Celebrating July 28 with Arroz con Pollo

With Peruvians celebrating their Independence Day last Thursday, Juls and I decided it was time to try our hands at cooking a real Peruvian meal Friday night! With the house all to myself, I took on the project full force. There are plenty of recipes for Peruvian food online, but I needed one that was not only authentic, but also relatively idiot-proof. We settled on Arroz con Pollo, with Aji Verde, and of course Sangria.

With grocery list in hand, I set off to the grocery store. After an hour in the produce section I was ready to call it quits. After all, I don't eat vegetables! So how am I supposed to shop for them? Of course the first thing I do is call my mom for her help, and of course she doesn't answer. I managed to find everything needed for the meal. Making Aji Verde turned out to be easier than I originally expected. But I still think I'm going to ask Adela and Rossi for their Aji recipe.

Cooking is always more fun with company, so I waited until Sarah and Juls arrived to begin in the kitchen. Andrew even gave us a helping hand. Sarah was very good at . . . supervising.

Going into the night, we had two goals: 1) Don't burn down the kitchen 2) Cook edible Arroz con Pollo. With the help of Juls and Andrew, both were accomplished!

Juls conquered the chicken while Andrew and I worked on the veggies (I won't eat them but I can still cook them!). Freddy was good at offering to order a pizza when the kitchen burned down :P

The Arroz con Pollo turned out amazing thanks to teamwork! And the Aji made the meal perfect. A cold glass of Sangria and we were all ready to celebrate Peru's Independence Day :)

We all had fun cooking, and decided to cook together more often. I have to say the clean up wasn't nearly as much fun as making the mess!