Round of 16, Day 3 - Colombia - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

Colombia was another repeat. I decided to give arepas another shot. Unlike some of my repeats, these didn't turn out so well. I have a lot of trouble with arepas, pupusas... basically any Latin American bread-like products. This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to tackle again and see how my skills have improved.

I used a different but similar recipe this time. My only issue with it was the cheese. It says "queso blanco" which I assumed was "queso fresco" when I made my shopping list. I think they actually meant more of a monterey jack kind of cheese. Queso fresco is more of a salty high fat cheese that makes a good topping. It added a lot of salt to my arepas and wasn't quite as melty as other cheeses would have been. 

Otherwise, they turned out was better. I used wax paper to flatten out my dough and I just shaped them by hand. I was able to cook two at a time and the mixture, even though I only did about 2/3 of the amount, made a lot of arepas so it kept me occupied for a good hour.

For toppings, I had carnitas, guacamole, salsa, the extra queso fresco, and some jalapeno. I was planning on making the carnitas but I didn't think to take my 8 pound pork roast out of the freezer until about 11am so that wasn't going to cut it. I know that the Del Real Foods carnitas are actually really high quality (local meat and gluten free) so I went with that as a quick fix. I'll still make our pork roast later this week when I have some free days with no games.

It all came together so well. It's basically a little gluten free sandwich. The flour is corn and there is also cheese so it's not paleo but it's not the worst thing for you either. We have lots of extra arepas too so I'm set for a few lunches this week. That's definitely been a nice bonus to this challenge!