Buen Provecho! II

SEMANA 4?! No way! Crazy how time is flying!

Arvejado - arveja means "pea" in Spanish.  Apparently, it's the most important ingredient of this meal.  Bring on the greens!!!

This dish tasted kind of stew-like - very moist, tender beef, and a sauce poured over top that included peas and carrots.  Pair that with a forkful of rice and YUM.  I chowed down on this after a looong day of school.  I had five classes today, from 10 AM til 7 PM, and my only break was a half hour for lunch.  Boy, was I glad when I came home to a plateful of arvejado!

So far my Buen Provecho posts have been either about soup or stew.  That's not necessarily because stew/soup are typical Chilean dishes, but my family likes to have soup with most lunches.  I wonder if that's just my family or if that's a Chilean custom.  My point, though, is that these soupy dishes aren't the epitome of Chilean food.  Maybe I just really like them and choose them as my post of the week, or maybe my family just eats lots of it.

I've become a bigger fan of beef than I've ever been before.  It's very common that the people here eat lots of meat, so I'm glad I'm not a vegetarian like some of my friends here!  Asados are very popular parties to have too -- they're like cookouts with lots of slow-cooked meat.  They put big slabs of meat on a spit and it rotates over the coals for hours, so it gets a great smoky, salty flavor.  So good!  Rachael and I went to an asado a couple weekends ago, and the best word I could choose to describe the flavor was: "divine."