Beautiful Bolivia

Bolivia had a lot more to offer than I expected! As a continuation of our worldwide country lessons, we had the chance to learn about Bolivian culture and food yesterday.

We did a super quick review of the country’s history with this great YouTube video. The boys were definitely struck by their bad luck in losing their coastline to a country like Chile.

We listened to some pan flute music while eating these amazing popsicles. The recipe was meant to be ice cream but since we got this fun silicone popsicle mold, we figured why not. The cinnamon is boiled in water, mixed with sugar and then a cornstarch mixture and finally finished off with some lemon. These will probably be top in our rotation for popsicles this summer.

Salteñas seemed to be one of the more popular items in their cuisine and who doesn’t love a good empanada! In Taiwan, they are famous for their soup dumplings and these also share the infamous brothy filling. The recipe is a tad elaborate because you have to make a bone broth with chicken wings and then add that broth to chicken thighs and cubed potatoes. Then, that mixture is refrigerated overnight. The collagen from the wings congeals so it’s kind of a gelatinized filling that then becomes this soupy filling. It was really tasty. The dough was a hot water crust and it was a tad sweet, so the next time we make them we will probably lower the sugar. Overall, these might win over traditional empanadas. They were juicy and super handy for snacking. I used a combination of three recipes, Serious Eats for the filling, My Latina Table for the dough (although I had to add more flour and she forgot to mention when to add the butter- with the eggs), and finally this recipe to learn how to braid.

We were also excited to see that they eat one of our favorite starches/super foods. Quinoa has been a family favorite recently and I never cook it with seasoning. This recipe actually has you add cumin and cayenne before you cook it and then mix it with black beans, pineapple and cilantro to make a super tasty salad. The jalapeño I used was from our garden and it was super spicy but Julian kept coming back for more!

Finally, there was a great series on Netflix that helped us see what this beautiful, landlocked country was like, called the Magical Andes. The images from the salt flats were striking. It is subtitled, which made me realize my kids barely ever watch subtitled shows and maybe this is a good way to reinforce their reading skills and their Spanish lessons. I mean, one of them was asking me questions that had just been mentioned in the show…then, I realized – he’s too lazy to read subtitles?! Listen, kid, if you are looking at me, you are not reading and ipso facto are not learning what they are saying. Subtitles 101.

Overall, we were all left for a need to go see this beautiful country some day and hug one of those adorable llamas!!