preparing for Easter- Toasty-Toes mudhut style:

This blog has seen:
Toasty-Toes mansion
Toasty-toes guesthouse
Toasty-Toes cottage
...and now...
Toasty-Toes Mud Hut. All missionaries live in mud-huts don't they?

Our home here is far from a mud hut, but it makes me smile to think that after three years of hard work preparing to come to Ecuador- that we are FINALLY here. Although I am spending most of my time learning Spanish, doing ministry, and taking care of the family, I do still have some time for homemaking.

I have always wanted to make a big deal out of Easter, but every year I procrastinated and most years we spent with family. This year, if we were to have any celebration at all... it was going to up to me.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Eggs: I can not tell you how eggcited I was to have the combo of peanut butter and chocolate. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love this combo. I once ruined my credit rating over a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup. They were offering free candy bars at college for anyone who signed up for a credit card. What can I say? I was enticed. And then I wracked up a very large bill buying Reeces cups.
Anyhow, Reece's Peanut butter cups are not available here (I did find a Mar's Bar for 2.00), so I tried to make an Easter version on my own.

However.

These were a disappointment. I came home late from El Sendero last night, after having slaved in my kitchen all day, and worked at the cafe all night, and sat down to munch on these eggs. They just are not peanut-buttery enough. I used the peanut butter (mani, in Spanish) that I use for all my baking here. It is just ground peanuts. It can't be the fault of the peanut butter.






Fortunately, I also made bird's nest cookies. THESE, were, delicious! Yay!

They were also a hit with the El Sendero staff. I made up a little Easter basket for each of them and found them exclaiming over the cookies. I think they said something like:

"Oh my great goodness. How wonderful are these cookies? These cookies are beautiful. Becka is a genius. I don't even want to eat mine. Oh, it is so sweet, these little tiny bird eggs."

There are some advantages to not knowing the primary language being spoken around you. One of those benefits is that I can just make thing up that people say.

Gloria frequently says what a great worker I am and Susi says all the time that they just couldn't get on without me. (They are probably actually complaining about how often I break the dishes. I am known as the "person who breaks things". Dustan is known as, "the person who burns things".)

Preparing anything here, is VERY, VERY, VERY different than in the United States. I went to five different stores for ingredients for the treats and Easter dinner. It took me about 6 hours of shopping. Then I had to make sure I soaked my fruits and veggies in a solution meant to kill the bad bugs that want to eat my intestines. I had to hand wash all my eggs because they still had mud and chicken poop on them. I am adjusting, but I admit, I took all my conveniences in the US for granted.
I leave you with this very messy view of my kitchen. After spending all morning shopping, making treats, and assembling Easter baskets, we dyed Easter eggs.

(By the way, this kitchen is AWESOME. It is bright and airy, large and functional. It is still very different from what I am used to (the faucets are crazy and move in two different directions, so that it takes me ten minutes to figure out how to get the water turned off), but- I love it.
The yellow labels are part of my effort to learn spanish. Step one: label everything in your house.