Colombia Independence Day!

I should have made Hyrum write this post, since he obviously knows more about this holiday than I do.  But he's at work...

July 20th is the day Colombia celebrates its Independence.  They declared themselves a free country back in 1810.  He said that in Colombia it's celebrated with a lot of military events (parades and such), probably similar to what we see in the US on Veterans Day or Memorial Day.  But since we couldn't celebrate with a parade, we just decided to eat Colombian food all day. 

Which means a LOT of cooking.  Because Colombian food is never a one-step process.   After the grocery shopping, standing in front of a hot stove, and washing the pots and dishes, I was happy with our finished result.  Hyrum was one happy Colombian.  

• For breakfast we ate Changua.  It's a heated milk soup with cilantro, onion, poached eggs and toast.  
• For lunch I made him eat left overs, because I was done cooking. 
• And for dinner, we ate empanadas with a meat mixture, potato, and cheese.  Plus, "arroz atollao"--its a Colombian way of preparing rice with veggies inside.  We also had passion fruit juice (mixed in milk) and a Colombian dessert called "Natilla" which I don't like, but Hyrum does.  

Throughout the day, Hyrum kept walking into the room wearing a different Colombian jersey--I think the total was 4 or 5.  

One funny comment about the cooking.  We had a boxed mix to make the Natilla.  (We bought it at a latino market when we were in Spain.)  It was all in Spanish, so I asked Hyrum to read me the ingredients we needed before I went to the grocery store.  Cinnamon, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, etc...  most of the ingredients I already had, but I bought a can of sweetened condensed milk while I was shopping.  When I finally sat down to make the recipe on Saturday, I saw that the recipe called for 5 cups of the milk!  What??!?!  I told Hyrum to read it again, because anything with that much sweetened condensed milk might just kill us, not to mention it would cost a small fortune. Not knowing much about baking he was saying, "Yeah, I think that's right."  Then he looked at the box more closely and started doubting.  We googled what the recipe actually called for ("leche descremada") and it turns out its just skim milk. 

Well that was a relief.  First, because we actually had 5 cups of normal milk on hand.  And second, because I wasn't ready to enter into a sugar coma.  At least not for a dessert I don't particularly care for.  Maybe if I could work 5 cups of sweetened condensed milk into a pan of brownies I wouldn't be arguing...