Guide to making Salvadoran Panes con Pollo

If you've ever had a Salvadoran Pan con Pollo (stuffed chicken sandwiches) you know how delicious and addicting these things can be. I have had them on special holidays over the years and I always wondered how do you make those things! Well, I did some research and also had the help of my fiance's tia (aunt) and figured out a recipe that I enjoy very much. I think everyone has their own little version so I'll give you mine.

What you need: (the list of ingredients looks long, but it's really an easy thing to put together)

For the chicken:

• Chicken pieces (I use boneless skinless thighs because they have more flavor and easier to work with than bones) 
• Olive oil 
• Worcestershire Sauce (salsa inglesa)
• Yellow Mustard 
• 1 large jar tomato sauce/pasta sauce
• Goya chicken seasoning (cubito en polvo)
• Achiote powder (also called annatto) 
• Chili Powder
• Cumin
• Salt 
• Pepper
• Goya Adobo Seasoning
• Dried oregano leaves 

For assembling the sandwich: 

• watercress 
• cabbage
• mayo + mustard
• sliced tomatoes
• sliced cucumbers
• sliced hardboiled eggs
• sliced beets
• sliced red onion and carrots (let them soak in a little white vinegar for at least 1 hour) 
• small pan frances (french bread loaves)

Instructions: 

1. Get a skillet hot and drizzle some olive oil in the bottom.
2. Cover your chicken thighs in a couple teaspoons of yellow mustard and a few shakes of worcestershire sauce and place them carefully in the hot oil. Let them cook until browned on both sides. 
3. Pour jar of tomato sauce over chicken and add spices and chicken seasoning. Cover and simmer on medium-low for at least 30 minutes, or until chicken can be easily shredded with a fork. 
4. Remove chicken from skillet and shred with 2 forks, save the sauce! 
5. Mix enough mayo and mustard, until you have a pale yellow sauce. Add the cabbage to that mixture. 
6. Slice open your french bread and add in the shredded chicken, scoop on a little of the tomato sauce, put some cabbage mixture into the sandwich, and stuff with the tomato, cucumber, sliced egg, beet, watercress, and the red onions and carrots. 
7. Dig in! 

I hope if you decide to try these you will enjoy! You can experiment with different amounts of seasonings and flavors and let me know how they turn out! Buen provecho! 

Strep Throat and Strawberry Scones

Last Friday was Charlie's birthday and I took off from work to finish up some errands for he and Sofie's joint birthday party the next day. Well, he woke up with a sore throat and I immediately brushed it off as some type of allergy. He was better that evening when he got home from school (after giving him Tylenol). Saturday afternoon rolled around and out-of-the-blue I get a shockingly sore throat myself, right as the party wrapped up. I took my last emergen-c and hoped for the best... but it only got worse, and on top of that, Sofie woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning throwing up. Great. Just what I needed. By early Monday morning, I was experiencing the worst sore throat I can ever remember and Sofie was complaining of one too. Turns out, all 3 of us had strep. I couldn't work Monday or Tuesday, but Tuesday I was actually feeling almost normal again, thanks to antibiotics. Anyways, I decided to make something different, mostly easy, and delicious for our breakfast and stumbled across a perfect recipe via pinterest for Strawberry Scones and they turned out rather scrumptious! 

Check out the recipe from Sandy Toes and Popsicles 

my pic, not my recipe ;)

Where do I start?

I've always had the desire to blog about something. In the past, I've done posts about my failed attempts at weight loss and added in some posts about the boring fascinating things I ate for my meals. That was somewhat fulfilling to me at the time. However, as the years have passed and I've matured quite a bit, I longed for something else to blog about it. I read all kinds of interesting blogs of women who makes cool crafts and natural living types of things, and they seem SO cool! Then I see other ones that have all these awesome recipes they share and I get really engaged in what they write. It really makes me want to do the same thing. I don't really have one specific niche that I'm in to. I enjoy lots of things and am a doer of many things. I'm a Christ-follower (always been, but a work in progress!), mom, an almost-wife (next month!), I work full time, I'm fluent in Spanish (mostly Salvadoran-style) I love natural cures, I love food and cooking (in love with Hispanic food), and little crafty things (even though I'm not really good at doing them), gardening (again, not that good at) and there's plenty of other things that I could keep adding that I like doing, or at least the idea of doing. I feel like there's always room for improvement and that's what I'm trying to do. So, why not just blog about all these things and then-some?! Let's just say it's going to be an open diary of living my life! Whoever decides to visit, please feel free to leave a comment. God bless!