End of Day 25: $3336.00

So, no official dollar change today.  I say "no official change" for two reasons:  1.  I am still waiting to find out how much was raised from the Pizza Pie Café fundraiser out in UT; and 2.  I received a donation for raffle tickets today from someone who can't come to the Zumbathon this Saturday, but wants to try winning a prize and helping with fundraising, which is awesome!  But, I decided to keep a running total for the  Zumbathon event so I can give a total amount raised from that event on Saturday, rather than piecemeal.

So... now is the time to find out how you can help!  And check out the two fundraising events coming up if you want to Zumba or eat out to help with fundraising- check it out!

I always enjoyed learning new words in Spanish (or re-learning ones I had forgotten...) when I was down in Camarones.  I also love food, and learning to cook new things.  Combine them, and you have the day I learned to make tortillas de maiz, and learned the word for a woman who isn't very good at cooking or domestic things..... which is and was funny because I love cooking and baking, as those of you that know me know, and my friends in Ecuador knew too as I baked a number of cakes when I was down there, so it became a pretty funny fiasco.

This was actually the second time I had made tortilla de maiz.  The first time being after a baile I helped Doña Berna make some for breakfast, and that time they all turned out beautifully.  The second time, well, not quite as good.

Tortilla de maiz are really pretty easy to make, and I've made them since with slight modifications (as I didn't have extremely fresh cheese, straight from the cow, etc), but have found they work fine with corn flour, egg, milk, and sometimes butter (one recipe here that has more things in it than I usually use).  The difficulty came in waiting for the tortillas to cook...

 Mixing the dough for the tortillas

From husked corn

 To de-husked corn

 To de-kernaled corn

 To corn flour after grating the kernals

 Nicely cooked tortilla de maiz

 Burnt, poorly cooked tortilla de maiz.... 

Trying to repair the damage by scraping off the burnt parts

So, what are the keys to success?  Being sure to use corn flour, not corn meal or course corn flour (as I learned when I tried making these for friends with the latter...a little crunchy).  Kneading the dough well.  Then forming a nice ball in your hand, making a pocket, stuffing it with cheese (or all sorts of creative things I've tried), and then not rushing the cooking (either over an open fire, in the oven, or stove top... these are very versatile!).  Best of all, these are fun to make with family or friends (I've made them with my aunt and mom and middle school kids  at the Meadowood Neighborhood Center after-school program).   Have fun!  Here's another recipe idea:

Tortilla de Maiz 

Tortilla ingredients:

2-3 cups corn flour

1 egg

1/2 cup skim milk to start

water

1.  Mix the flour, egg, milk, and water in a bowl.  Add water or milk until texture of the flour is moist and packable.

2.  Can also add salt if desired.

3.  Knead the mixture well and allow to sit for 5 or 10 minutes before filling

Filling ideas:

One package Queso Fresco, crumbled

Chopped garlic

Chopped shallots

Tomatoes

Steak and cheese

Meat and cheese

Peanut butter and chocolate

End of Day 24: $3336.00

No dollar amount change today (though I'm still waiting to find out how much was raised from the Pizza Pie Café fundraiser out in UT)- now is the time to find out how you can help!  Remember there are also a couple more fundraising events if you want to Zumba or eat out to help with fundraising- check it out!

Some exciting news for today:  we have t-shirts to help with fundraising!  We will be using some for part of the raffle prizes, and then will be selling others at the Zumbathon this Saturday, March 17th!  The shirt is a shade of green, so it will be perfect for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday (and year-round, of course too!).

Front of shirt

 Back of shirt

Have a question or comment?  Please feel free to post below, or send me an email!

End of Day 23: $3336.00

Thanks for another wonderful and generous donation today!  I really appreciate the continued support and enthusiasm!!  Wanting to find out how you can help?  Remember there are also a couple more fundraising events if you want to Zumba or eat out to help with fundraising- check it out!

Have a question or comment?  Please feel free to post below, or send me an email!

End of Day 22: $3236.00

No change in the dollar amount today, but I hope to have posted the amount raised from the PizzaPieCafé fundraiser from last week, soon.  Wanting to find out how you can help?  Remember there are also a couple more fundraising events if you want to Zumba or eat out to help with fundraising- check it out! 

Yesterday afternoon I made the mistake of having a tiny amount of Hazelnut coffee mixed with decaf coffee at a meeting, which resulted in two things:  1.  Me still being energized and unable to sleep at a reasonable hour (I'm normally high-energy enough without any caffeine), and 2. Reminded me of helping to process coffee in Ecuador.  From picking, to milling, to roasting, to grinding again, it is a very labor intensive process.

First, the ripe fruit, or cherry (so called because of the bright red color), are removed from the coffee plants by hand.

 Me picking coffee at Don Ernesto's farm

The coffee is then allowed to dry by being spread out on level surfaces and moved around periodically (in Hawaii I saw this part done in a very large area with retractable roofs for covering in case of bad weather).  Then, after the cherries are dry, the outside of the fruit needs to be separated from the green coffee beans.  This is done here by hand with a mill.  A very good arm workout can be had by processing the coffee this way.

Milling the coffee that was already dried (you can see some in the background) to remove the bean from the fruit

Running the cherries through the mill helps to remove the outer coating, but it then needs to be separated from the beans before roasting.  Here, this was accomplished with a fan, positioned over a bowl, where the beans were lifted by hand and the outer, dry shell, was blown off (the big pile of dry coating can be seen in the foreground).

Wuilter and Paco using a fan to remove the dry skin from the bean before roasting

With the bean finally separated from the rest, careful roasting over an open fire is the next step in the processing.  This part is really an art form, as you don't want to burn the beans.

 Betsy roasting coffee that has already been dried

  Coffee in the beginning stage of being roasted over the fire

After roasting, the coffee can again be ground by hand for roasting, or kept as whole-bean for sale to individuals.

Have a question or comment?  Please feel free to post below, or send me an email!

End of Day 21: $3236.00

Thanks for another wonderful and generous donation today!  I really appreciate the continued support and enthusiasm!!  Wanting to find out how you can help?  Remember there are also a couple more fundraising events if you want to Zumba or eat out to help with fundraising- check it out!  Today, I also picked up a couple more wonderful raffle prizes for the Zumbathon. 

Have a question or comment?  Please feel free to post below, or send me an email!

End of Day 20: $3136.00

Thanks to another generous donation received in the mail, the amount raised from the bowling fundraiser, and an extremely generous donation from a friend who, in lieu of party favors at her wedding, has pledged to donate a small amount for each of her guests to help with the construction of the community center, the total is now over $3000.00!  Thanks again for the continued support!  I am still amazed, and honored that my friend chose to donate to this cause as a part of her wedding!  She is a special person, so doing something wonderful like this on her wedding day does not surprise me, I just feel like I cannot thank her enough.  Find out how you can help too!

One of my favorite days when I was down in the community was when we organized the kids on a community clean up.  I had told the kids we were going to be doing a "fun activity", but didn't tell them what it was going to be.  So... when they found out it was picking up trash, I decided to frame the activity as a competition, and there would be a prize for the group of kids with the most garbage collected.

 A few of the kids with a sack of garbage

 Looking for trash

 Trash in hand on the way to the bag for this team's effort

 Garbage, garbage everywhere...

Posing with one of the many bags of garbage collected

In the end, the kids filled all of the bags we had for them, and all anxiously awaited for me to announce the winning team.  But, there was a catch.  I told them they were all winners, and asked if someone knew why.  One of the kids spoke up and said that they were all winners because now the community was cleaner.  I was so happy.  We went on to talk about how the garbage affects their health and the environment.  We talked about water quality issues and pollution, and we ended the activity with popcorn for everyone.  

End of Day 19: $2625.00

Thanks to a generous $40.00 donation received in the mail, the total is over $2600, not including the amounts raised from the Pizza Pie Café fundraiser or the bowling fundraiser- that is awesome!!  Thanks!  I also got a few more fun raffle prizes for the Zumbathon Event happening in Madison, WI on Saturday, March 17th and am working on t-shirts!!   I will post raffle prize donors on the list of donors/sponsors in the next couple of days.  Thanks to all the great companies and restaurants that have already donated!!

If you are in Logan, UT and still hungry for pizza, you have about 2 hours left of the Pizza Pie Café fundraiser.  As a final, last minute reminder, Pizza Pie Café (25 E 1400 N Logan, UT) will donate 25% of all food sales to this fundraiser!  All you have to do is bring this flyer with you when you eat there (flyers are also available in the ENVS departmental office at Utah State).  They even have gluten free!  So, go enjoy some pizza on the last day of this fundraising event! 

Stay tuned for details on t-shirts!  As usual, feel free to post comments, or email me

Look for some longer/more interesting posts over the weekend.