Day Two -Southwest

Hey everyone,
It's me again. Today I'll show you the Southwest and a very common dish, "chili con carne" , and something you can find everywhere in the USA, even in Germany it's common, the doughnut.

The Southwest includes the 3 (red framed) states Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico and has a lot of Mexican influences in the food and way of life, which you can see in many Mexican dishes with beans, the staple food in Texas. The Southwest has the most popular cuisine of America with its chilis, salsas, tortillas, tacos and juicy steaks...I'd better stop with these delicious sounding meals or I'll start getting hungry and dinner time is over...

The Big Bend National Park

The Big Bend in Texas National Park is very famous, and has these     beautiful, red, strangely formed stones that look like giants had played with LEGOS or something. You can see it yourself here, I'm sorry that I can't put this video on my blog but here is the link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_KSWvnl8gk .  I would like to see this cactus (0:58 in the video) doesn't it look amazing? I want to have one in my room but it's too small, I think.


But my Southwestern cooking actually started yesterday when I made the dough for the doughnuts. And there I had a little faux pas.  First, I didn't read the recipe thoroughly enough and mixed 180ml milk and 60ml water, so I had instead 60ml milk and 180ml water, so READ THE RECIPE CAREFULLY!!! Then I tried to pour the water away and I put more milk inside, but it wasn't enough which I recognized the next day. Second,  when I had put the dough in a bowl amd closed it with the lid I had to wait a few hours so I watched TV. But suddenly it made a "bang" and the bowl was on the ground, I had forgotten the yeast that pushed up the lid of the bowl. Then I didn't close the lid and after some time the dough was all over the place ... look for yourself. I made a picture, it was funny actually because I had too much dough anyway...
In the night I put the bowl ouside so it couldn't happen again, and guess what it DID happen again ...Third, I had to put sooooo much flour in it because I wasn't able to work with it, it was too runny.

Doughnuts in the pan...

But apart from  that I hadn't had any problems. Okay, just a little one, I made so much dough that I had around 42 Doughnuts today and we were 5 people to eat it and we still have a box full of them, but I must say they taste very good and  guess what,  I'm eating one right now, yes at 12:00 a.m., but I'm on vacation right now, so it's okay.

.. and the finished ones.

After I made the doughnuts I made chili con carne. For everyone who doesn't know it, chilli con carne is a stew with beef, beans, corn and lots of chili. While I cooked it I had no accidents, which surprised me a lot and it was fast, less than two hours. I know it does not look that delicious but you can't picture it,  it is just unique and pictures don't do it justice. But it was very tasty and a little bit hot, but I think people in Texas eat it hotter. So I'm going to bed now because I need to sleep so that I can cook tomorrow,  good night everyone...