Saturday, February 26, 2005

Exotic canned good makes good

The one thing that is most noticeably American about my kitchen is the sheer amount of food in it. I love to grocery shop (it's not a chore for me; it's something I look forward to), and if I see an unusual ingredient I'm fond of, I have a compulsion to buy it right away, whether I need it or not.

This occasionally leads to flabby vegetables that have to be thrown out or made into stock, but more often it leads to adventuresome cooking and eating when I ponder, "Okay, what the hell can I do with this?"

Thus it came to be that there was a tin of guava paste in the pantry that had been there for kind of a long time and really, really needed to be used up. I have been known to make Cuban-style pastries with guava paste, but I haven't done it in a long time and couldn't foresee doing it. So I decided to serve a few little cubes of guava paste with the cheese/fruit course of tonight's dinner. And in the meantime I invented this, which I think is the absolute most delicious smoothie of all time:

GUAVA-BANANA SMOOTHIE
1 frozen banana, broken into small chunks
1/2 c. nonfat plain yogurt
2 Tbs. guava paste

Put all the ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth. Makes 1 smoothie.