Delicious Ecuador & Economical…

Maze beans & pork = Tostados.

Delicious snack for $0.50 USD. Wonderful mix of maze fried beans with fried pork. I love it.  You can find this traditional snack almost in every corner in any town.

Vegetarian chilli…
We shared this dish with Kai and Annette therefore it can only be made with veggies since they are vegetarians. The cost for this dish was $4.85/4 people and we had leftovers for another dish the next day: Chilli over pasta.

Ingredients:
2 Cans of beans: red and black
1 Can of tomato sauce
Carrots
Potatoes
Celery
Tomatoes
Garlic
Onion
Olive oil
Oregano
Seasoning salt


Preparation:
1) Cut all vegetables in small pieces.
2) In a pan fry the garlic, onions and celery with olive oil.
3) Add the potatoes and carrots and fry until they are well cooked.
4) Add the beans, tomatoes and tomato sauce.
5) Season with seasoning salt and oregano. Let it cook for a while, perhaps 15 more minutes.
6) Serve…
7) Enjoy!!!

Humita and coffee.
Humita is like a sweet tamal made out of corn with corn leaves. Delicious snack or meal for $0.50 USD in a restaurant. With a coffee $1.5 USD.

Bizcocho.
Famous bizcocho, we finally tried it. It is kind of like bread, sweet and light. We had a coffee and a bizcocho for $1 USD. In the same place we bought a big cheese for $1.75 USD; although the husband wanted to sell it to us, not to anybody else, for $2 USD. It is always the same situation, as soon as the sellers see Brian they think we collect money when it rains…

Tequila from Nabón.
I don’t know how much a bottle like this would cost because it was a gift from Fabian, “El Mocho”. It is quite strong liquor called Pulcre and believe it or not it saved us when we were trying to cook and we ran out of fuel. We used part of it as fuel for our cooking stove.

A full meal.
In Vilcabamba we had a full meal for $2 USD with chicken, $3 USD with pork or fish. We shared one dish and it was enough for both of us. This meal comes with soup, salad and a main course plus a drink. Hard to believe but it is real. Our favourite restaurant in this town is called “La Esquina”. Delicious food!!!