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Recipe of the Week: Black Bean Soup

March 26, 2010 by Brian

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Black Bean Soup is great for a light, healthy lunch. Or you can pair it with a Chicken Taco Salad for a tasty dinner (come back next week for that recipe). It’s thick, filling and full of fiber and protein.

This recipe for Black Bean soup is very easy to make. The longest part of the preparation is soaking the black beans overnight and cooking them. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups Black Beans, cooked, drained and rinsed
  • 2 cups diced tomatoes
  • ½ onion, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded and diced (or to taste)
  • ½ cup water
  • 1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (optional)
  • 1 cup sour cream (optional)
  • Mexican hot sauce (optional)


Directions:

  1. Dice and mince vegetables
  2. Heat pan over medium heat
  3. Add grapeseed oil and heat
  4. Sautee onion until slightly translucent, 1-2 minutes
  5. Add garlic and jalapeño and sauté for 1-2 minutes
  6. In a large mixing bowl, combine beans, tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeño and water
  7. Transfer to blender and blend until smooth
  8. Pour into a sauce pan
  9. Heat until warm
  10. Garnish with shredded cheese, sour cream and hot sauce

Don't forget to come back next week for our Chicken Taco Salad recipe.

Filed Under: Recipe of the Week Tagged With: black bean soup, Recipe of the Week

Carnaval in Uruguay

March 24, 2010 by Brian

Did you know that Uruguay claims to have the longest Carnaval in the world? It starts in late January and ends in early March, with a total of 40 days of festivities each year. Uruguayans definitely know how to celebrate and throw a party.

We didn’t get to experience Carnaval in Uruguay this year with Chrystal being at the end of her pregnancy and then having Kaylee during the celebration.

However, we found a great article about Carnaval in Uruguay that we wanted to share. It’s on Global Voices and it includes information, pictures and video of this year’s Carnaval.

If you missed Carnaval this year, you can check out the Museo de Carnaval (Carnaval Museum) in Ciudad Vieja. We went several months back to check it out. It’s small, but it’s a neat little place to stop in. And, it’s free on Tuesdays so you can’t beat that.

Entrance fees:

With discount – Residents UY$15
Con discount – mercosur UY$30
General – UY$60
Under 12 years Free
Admission Free on Tuesdays

The Carnaval Museum is located at Rambla 25 de Agosto de 1825 Nº 218, esq. Maciel in the Ciudad Vieja area of Montevideo. Their phone number is (+598 02) 916 5493.

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P8040030P8040038 P8040035

Filed Under: Culture, Entertainment Tagged With: carnaval in uruguay

The Crazy Bugs in Uruguay

March 22, 2010 by Brian

We talked previously about the mosquitoes in Uruguay. They’re still an ongoing problem, but we’ve been also under attack by other types of bugs in the last few weeks… bugs like we’ve never seen before.

Coming from San Diego, there aren’t too many crazy looking bugs… just your standard garden-variety bugs plus lots of spiders.

These pictures were taken about a week and a half ago. We had several of these bugs in our apartment one night. We have no idea what they are, but they were aggressive. They would try to charge you, but luckily Brian was able to get them out of the apartment.

You can’t see it very clearly in these pictures, but they had pinchers. I’m not sure if they bite or sting, or if they are poisonous, but I’m glad that we didn’t have to find out!

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So can anyone tell us what these are?

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: bugs in uruguay

Recipe of the Week: Conch Ceviche – Guest Post

March 19, 2010 by Brian

The following is a guest post from Billy Broas of BillyBrew.com. He writes about craft beer, and truly believes that beer is food. Billy has a great website for all of us beer lovers out there. If there's anything you ever wanted to learn about beer, Billy is "The Man" to learn it from.

Billy has a fantastic recipe for Conch Ceviche he wanted to share… Well, I'll let him get into the details.

Billy, thanks for hooking us up… We can't wait to try this recipe.

Conch Ceviche:



After Brian's video "Exploring The Beer of Uruguay" I had a good understanding of the beer scene in Uruguay. Like most South American countries, its people like their brews light, cold, and refreshing. The main type of beer is lagers, as we beer geeks refer to them, as opposed to their more full bodied cousins called ales.

A good beer + food pairing matches intensities. I chose ceviche not only because it is a tasty South American dish, but because its mild flavor goes well with the mild and refreshing characteristics of the local beer.

For the beer to pair with I would choose the Patricia Lager, a common offering in Uruguay.
So here is the delicious ceviche recipe that I recently prepared. I used conch instead of fish, which is tougher to find but tastes great. Conch takes some slightly different preparation, which I highlighted in italics if you choose to go that route.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. any white fish or conch
  • 1/2 cup lime juice (fresh squeezed)
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice (same deal as lime, the real stuff)
  • 1 yellow onion, chopped
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 1 tomato, chopped
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1 habanero chile, sliced

Procedure:

  1. Patricia Lager Place the fish on a cutting board and chop into 1/4-1/2 inch chunks.

    – For conch, you will need to pound it flat with a meat tenderizer.

    – Make one pass over it, then turn it 90 degrees and pound away for another pass. Turn and pound once more, then chop into 1/4-1/2 inch pieces as you would with fish.

  2. Put the fish into a bowl or baking dish with the lemon and lime juice and cover.
  3. Place container in the refrigerator and let sit for at least 3 hours.

    – Overnight works well too. That's what we did and it turned out super tender.

  4. Take the container out, mix in the habaneros, and let sit for another hour.
  5. Drain the container and put the mixture in a mixing bowl. Add the onion, cilantro, tomato, olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Squeeze about a tablespoon of lime juice over the mixture.
  6. Place in a bowl and eat with a fork or scoop onto tortilla chips.

Most importantly, grab a cold Patricia Lager to wash it down. The sweetness from the malt does a good job to soothe the acidity from the ceviche.

Cheers!

Billy

Filed Under: Recipe of the Week Tagged With: Conch Ceviche Recipe, Uruguay Beer

Did You Know That Blogs Have a Carbon Footprint?

March 16, 2010 by Brian

carbon neutral coupon with kaufDA.de
We didn’t. At least until we received an email from a German company suggesting that we could make our blog carbon neutral through their “My blog is carbon neutral” initiative.

You wouldn’t think of blogging as having a carbon footprint, but I guess it makes sense that it does with all of the servers and computer equipment involved that use energy.

We’re always looking for ways to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle, so we went to their website to learn more about the “My blog is carbon neutral” initiative.

The initiative was founded by kaufDA, a company whose goal is to help reduce the online world’s carbon footprint by raising awareness of the severe environmental damage caused by carbon emissions.

The program basically works like this:

  • You write a blog post about the initiative
  • You send them an email about the blog post
  • Their partner, the Arbor Day Foundation, plants a tree in the Plumas National Forest in Northern California
  • The tree offsets the carbon emissions created by your blog

If you have a blog, check out the initiative to learn how your blog can be carbon neutral too!

Filed Under: Web/Tech

Daylight Savings Time Change in Uruguay:
Sunday, March 14, 2010

March 10, 2010 by Brian

Sunset

It looks like it’s time for Summer to end and Fall to begin in Uruguay. Daylight Savings time ends this weekend, Sunday, 14 March 2010 at 01:59:59.

The time change coincdes with the start of Daylight Savings time in the US, so beginning this Sunday, Uruguay will be one hour ahead of East Coast time and four hours ahead of West Coast time.

This is great news for us and anyone else who does business with companies in the US. Now we won’t have such late work nights.

So, remember to set your clocks back an hour Saturday night before you go to bed.

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: Daylight Savings Time Change in Uruguay

Private Schools in Uruguay

March 8, 2010 by Brian

Bookglobe

We talked previously about Public Schools in Uruguay and got a couple comments about Private Schools, so we wanted to follow up with a post about Private Schools in Uruguay.

We came across an interesting article on Ola Uruguay titled, “Public Schools in Uruguay—A Quick Guide,” about things you should considering when choosing a private school in Uruguay. Click here to read the article.

The two private schools most often considered by US expats living in Uruguay are:

  1. Uruguayan American School
  2. The British Schools

Here are a few more private schools to look at:

  1. Lycee Français
  2. Scuola Italiana
  3. Deutche Schüle
  4. St. David’s School

What has been your experience with the Private School System in Uruguay?

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: private schools in uruguay

Dealing with Culture Shock

March 3, 2010 by Brian

Village

When you move to a foreign country as an expat, there’s one thing you can expect to experience… culture shock. No matter how prepared you are for the move, it will hit you at some point.

Linda, a friend of ours who writes the Uruguay My Way blog, wrote a really great description of the five stages of culture shock. I wasn’t even aware that there are stages to culture shock.

The five stages are:

  • Honeymoon
  • Cultural Shock
  • Initial Adjustment
  • Mental Isolation
  • Acceptance & Integration

Similar to Linda’s experience, I think we have also flip-flopped all over the place without having quite gotten to Acceptance & Integration yet.

After this initial post, she’ll be writing five more blog posts about each of the five stages of culture shock. Make sure to keep up with this series on her blog if you’re interested in learning more about the culture shock that expats experience.

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: culture shock, five stages of culture shock

Biodegradable Shopping Bags

March 1, 2010 by Brian

Bags

We typically bring our hemp shopping bags with us to the grocery store with us so plastic bags don’t overrun our kitchen. But, we do use plastic grocery bags as trash sacks so we like to have a small supply on hand.

One thing we noticed the first time that we shopped at the Disco was that the shopping bags are labeled as being biodegradable. So are the plastic bags at Devoto (one of the other major grocery store chains in Uruguay).

We had never seen that in the States before, so we were interested by it. We checked out the website listed on the bags. Apparently this company makes an additive that makes conventional plastic products biodegradable.

Small amounts of the additive are combined with the plastic during the manufacturing process to allow plastic products such as polyethylene carrier bags to biodegrade in 24-36 months.
 
We thought it was very cool that a small country like Uruguay is using biodegradable plastic bags, when the major chains in the US still aren’t (as far as we know).



Filed Under: Culture, Shopping Tagged With: biodegradable plastic bags, biodegradable shopping bags, uruguay

Public Schools in Uruguay

February 22, 2010 by Brian

Abcs

There have been several people that have contacted us or posted questions on our Forum about the school system in Uruguay.

Since our girls are still too young for school, we’re definitely not experts on the school system in Uruguay.

However, we came across this article in Ola Uruguay titled, “Public Schools in Uruguay—A Quick Guide,” that you may be interested in if you’re considering a move to Uruguay with school aged children.

The article gives a good, high-level overview of the public school system in Uruguay.

You may also want to check out this thread on our forum for some other good information about Uruguay’s school system.

Do you have school age children in Uruguay? What has your experience with the school system been?



Filed Under: Education Tagged With: public schools in Uruguay, Uruguay school system

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