Join me for a weekend of food in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, MX.

San Cristobal Saturday Organic Market

Welcome to my first post on this new adventure with Amy. For those who have followed our lives over the past few years, you know that we have been living in Mexico for most of the last 5 years. Usually we are in San Miguel de Allende, but this season brings us for the third time to one of our favorite places – San Cristobal de las Casas which is located in Chiapas, one of the most southern states in Mexico – land of the Mayas.

This is a haven for those of us who follow a plant based diet. Come along with me on a typical weekend. 

Saturday starts with the organic farmers market and a visit with our friends Erin and Philip.

Flowers at the market

The market is loaded with fruits and vegetables and often new ones for me. In addition there are breads, sweets, jams and hot spices along with various prepared foods – many are vegan as well as gluten free. Here maiz (corn) is one of the stables of life and this works well for my stomach. I bought my usual kale, lettuce, radishes, sprouts and found the last two artichokes (alcachofas). To this bounty I added moringa (leaves and flower buds) and purslane (verdolaga in Spanish). Both can be eaten cooked or raw, in foods or salads. Doing an internet search when I got home I found that Moringa is very nutritious. The leaves are rich in protein and vitamin A,B and C, along with several minerals. In the photo you will also see a jar of hot sauce and a garlic seeded bread for Ricardo. 

Moringa leaves and flowers

My weekly purchase

As is our weekly tradition, we then all go out for brunch. We have had this routine since we arrived and as we are all travelers of the world, we enjoy our time together trying different things and talking of travels past and future. Our favorite spot of the week is “La Frontera” a specialty coffee and tea shop with friendly owners and a great menu. In the same courtyard is a flower shop, local brewery and a pastry shop.

Chai tea with leche de soya and fuit with granola

 

After bring our veggies home to wash we headed out for another treat – to a new chai spot that had these delicious sweet treats.

Can you believe...vegan brownie made of avocado, banana and amaranth

Another treat - date, cashew, coconut and cardamom

The Saturday market is not our only option. We live a few blocks from the very large market where most of the vendors are indigenous people bringing their fruits, vegetables, flowers and items from the villages surrounding San Cris. Each sells different items – piles of avocados, mangos, arugula, tomatoes, papayas, etc. Hardly a day goes by without a mango or avocado. In fact, my favorite salad recipe of the day is below.

Thanks for traveling with us. I am excited to take photos of the amazing options and it makes me even more grateful for this life that we are living in our retirement. This post is about markets and soon to come – some of our favorite local spots to eat when we don't cook at home.

Ensalada San Cris

Ingredients

  Arugula
  Lettuce
  Tomato
  Radish
  Mango
  Avocado
  Celery

Dressing

  Mixture of Dijon mustard with balsamic vinegar (no oil – keeps the fat content lower and the taste strong). Hint: keep the old mustard jar to mix dressing. I usually do not measure – just a heaping teaspoon of mustard with some amount of vinegar.

  Chop all the above and add any additional items of your choice – moringa leaves, cilantro, basil, sprouts, etc)

Culinary Adventures in Nicaragua...Amy

Ayote on the Vine 

I am on my way home from a volunteer project trip in San Ramon, Nicaragua. I set out from Asheville, North Carolina, just over a week ago armed with tea bags (English Tea) and a multi-pack of dried fruit and raw nut snacks (in case of emergency). I was joining several family members on a team of folks associated with the South Granville Rotary Club in Creedmoor, NC. Our goal was to redo the electrical wiring and fixtures in a secondary school of 450 students in the mountain town of San Ramon.

The culinary low-point of the trip was the journey in both directions. We left home at 3:00 AM and flew American Airlines early on Saturday morning out of Charlotte and through Miami with a very tight connection in Miami so that I arrived in Managua airport very hungry. Not very intelligently I had packed my snacks in my checked luggage (and I was not reunited with my luggage until my third day in Nica). Luckily the bus meeting us was stocked with snacks--plantain chips, bananas, peanuts, and mini-pastries and the crew went straight to a restaurant in Matagalpa once everyone had arrived. Similarly, this evening I am on the flight from Miami back to Charlotte and the food in the E terminal of Miami airport was absolutely dire for a person on a tight time frame wanting to eat something whole-foods and plant-based. I finally settled on an already packed salad from a Pizza Hut vendor. Every single item available this evening at this Pizza Hut had cheese on it or in it (the sandwiches, snacks, pasta, and pizza)—including my salad and both salad dressing choices. I opted out of the dressing, worked around the cheese and helped my self to hot peppers, pepper and salt from the self-serve containers. I tossed in some of these condiments, a snack bag of fruit and nuts and managed to keep low blood sugar at bay for another hour or two.

This airport experience highlighted for me how well I had eaten over the last week. Due to masterful planning of our fearless leaders, a full hot breakfast was included at the two hotels we stayed at, and lunches were provided by a local comedor at the work sites. A typical day’s meals went something like this…a typical Nicaraguan breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and red beans) and pan-fried plantains with hot sauce. Others in the crew had a giant fruit plate, or pancakes, or cereal, fruit, and yogurt or ham, eggs, and toast. Lunch came packed in a Styrofoam box and was remarkably tasty and varied. Four of the sixteen crew members are vegetarian and each day the lunch preparers sent one vegetarian meal “sin lacteo” for me. Most days there was some sort of textured vegetable protein main dish or beans, steamed carrots, potato and ayote (a large squash like fruit/vegetable), rice, and salad. On the 5th day, one of the compartments contained potatoes mashed with peppers onions and carrots that were delicious!

Vegetariano sin lacteo lunch box

And then dinner was out at a restaurant or at our hotel. Often no vegetarian meal was listed on the menu so we tried the strategy of asking for a vegetarian plate with varying success. The best of these had rice, beans, tostones, cooked vegetables and/or salad, and papas fritas spiced up with chile sauce. The worst was an iceberg lettuce salad topped with American cheese, Nicaraguan cheese and a few cut up vegetables and ranch dressing. This night I ordered papas fritas to fill my tummy. Not a culinary highlight.

Another plant based lunch box

A particularly humorous food ordering mishap happened at the Rancho associated with our hotel one evening when I was dining with 3 companions who set out to find pizza. Two of us chose a vegetarian pizza to share—with the help of a native Spanish speaker—I requested half of the pizza to be made without cheese. When it arrived, one half was beautifully and amply topped with vegetables and cheese and the other side had a dried up thin coating of sauce and nothing else. I wish I had taken my camera to dinner that eve. We did manage to successfully send it back for some toppings on the naked side.

Traveling in Nicaragua was delicious and easy with advance planning on the part of the organizers.  If we had stayed at a place with cooking facilities, the food would have been marvelous. The produce was fresh, plentiful and delicious. Think avocados, tropical fruit, potatoes, plantains, tomatoes, onions, and squash.

Produce Stand in San Ramon, Nicaragua

Vegan adventures with Amy and Suze

Join Amy and I as we travel the vegan world together. We both love talking about being vegan, cooking, eating, reading and creating. We have done many projects together over the last many years and are excited for our new venture - writing about our adventures.

Who we are....

Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D.

Creative Cook, Artist and Nutrition Wizard

Chair and Associate Professor of Health and Wellness

University of North Carolina, Asheville

and

Susan Neulist

Intentional Living Expert, Chef, Cooking Instructor and Fiber Artist

Living in San Miguel de Allende, MX and

Traveling the world as a vegan