilantro

1-2 cups oatmeal depending on how thick you want the soup  (NOT the instant kind)

pinch of sugar

2 tbsp butter

Directions:

1. In a large pot sauté the onions and carrots in the butter until the onions are translucent.
2. Add the chicken stock to the pot and bring to a boil.
3. Season the broth with the thyme, oregano, cilantro, salt and pepper.
4. Once boiling add your oatmeal and turn down the heat to medium-high. Let the soup simmer for 20 minutes.
5. The soup should be thick and the oatmeal fully cooked. Add the pinch of sugar just to zing up the flavor (this is totally optional).
6. Serve.

Triple C??? Yep, you read right.  These are the Triple C Brownies. What’s up with the C’s you may ask? Well it’s simple math, there’s 2 part chocolate + 1 part Colombian (pure Colombian cocao chocolate) = Triple C Brownies. 

The star of the show is the chocolate. I’ve never been to Europe so I don’t have a clue what REAL authentic European chocolate tastes like. I mean, I could easily say that Lindt is the best. But I’m sure that’s a slap in the european chocolate’s face. That’d be like saying that Starbucks is the best coffee on Earth. Yeah, that DEFINITELY is not true. Especially seeing as though I’m swarn to the “If You’re Married To Or A Child Of A Colombian You Must Love The Coffee” pact. Ok, I am being a little dramatic, but there is an unwritten pact that is similar to that.

When you taste this dark colombian cocao chocolate, your taste buds will just go into shock. It’s so bitter. Yikes is it bitter. I actually DON’T LIKE chocolate. Yes, I am brave enough to admit it in public. I can’t stand the taste. I hate drinking chocolate milk, eating chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate cream pies, chocolate pudding, chocolate anything. But I could eat 20 snickers easily. Without blinking. I love Hershey’s almond chocolates but hate the plain chocolate bars. I think it’s because I need something in between the chocolate to break up that chocolate-y taste. Oh, and I love German Chocolate cakes. Yumm-O!!! And white chocolate? Now that gets my mouth watering. Unfortunately it’s a lot sweeter and richer than your normal dark or milk chocolate, but I’m a diehard fan. And who has a Godiva membership? This chica right here!!!!! I buy tons and tons and tons of their truffles and just eat like it was my last meal. Maybe it’s like a mental thing. I think that’s what it is.

Well, whatever the case, my husband was having withdrawal symptoms and needed a chocolate fix. So he asked me to make brownies. Now, let me just let you know, brownies here in Colombia are not a big thing. If I took a survey, I’d say about 30% of the people here would know what they were. But because I try to Americanize my husband every once in a while, he has now grown to love this american staple. So I started looking on the internet for a basic brownie recipe that I could jazz up. Remember, me and boxed mixes don’t get along. I don’t feel right if it’s not from scratch. Plus, the mix is imported and who knows how long it’s been on the shelf.

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

2 sticks (8 tbsp/1 cup) butter, melted

2/3 cup chopped chocolate bar (you could definitely use cocoa powder but we didn’t have any)

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF/175ºC and grease your 9×13 baking pan.
2. In a small bowl mix together sugar, flour, salt, and  baking powder.
3. Add your eggs to the dry mixture and whisk together.
4. In another small bowl place the chopped chocolate pieces and pour in the melted butter. Mix together until chocolate is thoroughly combined. If you’d like to have a few chocolate chunks in your brownies, don’t mix it too much.
5. Pour the chocolate mix into the flour mixture and stir together.
6. Transfer into the 9×13 pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until done. Insert a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean it’s done.

* You might be concerned about the amount of sugar and butter. This is because I used 100% unsweetened cocao. It is terribly bitter and in order to balance that out you need to up the sweet factor, hence the 2 cups of sugar. Many recipes call for 1 stick or 1 1/2 sticks of butter. I found that 2 made these brownies super rich and tasty. But you could definitely reduce the amount of butter or substitute it for oil. *

Oh and why is it Tahitian Lime? Well, here in Colombia we don’t get any other kind. Neither do we get lemons which are actually called limas. Go figure.

Inspired by recipe at BigOven

Ingredients:

juice of 1 whole lime

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups milk (as always lactose-free in our house)

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter

—-Tahitian Lime Glaze—-

1/4 cup confectioner sugar

juice of 1 lime

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Grease you bread pan with oil and lightly dust with flour.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients together in one bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl whisk the eggs, milk, butter and lime juice together. Pour egg mixture into the previous bowl with flour and stir until completely combined but DON’T over-mix. Pour into your bread pan.
4. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until completely done. Insert a toothpick into the center of the loaf to assure yourself.
5. While pan is baking, in a small bowl pour the powdered sugar and lime juice and mix. The mixture should be syrupy and thick.
6. Remove loaf pan from the oven and let cool for about 15 minutes. With a knife, run it around the sides of the bread that should already have moved away from the walls of the loaf pan. Put your hand over the top of the loaf and turn over and slightly and gently move back and forth, allowing it to fall out of the loaf pan. Take the lime glaze and drizzle over the loaf of bread. Let it rest for 10 minutes and drizzle again. This gives the bread time to absorb the glaze.
7. Slice and serve.

AHHHHH!!!!!!!! That’s the scream I let out when I thought about wire-wrapping. It scares the jeezy weezies out of me. But I really wanted to try it. In my previous post on the Egg Drop Soup necklace, I attempted it by just starting with a simple design that I came up with. This time, I wanted to branch out a little further and try another design with a different pendant. Well, after nearly cutting off two of my fingers, I can say that I actually like what I accomplished and hope you do as well. Oh and I’m working on matching earrings too.

This star of this necklace is a natural Colombian stone hand wrapped in silver wire.

Simplicity is so important in my life. I really don’t like to complicate things in my life. Any shortcut is favored as far as I’m concerned. When it comes to cooking, I’m the same way. It took me months before I could muster up the strength to attempt to make cinnamon rolls. Which by the way, turned out amazing. I would break out in a sweat just thinking about making it. Who likes to sweat over their food? I know I don’t. I just like simple cooking. Rafael is the same way. He is the master of simplicity in the kitchen. Which leads me to the hogao (oh-gow) recipe.

Hogao is a simple yet key recipe in many latin kitchens. In our house it is used in almost everything that we cook. It can be used as a dipping sauce, a base or a topping. Every household could fight over how they prepare their hogao. But at the end of the day everyone can admit that it is a staple for any Colombian home. Whichever way you use it it is sure to be gone a household favorite.

Ingredients:

4 ripe roma tomatoes

1 medium onion

3 oz fresh chopped cilantro

4 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

salt/pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

Directions:

1. In a sauté pan add the oil, onions, tomatoes, garlic cloves, cumin, salt and pepper.
2. Cook over medium heat until all the ingredients start to break down. You want to onions to be transparent.Roughly 20 minutes.
3. Add the chopped cilantro to the pan and cook for another 5 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and serve.

Told you it was simple. I mean really, 4 steps? Can’t get any easier than that.

Hey everyone, we’re guest blogging on Ucreate Foods.!!!! How awesome is that?! We were asked by them to be a guest blogger for their site and to write an informational post just like we did earlier on our own site about mangoes. But this time we wrote a nice post about passion fruit. It’s actually pretty cool. You should take a look.

Speaking of egg drop soup, I’d love to have a nice big bowl of it as we speak. It’s cold here in Bogotá and that would be the perfect remedy for the chills. But, seeing as though the only way I’ll get to eat it is if I make it, I guess we’ll be waiting a few weeks for that post. In the meantime, I’ll tell you about this necklace. The pendant itself inspired the title. Doesn’t it look like an egg? Maybe I’ll name all my jewelry after food dishes. I mean food is the only thing I think about all day. The pendant is made from an authentic turquoise stone which I wire wrapped and attached to a silver chain that you can adjust to your liking.

If anyone is interested in any of the jewelry shown or ones that I plan to post here, please feel free to e-mail us of your interest. We are also looking into opening up a shop at Etsy but are still working out some kinks and making sure that we can find reasonable shipping for our products.

My earliest memory of bread pudding was a trip that my family and I took to Savannah, Georgia. I remember going down into this old, cobblestone, circa 1785 era alley that looked so dark and dangerous. There was this small cafe/restaurant that was nestled in there and I told my family I wanted to check it out. Thank goodness we did, because it turned out to be a small pastry cafe that sold everything from chocolate cake and creme brulee to bread pudding. But the best thing was that they weren’t some dainty pastries that they were selling, no, they were jam packed full of butter, fat and more fat. And I loved it. Who doesn’t love fat?

That bread pudding was so delicious. I mean it had to have been delicious for me to have remembered it after some 15+ years. So anytime that I see bread pudding or hear people talking about it, it takes me right back to that family vacation. I’d love to go back again, even if it’s just to walk down that same alley again. I love history and food and Savannah definitely is rich with both of them.

Ingredients:

4 beaten eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups milk (I used heavy cream that I had on hand)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup fruit preserve (recipe below)

6 tbsp melted butter

10 slices of cubed whole wheat bread

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF/175ºC.
2. Soak the slices of bread in a medium mixing bowl with the cream/milk, sugar and eggs. Roughly 5 minutes.
3. Add the melted butter and cinnamon to the soaking bread.
4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish. (I used a rectangle glass baking dish)
5. Pour the fruit preserves into the baking dish, slightly stirring the pudding as you pour.
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until the mixture has set.

Blackberry Fruit Preserve

1 cup fresh blackberries

1 cup white sugar

1. Melt the sugar in a medium saucepan with the berries.
2. Bring to a simmer and cook until mixture thickens.