Humitas and Mid-Terms!

Meet Panuelo! An absolutely adorable puppy that I met this week! It was really hard not to be able to pet him, but the risk of fleas was just too great!

This last week I learned how to make Humitas in one of my communities.  Humitas are essentially mini Tamales that have quesillo, or homemade cheese in the inside.  Here are step by step instructions on how to make humitas J Enjoy

 First you have to take the kernels off the corn in order to grind them up! You keep the corn husks to fold the corn up in later.

 The grinding process is a lot harder than it looks, partially because the corn was dry and because their hand crank had been in the family for quite a few years! 

After we had completed crushing all the corn, we had a bucket of corn mush!  We added salt, sugar and milk till we had a smooth mixture, that still wasn't too wet. 

In the meantime, I learned how to make homemade cheese.  We essentially just boiled milk till it curdled and then we pulled out and strained the clumps.  They call it quesillo, but I would equate it to queso fresco if you have ever had that. 

 Once we had the mix all ready, we set out on making the hundreds of humitas! First step, is a little dollop of corn, leaving an indent in the center.

 Next you add your quesillo in the indent... 

 ...you fold up one side, then fold the top down... 

 ...then you do your final tucks and folds and you have an humita!

 In order to cook the humitas, you steam them for about half an hour.  They corn comes out really moist and my host family preferred to eat them with Aji, aka spicy peppers! 

That's it for now! I had a pretty good week on route last week! We are already at the middle of the summer, so we did mid-term evaluations with our volunteers last week.  It was actually quite hard to give constructive feedback on all aspects of the projects! 

Other than making humitas in San Ignacio, my week included picking golden berries and going to the river in Chorro Blanco, playing soccer as always in Illuca and spending quality time at the school campamentos in La Manzanilla!  

We ended the week with a capacitación (training) with our volunteers and the local youth.  This week we discussed creative expression so we had lots of fun doing arts and crafts and a photography scavenger hunt!