Colombia: Key Lime Pie

The Dish: Creamy deliciousness.
The Country: Declared independence from Spain on July 20, 1810

Ingredients:
6 honey graham crackers
1/4 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup water
2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
juice of 3 limes

THE PIE

Procedure:
Crust:
Preheat oven to 350°
Use food processor to puree the crackers and brown sugar
Add butter and mix well
Place into a pie pan
Bake for 10 minutes

a gooey slice of yummy-ness

Filling:
Pour water into pot, add gelatin.  Let sit or 8 minutes. Then, stir over very low heat until the gelatin dissolves.
Pour this, and the rest of the ingredients, into a blender. Blend until smooth. 
Pour this mixture into the pie crust.
Cool in the refrigerator for 5 hours.

Notes:
This is the best crust ever. I'm going to have to use it for every pie or cheesecake I make.  The texture of the pie is odd, but I really liked it.  It kind of looks like tofu, but it tastes like lime-y goodness.
Rating:  4.5

China: Almond Cookies

The Dish: Almond cookies
The Country: China is the world's most populous country (with over 1.3 billion people!!). It is the second largest in terms of land area.

goo balls

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1/4 pound whole, blanched almonds (one for each cookie)

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 325°
Sift dry ingredients (not including almonds)
Mix in wet ingredients
Space small balls of dough about 1/2 inch apart on a greased cookie sheet
Place almonds on top of cookies
Bake for 17 minutes

giant fluffy cookies

Notes: They weren't "WOW" cookies, but they were nice and fluffy.
Rating: 2

Chile: Que Que

The Dish: Coffee Cake
The Country: Area of Chile: 291,930.4 square miles

leftover batter = snack time

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
 1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350°
Mix sugar and butter
Add egg, flour, baking soda, baking powder, buttermilk, and vanilla extract
Mix
Pour into loaf pan
Bake for 30 minutes

a slice of the final product

Notes: It was a little bland.  I'd add a bit more sugar or eat it with ice cream.
Rating: 2

Chad: Mango Smoothie

The Dish: mango smoothie. I don't have a recipe, but I read that mangoes are a common fruit in Chad (and, as of today, I have braces, so I can only eat liquefied foods).
The Country: Official languages: French and Arabic

Ingredients:
Mango
Whole milk
4-5 Ice cubes

Procedure:
Peel the mango
Blend everything until smooth

Notes: Sorry about the lack of pictures.. I totally forgot to bring any sort of camera down to the kitchen with me. Oopsies. Anyways, it was a good smoothie, but it was a bit thick. Maybe I could have used less milk...
Rating: 4

Central African Republic: Benne Wafers

The Dish: Sesame seed cookies
The Country: Official languages: French and Sango

 goop

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sesame seeds
1.5 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup melted butter
1 egg
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

blobs of goop

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375°
Grease a cookie sheet or line with wax paper
Mix everything together
Place 1 inch wide balls of dough on wax paper, flatten
Bake for 7 minutes

I'm not so good at the whole shaping the cookies into round balls thing...

Notes: I'm the process of correcting some crooked back molars (yay dental problems!) so my chewing abilities are limited.  From the little I tasted of this cookie thing, it seemed pretty good.  I may have cooked them a little long... a few minutes less and they might have been softer on my recently installed molar spacers (look it up).
Rating: 2.3

Cameroon: Peanut Soup

The Dish: Tomato-y peanut butter soup
The Country: The official languages are French and English.

cup of peanut butter

Ingredients:
3 cups chicken broth
can of diced tomatoes
2 tsp chopped garlic
chili pepper to taste
salt and pepper to taste
cup of natural peanut butter

beware of the chili pepper

Procedure:
Put everything except the peanut butter in a pan and simmer
Once it's hot, add the peanut butter
Stir over medium heat until the peanut butter is no longer in chunks
Serve warm

the final product

Notes: Aaaahhhh too much chili pepper!! I thought I was going to burn a whole in my esophagus. My brother ate two cups of it, but I could barely take a few spoonfuls.
Rating: 1.5

Canada: Brown Sugar Pie

The Dish: Brown sugar pie... The story of how my arteries died.
The Country: Canada. Ten provinces, three territories

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons of flour
2 cups brown sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pie shell (if you, like me, felt a bit too lazy to make your own pie crust today...)

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 400°
Boil all of that stuff in a sauce pan
Pour into pie shell 
Bake at 400° for 5 minutes
Lower heat to 350° for 25 minutes

Notes:
My family liked it, but I'm not sure that I did. It was weirdly gelatinous.  I don't like gooey food.

Rating: 2