Around the World in the Hetzel Kitchen

For India the Third we mix things up a bit. This is a Northern India recipe that comes to me via my former boss in Virginia. She's actually from Pittsburgh, but we will still take her word on authentic Indian cuisine. :-) We may have gotten a little excited about Christmas and I have relatively few pictures of just Joey... Not only that, but we were in Colorado! Nothing better than trying out a new curry recipe on the in-laws, right? Kevin prepped by sharpening some knives. First note: make sure you actually use a Dutch oven, or something that is intended to go on the stove top, not actually in the oven. It is very important. Anyway! Cumin seeds and cinnamon sticks? Not the way I'm used to starting a heavily-spiced dish, so let's try it! And of course onions. Always onions. I read in one of the comments to mix the chicken and yogurt and some spices ahead of time to enhance the flavor, but I can't find it for the life of me now. That's what I did ...

Honduras is in Central America bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. It is slightly larger than Tennessee and has almost 9 million people. The official language is Spanish and the capital is Tegucigalpa. It is one of the poorest countries in Latin America with the world's highest murder rate. Read more at the CIA World Factbook . Sometimes it is really hard to decide what recipe to do for a country. There are too many options, or nothing out there are all. Then there are the countries where you do a search and Carne Asada comes up and you don't need to look anymore. There were, of course, multiple versions of the recipe, so I did have to do some deciding. I ended up with this recipe from a blog doing the same thing that I am. Hello fellow world cooker! Kevin's parents came to visit us in early September, so it seemed like a good time to plan this one. The weather was great and we had company, so why not make something delicious? Flank steak ...

Flag courtesy of Wikipedia Location : Central Europe, between the Netherlands and Poland Area : Over 350,000 sq km; 63rd biggest in the world          Slightly smaller than Montana Population : Almost 81,000,000; 18th largest in the world           Second largest in Europe after Russia Capital : Berlin Economy : Based on GDP per capita the 5th biggest in the world and the biggest in Europe Source: CIA World Factbook Next up in fast-forwarding through Danielle's life is...Germany!  And not only Germany, but Germany in Colorado at Christmas. Why such time travel?  Sickness, tiredness, general lack of time.  What does that sound like?  Yep, that's right, time to have another baby!  And this time, although we didn't know it when I cooked this food, there were twins.  Turns out that makes things a lot more interesting.  There were a lot of foods I had aversions to, and just making a shoppin...

History: Christopher Columbus landed there in 1492 Location: Caribbean island, 150 km south of Key West Area: Over 100,000 sq km; 106th largest in the world          Slightly smaller than Pennsylvania Borders: Technically, the US base at Guantanamo Bay could be considered their only border Geography: Largest country in the Caribbean Population: Over 11 million; 74th most in the world Capital: Havana Physician density: Almost 6.4/1000 population; 2nd highest in the world Literacy: 99.8% Source: CIA World Factbook For a country that is so close to parts of the US, Cuba is a country that I do not know much about personally.  I was, however, in that scene from  Guys and Dolls .  Yeah, I had a lot to learn. The internet did not give consensus on what the national dish of Cuba was.  There are different opinions out there - shocking!  However, Ropa Vieja was a common dish I saw over and over.  The name means "old clothes." ...