happy birdycake: Viva vegan!

Its been 30 years since I left my roots in South America. My years now blend into an American life that slowly pushes the colors, rhythms and flavors of that place behind. Now that I have a kid, I think of my past and want to share that bit of difference with her. I want to teach her Spanish and tell her stories of what I can remember. Mainly food... :)
landscapes too...and sometimes ... Sometimes a song might pop up.
Thinking about the rhythm of life our family is now creating, I can recall a bit of mine...
Hot chocolate with melted cheese inside ( yes cheese!) for breakfast and arepas, making empanadas, my great aunt's knitting, my grandmother's baking, singing with my mother, and sugarcane fields.
This new vegetarian lifestyle in our house has been fully embraced by daddy and honeypie is coming around. Some dishes are a hit and certain others are a complete miss with her. I will say she is operating at an 85% yes. I think that is pretty good considering she is going through Mac and cheese withdrawal....
I am keeping to more of a vegan lifestyle until my health and body are back in tip top order. :).
For now... Feeling good... Better. I am a cheese-free, coffee-free, dairy -free, meat-free gal...
So imagine how excited I was to find this new cook book "Viva vegan" by Terry Hope Romero!!! Latin food the vegan way!! Think tamales, empanadas, etc but meat free. It is amazing!
This week we tried arepas with corn and vegan cheese, which were fantastic. Honeypie could not get enough! Arepas are a traditional Colombian food eaten like bread. It's a corn cake, practically eaten daily and I like terry's take on it by using corn kernels within the dough.
We also made a super traditional soup called "sancocho", it's a soup I must have eaten as a child at least once a week and back then my mother made it with ox tail , or chicken legs... ( I know ... Meaty)... So it was really interesting to see what a vegan interpretation would be. The recipe uses tons of root vegetables including yucca and plantain which are Latin staples. Yucca tastes like a really starchy potato, it's a bit stringy and honeypie HATED it. Plantain is dense and it was tolerated by her but I have to say she was not a huge fan of this soup.... But she ate a serving. I liked it and it tasted authentic. Most important, i didn't miss the meat but because all of the root veggies ... It's probably best left for a cold winter day.