“We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted.  Each of us contains within this inheritance of soul.  We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise.”

– Edward Sellner

We have inherited so much from our ancestors, from simple salutations, our clothing and attire, or the way we celebrate holidays and special occasions.  We naturally tend to forget the impact and influence our ancestral origins have on our daily lives.  As time passes, there is a gradual move and a growing distance from our roots of origin in the evolution as a culture with each generation.  That is the reason why it is so important to continue to share family stories, recipes, and traditions to our family and extended family members.  I have heard it said that if we know where we come from, we may better know where to go.  To take it a step further, if we know who we came from, we may better understand who we are.  It is so crucial to our success as a culture, to identify the efforts to preserve the characteristics that bridge us to our ancestral roots, because it keeps us connected as a community.  We are thankful to Rumba Meats for sponsoring this recipe post and in helping us ensure that future generations not only benefit from preserving beautiful family recipes, but also for investing in the developmental of our community by partnering up with United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI) to award 25 $1,000 scholarships this year (Rumba Meats Scholarship).  If you have a child going to college soon, it is never too early to start thinking about scholarships.

Remembering my personal college experience, I can honestly say that the demand of academics allowed me virtually no opportunity to socialize with my family, let alone sharing time in the kitchen learning how to make a family recipe.  Not only was I a full time student, but I was working two jobs in order to pay my tuition.  Regrettably, I look back and acknowledge that a part of me missed out on valuable family events.  While the idea of going to school and working is part of life, we also find ourselves placing family time on the altar of sacrifice.  Now that I am older, I am able to reflect upon those missed opportunities with a gratitude for the time that I am able to spend with my mom and Abuela now.  My hope is that in the midst of carrying on our daily life responsibilities, that I can now provide my daughter, Jezreel, the loving nudge to remember the importance of heritage, as she begins her first year of college.  Like many parents, they are able to look into the eyes of their children, and see a subtle reflection of themselves.  In that reflection, there also lies the lessons and hardships experienced in dismissing heritage and culture as unimportant.  I hope that through my experience I can help her see the value of family and culture–even in the times where she may feel overwhelmed with subsequent responsibilities or life pressures.  There is always time!

So in an effort to infuse the recognition of culture and heritage into her daily life, we have helped her find a work life balance that also enables her to spend time with us occasionally.  It remains our goal, to embellish her life with these sort of sprinkles of reminders, so that one day she will have her own beautiful stories about cooking with her mother and Abuela.

This particular blog is our first intentional recipe that we created just to spend time with my daughter, Jezreel.  The recipe is Burritos De Pancita De Res En Salsa Pasilla.

My hope is that by reading this, you are encouraged to celebrate your heritage AND at the same time, embrace the inevitable changes in our lives knowing that the fingerprint of our love, family, and culture remains embedded into the experiences we share at home and in the kitchen.

Con Cariño,

Silvia

Abuela’s Kitchen

BURRITO DE PANCITA DE RES EN SALSA PASILLA
PREP TIME:  30 Minutes
COOK TIME:  2 Hours
SERVES: 5-6

INGREDIENTS:

3 Pounds of Rumba Meats Honeycomb Tripe
1 onion
4 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
1/4 cup of vinegar
salt (personal preference)
4 tomatoes
5 pasilla chiles
1 ancho chiles
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons of chicken flavor bouillon
1 cup of toasted almonds and pealed

Instructions for prepping the tripe:

1.  Remove the tripe from the package.
2. Add vinegar to the tripe and set aside for 5 minutes.  Rinse.
3. Place tripe, 1/2 an onion and 2 garlic cloves in a large pot with 8-10 cups of water or until the trip is covered.
4. Cook tripe for 2 hours and drain.

Instructions for making the chile sauce:

1.  Boil the tomatoes, chiles (deseeded and deveined) until soft.
2. Place almonds in hot water for about 15 minutes and peel.
3.  Blend tomatoes and chiles.
4. Strain the Chile sauce.
5. Place Chile sauce back in the blender and add the almonds.  Blend.
6. In a hot pan add 1 tablespoon on lard or cooking oil.
7. Add Chile sauce and let simmer for 5 minutes.
8. Add honey comb  and chicken flavor bouillon.
9. Simmer for 10 minutes on medium heat.
10. Stir every so often.

Assembling of the burrito:

1.  Heat up a flour tortilla on a skillet.
2. Add beans, rice, tripe and lettuce.
3. Fold the shorter sides of the tortilla inward then fold the longer sides towards the middle.