horchata!

so i'm coming home to visit for thanksgiving starting next thursday. yayyy hello everyone! i bought bags of horchata mix in the market to bring home. horchata is a rice drink. the bags look like this:

i told vilma, a member of the micro health insurance program, about my plan to bring horchata mix home and make horchata for everyone to try. she informed me that i would need a mill to grind up the ingredients, and suggested making the horchata powder in her house. ah ok yes let's do that! i bought 4 pounds of rice and giant cinnamon and the 2 pounds of horchata ingredients. vilma had the fire going when i got there.

first we toast the rice

until it is toastylike

meanwhile i hang out with some of vilma's kids

and they play with my camera

anderson making his angry face

next we toast peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and some little black seeds

mmm we ate some of the peanuts

then we break up the cinnamon and toast that too

everything is toasted. to the mill!

the mill! i think that is a leafblower motor?
you pour in the stuff in that gray cone and it comes flying out into the tray all ground up

scooping out the powder
vilma made the miller put it through twice so it would be finer and less chunky

the mill looks good in profile

powder is ready and delicious smelling!

kickin it back at vilma's
the whole process took about 3 hours

so get ready america - if customs/security allows, here comes 6 pounds of unlabeled brown powder in my carry-on!