CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED There are some countries (like France or Greece) where I expect to find many many things I would like to make/eat. I did not expect Guatemala to fall into that category but it actually took me a little while to decide on what I wanted to make and I have bookmarked a few recipes to try in the future. The recipe is chicken in a tomatillo sauce and I chose it because I'd never cooked with tomatillos before and wanted to give them a shot. I'd eaten things made from tomatillos in the past, I'd just never actually prepared them myself. They weren't difficult to work with but I did not know they were sticky under the husk and ended up googling whether or not they were supposed to be sticky because I was a bit worried! Anyway, this was tasty but mine did not turn out as green as the photos in the recipe. I think that might be due to the very large red bell pepper I used. I ended up with a sauce that leaned more toward orange than green but it was delicious and the red pepper didn't overpower the other ingredients so it worked out. I ate it over rice but it would go really well with tortillas too. It was good and I'll eat the leftovers without complaint but, in the future, I might make the pork version instead of the chicken one. I think the sauce would be even better with pork.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED i had difficulty finding a recipe from Greece. Well, it wasn't difficult to find recipes from Greece, it was difficult to narrow it down to one thing because everything looked good. I bookmarked several recipes to make at a later date! This was good but I had some problems with it. I had difficulty getting the skin on the chicken to turn golden and crisp up. I ended up cooking it at 400 degrees for an additional 20 minutes to achieve the golden crispiness. (I used thighs and they could handle the additional cooking time.) I don't believe this this is the recipe's fault, I think that it's related to an oven that heats a little inconsistently and I think I added too much liquid to the pan. Also the potatoes were underdone, which is my fault, I'd hoped that if I cut the pieces a bit smaller they'd cook through along with the chicken. I was wrong. If I were to make this again, I would parboil them before adding them to the pan to roast with the chicken. The flavors were good but I felt the the vinegar was unnecessary because the lemons provided plenty of freshness and acidity on their own. I lucked into some phenomenally good and juicy lemons when shopping for this recipe and they were the superstars of the dish. The issues I had with the recipe (except for the vinegar) were my fault and it still tasted good so I will happily eat the leftovers. I will toss the potatoes in the air fryer to cook them a bit more though! I would eat this again, I do feel like it needs a do-over someday in the future.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED I'm starting to notice that there are a lot of chicken with peanut/peanut butter sauce meals in Africa. And I keep finding myself making those meals because they keep being delicious. Prior to this project, I had not really used peanuts or peanut butter in savory foods. I didn't know what I was missing! This was good. The sauce was rich and peanutty, and packed full of flavor. The chicken was tender and juicy and the whole thing worked really well with basmati rice. I think it would have gone well with some sort of naan-like bread (or just plain naan) too. The only thing I would have changed would be using boneless skinless thighs instead of bone-in skin-on thighs. I used what I had on hand and it was still good, it just would have been easier to eat with boneless and skinless thighs. I would eat this again!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED At some point in time, I read a book where one of the characters liked currywurst. Do I remember anything else about the book, like title or author or plot? No, but I remembered the currywurst. So, I made it! (I didn't make the brats, sausage-making is not something I'm equipped to do.) I like curry and I like brats so there was nothing to not like here and I really liked this. I topped it with diced onions and ate it with fries. I can see why this is a popular street food! I would definitely eat it again. But I need to figure out a good veg to eat with it. This went better than the time, when I was little , that I desperately wanted to try orange marmalade because of Paddington Bear. I did NOT like orange marmalade.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED If you don't like or can't eat garlic, this is not the dish for you. From the well-seasoned crispy skin on the chicken to the creamy garlic sauce it cooked in, this was delicious. I ate it with mashed potatoes and green beans. I poured some of the creamy garlic sauce over the mashed potatoes and I have no regrets, it was wonderful. It made for a hearty filling dinner and the leftovers will make for another great dinner tonight. I did make some adjustments but I don't think they made a fundamental difference in the end result. I have dairy issues so I used lactose-free milk and ghee in place of butter. It turned out tasty as heck and did not make me feel bad later. Yay! The linked recipe calls for a spatchcocked/butterflied chicken. I did not feel up to attempting to spatchcock a chicken for the first time in my life so I cooked up about 2 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs instead. I imagine leg quarters or drumsticks would work well too. Just adjust the oven-cooking time to suit the type of chicken you are using. I would definitely eat this again!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED I had to make some adaptations with this recipe but only because the recipe calls for 1-2 whole chickens and that's way too much food for me. I pared it down to 6 chicken thighs. And then reduced the measurements of all the ingredients based on what looked like the right amount or what felt like the right amount as I was preparing the meal. And it turned out pretty well! It did turn out a little more mustard-y than perhaps it should have because I thought "Oh I don't need to measure, I'll just squeeze some out of the container into the pan." And more came out than I anticipated. Not so much that it was a problem but don't do what I did. The chicken was flavorful and the sauce was tangy and oniony. I ate it with couscous and a side salad. The couscous was fantastic with it and I will happily eat the leftovers.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED Poulet au Gnemboue is essentially chicken with a sauce made from macadamia or hazelnuts. I used both macadamia and hazelnuts in the sauce. I did have to roast them myself because I could not find roasted unsalted versions of either at the store. Luckily, it was an easy enough process, I just tossed them in the oven for a little bit. A blender was needed to pulverize the roasted nuts to make the sauce and my Ninja did a great job of it! The sauce also includes chicken stock, scallions, a small amount of chili powder, salt, and pepper. There really aren't a lot of ingredients in this recipe and I expected the sauce to end up being very bland. It was not bland at all, thankfully. It was actually quite good! I was very liberal with the salt and pepper and I think that was key in making it flavorful. I also used boneless skinless thighs which would impart flavor and not dry out during the cooking process. I ate this over rice and it was good. Really, it was much better than I thought it would be going in and I would definitely eat it again!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED This was absolutely delicious. I loved everything about it. There are about a thousand variations of this recipe online so I opted to use the linked recipe as a base and changed a couple of things based on other Chicken Provençal recipes. A lot of recipes use vermouth but I don't have vermouth in the house and I wasn't going to buy a bottle for one recipe. So, I used white wine and, honestly, it was amazing. The linked recipe calls for lemon juice but I chopped up a lemon and added it to the pan on top of the garlic and shallots. It gave it a more rustic look and provided a lot of freshness and brightness to the dish. Many recipes add olives, tomatoes, and capers to the dish. I opted out on the olives and capers but did add cherry tomatoes and they were fantastic in it. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to give capers a try but today is not that day. This wasn't difficult to make and I would definitely make it again!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED Kaalilatikko is essentially a ground beef, rice, onion, and cabbage casserole. There are a lot of recipes for it on the internet, all with slight variations on the same theme. I chose one that had the base ingredients and the most commonly used seasonings. Alas, I could not serve it with lingonberries because I don't know where to get lingonberries 'round these parts. Anyway, this was overall good but I did find it a little bland. I think I should have used more salt and pepper during the cooking process. And maybe added a little onion powder, something to give it a little more umami. It was not bad at all and I will happily eat the leftovers, it just needed a tiny little something more. Would I make this again? I might but I would tinker with it a bit to make it more flavorful.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED I generally try to avoid fish recipes even if I'm doing an island nation because I do not have access to fresh fish. I have access to frozen (and it is expensive here) and I feel like using frozen fish would not do the recipes justice. But, this recipe sounded so good, I bought some frozen cod and gave it a shot. And I'm glad I did, it was very very good! The soy sauce, garlic, and ginger made it so flavorful! It wasn't hard to make either. The most difficult part of the preparation was making space in the fridge to defrost it. I ate the fish with rice pilaf and a salad and it was a really nice meal. I will not make it again because my husband hates fish and my cooking it in the oven turned out to be a problem. He had food options and was given the heads-up that I'd be cooking fish but he was quite disappointed that he couldn't use the oven to make a frozen pizza that night because I'd contaminated it with my fish. Did the fish touch any part of the oven? No. It was cooked on a pan, on the center rack and it did not make any sort of mess in the oven. The oven did not smell like fish either, the only lingering aroma was garlic and soy sauce. So, anyway, people are weird sometimes and I probably won't make fish again, unless my husband is out of town. But I would definitely eat this fish again if I could!!!!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED As soon as I started researching Ethiopian food, Doro Wat popped up and it just kept popping up. It seems everyone loves Doro Wat. And now I know why, it is delicious! Doro Wat is spicy and robust. It uses Berbere spice, which I ordered online for a previous recipe and keep going back to because it's spicy without being overwhelmingly so and it just adds so much flavor. It wasn't difficult to make, but it will take longer than the 10 minutes in the recipe to caramelize the onions to deep rich brown color! Anyway, it was worth the time and effort, it was so so good! I would definitely have this again.

CLICK HERE FOR SLAII RECIPE CLICK HERE FOR MEALIE BREAD RECIPE eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) was a bit of a challenge for me. As with many of the smaller African countries, it was difficult to find a recipe that sounded good and that I could acquire the ingredients to make. There ARE things you can't buy on Amazon (fresh produce/fresh meats). So, I ended up following the lead of someone who also did this international meal thing (only a million times better than me, her site is terrific) and made mealie bread and slaii. Mealie bread is a type of cornbread and slaii is a salad loaded with avocado. I will link the slaii recipe in the comments. It was a good salad and it tastes exactly like one would expect upon reading the ingredients. But I really want to talk about the mealie bread which is a terrible name for something that is absolutely delicious. I'm not a huge fan of cornbread, it's fine but I've never craved it or been wowed by it. Mealie Bread is very similar to corn bread but is sweeter and has a stronger corn flavor. Fresh out of the oven, with softened butter on it, it is sublime. I ate much more mealie bread than I did slaai. I felt like I needed to apologize to the slaii for how overshadowed it was by the mealie bread. I will definitely make mealie bread again in the future. While I did have to use a food processor to break the corn down a bit, it wasn't overly difficult to make and it would pair well with pretty much everything the goes with corn bread.