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Banana Lumpia

Well, my friends, I have one more Filipino dish to share with you that didn’t make it into Filipino Food Month. It’s your bonus recipe– totally free! This is one of my very favorite things to eat. This is a dessert version of lumpia, and it is seriously tasty. I remember rushing to the student store at my school at lunch or merienda whenever these were fresh and buying them for 5 pesos (about $0.12) each.

In the Philippines, banana lumpia is made with a cooking banana, called saba. I have never seen saba here in Minnesota, so I struggled for a while to figure out what to make these with. Saba bananas are short and squat, and are starchier than regular bananas, but not as starchy as plantains.

I had tried making these with plantains before, and the plantains were too firm and stayed very separate from the rest of it. Then I tried regular bananas, but they just got mushy with the frying. I decided to try one more thing, and it worked quite well!

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Porcupine Meatballs

Note: there are no porcupines used in these meatballs, so if you were excited that you finally found a use for that porcupine carcass in your garage, I’m sorry.
This is one of my grandma’s recipes. Therefore, it is delicious. It’s homey with a twist. Some good ol’ comfort food.

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Mexican Hot Chocolate

Over the weekend, we had another large winter storm.  I’m always so tired of winter by this time of year.  Sigh.

In any case, snow storms make me want hot chocolate.  And as far as hot chocolates go, this is one of my favorites.  Mexican hot chocolate.  It’s like regular hot chocolate, but with attitude.  And spice.  I was first introduced to it by my friend Elizabeth at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market.  And since there’s not much reason to go to the farmer’s market in the dead of winter, I had to make my own.

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