Se Vende

FYI*On Sunday, last week, I sat down and wrote a bunch of blog posts to post every other day or so. This is the last one that is saved, and I was planning on writing some more. However, I am not sure how many more I will be writing. I am heading home on Friday - earlier than I had planned, and I have to use this week to get everything together. Last Monday night, Lale was in a car accident and was hit by a tractor trailer. The first night, they said they didn't think he was going to make it, but he evidently got better enough that on Wednesday they sent him home. I have been keeping in touch with my inlaws and they said that he is out of the danger zone (obviously) but that he isnt doing real well. He has a hard time moving around, and is just in alot of pain. He doesn't have any broken bones, but he has stitches and scrapes and who knows what else. Anyways, this Friday I am heading home to take care of my husband, and the kids. (the kids weren't in the car when it was hit). Anyways, I will add as many blogs this week as I can, but after Friday, check back on the comment section of the last post posted (it will be posted Thursday night) and I will have my mom post mini updates there in the comment section.

At one point I had a sign on the front of my house that said something along the lines of :

Se Vende:

Hielo

Vasitos

Coctel

Topogigos

Choco-Bananas

Yes I used my markers to make it the colors you see there as well. What does that say? It says we sell: ice,little cups of frozen milk stuff, cocktail, frozen milk stuff/frozen kool-aid in a bag, and chocolate bananas.

Why did I have that sign on my house? Well duh, because I sold all of that, LOL. Really it was to make extra money for the kids to take to school for their snacks and to pay for my replacement gas tanks for the kitchen stove.

When I first got there, I only made ice. And it was made in used soda bottles that were washed out. The 2 liter and 3 liter bottles usually. The ice sold for 1L/liter. But the bottles took up to much room in my freezer, so I switched to bags. My sister in law in Tocoa sells everything that is listed on the list as well, and she told me which bags were best to buy, etc. etc. So now I sell 1.5 liters of water, made into ice for 2L.

Milk Vasitos and Topogigios (pronounced Toe-Poe-EE-Oh's) are basically the same thing, only packaged differently. To make vasitos and topogigios you take equal parts milk and water and mix them together. Then you add a ton of sugar and mix it up until it disolves. It should taste extra sweet, because when it freezes, it looses some of the sweetness. You can also add flavor to it - i.e. Choco-Choco (to make chocolate milk), Shredded Coconut, Strawberry milk flavoring, basically anything that tastes good with milk. Then you can fill up the little cups, which are about the size of dixie cups, put in a popcicle stick, and put it in the freezer. For topogigios, you make it the same way, only you put approx 1.5 vasito cups of the milk mixture into the bags, tie the bags as close to the milk mixture as you can, and put them in the freezer as well. These also sold for 2L.

Kool-Aid Topogigios - To make the kool-aid topogigios I would mix 11 packets of the kool-aid, 6ish pounds of sugar (the actual amount of sugar changed depending on the flavor of the kool-aid) and water in a 5 gallon container. Once mixed well, they would go into the topogigio bags, I would tie them and into the freezer they went. These sold for 1L.

The topogigio bags, and the kool-aid packets
Frozen Topogigios - Pineapple flavored. Ready to be taken to the chest freezer.


Coctel - To make the coctel, you need 1 gallon of orange juice, or Quanty - wich is sort of like tang, 1.g gallons of water, 1 pineapple, 1 watermelon, 1 melon, more sugar (5 - 6 pounds, depending on how sweet the fruit it) and 4 packets pina flavored kool-aid. Although you can use different flavors of kool-aid, and other mixture of fruits as well, this is the basic recipe.

Now my sister in law said you cut up all the fruits, put it in the 5 gallon container, in a seperate bowl or container, mix the kool-aid, oj, sugar and water then pour it into the fruit mixture. Mix it up well, then pour it into the vasito cups, add a popcicle stick freeze it and you are done. I didn't like doing it that way because some cups had more fruit, while towards the end, some cups had almost nothing. So I followed the entire recipe as stated above, only once I was done mixing the kool-aid mixture, I didn't add it to the fruit mixture. (I actually had the fruit in a huge bowl, and the kool-aid mixture in the 5 gallon container).

Here are the cups with the fruit mixture in them.
I first filled the cups with the fruit mixture, then I added the kool-aid mixture and the popcicle sticks. These I sold for 2L as well.

Here are the cups with the kool-aid mixture before I put in the popcicle sticks.

Everyone knows what Choco-Bananas are I think. Frozen chocolate covered banana halves on a popcicle stick. I sold them too (yup for 2L each, LOL) but I didn't sell them that often. The main reason is because even though we have tons of bananas on our land, Johan never lets them get ripe. He will eat the bananas before they are ripe. Or we will use them when we make tajadas.

Unfortunately I have 9 children. 8 of whom can walk, and know how to open the freezer, grab what they want, and go and hide and eat the yummy treats. Andre in 2 days ate over 50 kool-aid and milk topogigios. So most of my product was making its way into my childrens belly's and it was costing me instead of me making money. So until I open up my pulperia/mini super (more to come on that in a different post) I am only selling ice. The kids dont like to sneak the ice, LOL.