Daily Adaptations

I've mentioned that I spend all day, every day preparing to cook, cooking, serving, cleaning up after cooking and repeating. No wonder Chileans spread their meals out. Eating breakfast early, waiting until 2pm to do lunch and 10pm for dinner allows a mom a little break in-between. We haven't adjusted to that eating schedule yet. So it's back-to-back meals for me in the meantime.

I guess it gives me something to do. It fills my days with meaning. I'm stranded at home with my non-spanish-speaking self for the next little bit. We're working on getting a spanish teacher to come to the home 3 days a week and teach the kids and I.

In the meantime, I adapt to my surroundings.

For example, I was THRILLED to find what looks like mac & cheese for the kids' lunch. They were as excited as I was to have something from home.

Well here's the thing:

See, I THINK I know how to make mac & cheese, but these pictures are confusing. Straining looks like step 1. Then step 2 is what? Add milk. Step 3 I've got, add the cheese powder, but what's the deal with step 4? Is that when I boil the noodles?

Luckily, upon further inspection, I can pick out 3 litros de agua and 11 a 13 minutos. I figure boil in 3 liters of water for 11 to 13 minutes. Got it. One problem: it takes like 30 minutes to get water to boil at this altitude. Thank goodness for my little friend:

This little plug in pot boils water in like 3 minutes. I filled her up and three minutes later it was at a full boil. I put that in my pot and within 3 minutes it was boiling again.

I AM A FREAKIN' GENIUS!

The rest of the cooking I just ad-libbed. I boiled, strained and then added some butter, milk and the cheese powder. It's actually delicious. Puts Kraft to shame. It should for $4USD a box.

After all that amazing mom-ness, Andrew decides he wants and avocado sandwich. He's addicted.

Whatever, Alex and I will enjoy our cheesy goodness :)