When life hands you limes... make margaritas! (and guacamole, and lime chicken, and cilantro lime rice, and lime vinaigrette...)

Please don't read too much into the title... life has not handed me any limes recently, rather I bought 20 of them for a pound from a street produce market.  Why 20 limes you may ask?  Well I only wanted a few, but they were 3 limes for a pound at the grocery store, and as I was at a street market buying other fruits that were much cheaper than at the grocery store, I decided to buy limes there too.  All the fruit and veggies at the market are in plastic bowls, which usually are priced at 1 pound each, although some items are more expensive and some (like my bananas) are a little bit cheaper than 1 pound.  I decided to buy a bowl of limes for a pound instead of buying three for a pound at the grocery store because I figured they would last... and I knew I wanted margaritas anyway!  I didn't know how many limes were in the bowl when I bought them (just that there were clearly more than three), and when I brought them back to my flat and counted I realized there were twenty! 

I have been trying to use limes in almost everything I have been cooking lately.  Margaritas were a given (especially because I can't find margarita mix or order the cocktail at a bar anywhere in this city).  Considering I bought a bowl of avacados for a pound as well (that only contained 8), guac was pretty much a given as well.  Hmm but what to do with the rest of the limes?  Well I still have a few sitting in my fridge, but  I have done a good job at incorporating them into lots of recipes.  I made up my own recipe for a lime-cilantro salad dressing that was delish if I do say so myself.  I also found a recipe for lime chicken on the Martha Stewart website (yes, I still spend lots of time on it, even abroad) and I made up a lime chicken recipe of my own as well. :)

my limes... and the other fruit I bought at the market

Guac!  It looks questionable in the picture... but it was yummy :)

That has pretty much been the case for most of my cooking to date in this flat.  It has turned out different, but still pretty good... except my mom's recipe for tomato sauce... as much as I'd like to attribute it to the different ingredients, I think mom is the only one who can really make that one work.  So I'll either stick to jarred sauces, or try to make up some form of a recipe that works with what I've got here. 

I'm kind of surprised at myself for not writing an entire blog post about my chocolate chip cookies, but while we're on the topic, that recipe turned out well too.  The cookies were definitely different.  For one, they weren't chocolate chip; they were chocolate chunk, as I could not find chocolate chips at a reasonable price.  I chopped up chocolate bars though, and it worked out.  I managed to find American measuring cups, so I could measure my flour and sugar and whatnot in their normal proportions, but I still had to guess with the butter.  The butter here comes in 1/2 kg blocks, instead of sticks, but I think my guess was close.  I also added an extra egg white in, because the eggs I have here are considerably smaller.  Although they tasted different, they were still delicious!  My flatmates and I ate all 5 dozen of them within a few days!  I guess next on my list should be finding a lime cookie recipe.  :)

mmm cookie dough!

so good someone couldn't even wait long enough to take a picture to eat one!