Rice with Mushrooms for Saint Valentines

Ingredients:

1 liter of chicken broth
1 ½ cups rice
½ kg mushrooms, cut into strips
½ stick butter
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
Salt and pepper

Preparing:

Cook rice with chicken broth, salt and ginger.

Fry the onion in butter.
Add the celery and when soft add the mushrooms.
Season it with salt and pepper.
Add the rice, stir and serve.

Apple and Raisins Light Salad for Christmas

Ingredients:

4 cups shredded lettuce
4 apples, peeled and diced
1 cup cheese, diced
½ cup raisins
½ cup plain yogurt
¼ cup light mayonnaise
2 celery stalks, chopped
6 tbsp granulated diet sugar
½ tsp garlic, minced

Preparing:

Mix the yogurt with the mayonnaise, sugar and garlic.
Refrigerate until serving time.

Combine
the lettuce with apples, raisins, celery and cheese.
Bathe the salad with the yogurt mixture and serve.

Typical Costa Rican Tamales for Christmas

Ingredients:

2 ½ kg of banana leaves
1 kg of corn flour
½ kg pork post Tamales Típicos de Costa Rica para Navidad
½ kg of green beans, cooked
4 cups mashed potatoes
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup lard
1 cup rice, cooked to taste with achiote
6 chicken broth envelopes
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 sweet peppers, cut into strips
1 cilantro roll
1 chicken breast
1 celery stalk
1 thyme sprig
1 hot pepper
1 carrot, cooked and sliced
1 can petit pois
1 wick roll
Salt and ground cumin to taste

Preparing:

Cook pork with garlic, thyme, celery, hot peppers and salt.
Remove meat from broth and crumbled.
Reserve the broth and strain.

Cook chicken in a little oil with achiote, hot peppers, cilantro and broth.

Separately, mix well in a pot corn flour with the mashed potatoes, oil, lard, chicken broth, salt, a little chicken and meat broth and any other condiment of your choice.

Trim the leaves and wash them well.

Place a big tablespoon of dough on two banana leaves.
Add a spoonful of rice, a piece of meat, a piece of chicken, 2 carrots slices, 1 strip of pepper, 2 green beans, petit pois, a sprig of cilantro and any other ingredients you want.

Wrap each tamale well, leaving no or too tight or too loose.
Join 2 tamales and wrap them well.
Cook in boiling water for 45 minutes.

* Reserve a bit of pork and chicken broth to the end, if the mass that gives very dry.
* The dough should be well mixed and wet, if it becomes too dry the tamal can be hard.