Tofu-chón December 2, 2009

Here in Puerto Rico is very typical to celebrate Xmas with pork… or as we say in Spanish, Lechón.  People trying to be more health conscious have then tried to take the flavors used in making a lechón but with turkey, calling it Pavo-chón – pavo from the Spanish for turkey and chón… well, you get the drift.

But being vegetarian, I’ve lived without lechón or pavo for about 10 years of my life now.  But I have not been vegetarian all my life, so even though I do not miss eating the actual meat, I do still get allured by the smells of the seasonings and what I remember they taste like.  I am sure I am not the only one that feels that way… there’s no need to be ashamed of it.

So if people found a way to season turkey to make it taste like lechón, why can’t we do the same with TOFU??

   

I say what the heck!! Let’s give it a try… and the thing worked.  So now you can have your tastes of the past, but with a greater consciousness that you will not be damaging the lives of other living creatures in the process.  Isn’t that the true meaning of Christmas and the Holidays??

 

TOFU-CHÓN

1 block of extra-firm tofu, drained

About ¼ cup of adobo – or you can make your own blend, like I show you here

1 cup of Water or vegetable broth

The juice of 1 lemon

Canola oil Spray

 

1. After draining the tofu block, cut it into ½” thick slices.  Place them on top of a sheet pan with about 3-4 layers of paper towels.  Cover the tofu slices with 3-4 additional layers of paper towels and place another sheet pan on top.  Weigh the tofu slices down with a few heavy books for about 1 hour.
2. After the hour has elapsed, I usually take the top layer of paper towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible from it.  Take the sheet pan that used to be on top and now make this your bottom sheet pan, place the squeezed paper towel your bottom layer of paper towel, transfer the tofu slices into this new bottom, squeeze as much water as possible from the former bottom layer of paper towels, place now on top of the tofu, place the former bottom sheet pan on top of the paper towels and weigh again with heavy books for about an extra 30 minutes or so.  I like to really press the tofu dry…
3. 
4. In a medium skillet sprayed with canola oil spray over medium heat, we’ll bring some color to the tofu slices. We do not want to sear them fully, but doing this will help the marinating liquid penetrate even more…    
5. 
6. While we’re heating the tofu slices, we prepare the marinade… mix together in a bowl you can cover well the water, the juice of the lemon and the adobo mixture.   Place the tofu slices that have been heated a bit and gotten some color on the skillet in de bowl with the marinade.  Cover the bowl and let the tofu marinate for about 4-6 hours.  Do not do this overnight because they might get too salty… 
7. 
8. After the marinating time has elapsed, take the skillet again, spray again with canola oil and place over medium high heat.  Pat dry the tofu slices and place on skillet.  Sear until you get a nice brown color on the tofu.

 

You can serve this over rice… a nice rice with corn (arroz con maiz) or even a rice with pigeon peas (arroz con gandules) would be good local typical combinations.  This time around, I actually had it with a goat cheese couscous with walnuts, which is certainly not the traditional accompaniment.  I also used these inside a Tortilla Casserole I will be sharing with you soon enough…

Pasta with Eggplant Puree November 2, 2009

We are in eggplant season, and I wanted to share an easy recipe I adapted a long while ago from Giada DeLaurentiis.  As usual, I use whatever I have handy in my pantry, fridge and what I believe my taste buds will prefer.

It’s easy to make, and the leftovers keep very well.

 

 

PASTA WITH EGGPLANT PUREE

1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into small cubes

½ pint of cherry tomatoes or 2 small tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup of walnuts, toasted

½ bag of whole-wheat penne pasta

2 tbs Olive Oil

½ cup Parmesan Cheese, grated

½ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped finely – optional

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. While the oven is heating, place walnuts on a baking sheet with lined with parchment paper.  Toast in the oven until you get a first whiff of walnut smell, about 5-8 minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool on a separate plate.
3. Line the baking sheet with new parchment paper.  Place the eggplant, cherry tomatoes, garlic on baking sheet.  Drizzle with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread them evenly on the baking sheet. Roast in the oven until the vegetables are tender and the eggplant is golden, about 35 minutes.
4. While we wait for the vegetables to cool of a bit, bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta and reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water.  Return pasta to the same pot where you cooked it.
5. While the pasta is cooking, transfer the roasted vegetables to a food processor and puree to form a chunky paste.
6. Transfer the pureed vegetables to the pot with the pasta, add the Parmesan.  Stir to combine, adding the pasta cooking liquid 1/4 cup at a time until the pasta is saucy. Add the walnuts and chopped parsley, if using, and toss again. 

Pumpkin Polenta October 30, 2009

I am a fan of Italian flavors… and this recipe fits very well with the flavors of autumn.   We do not have autumn here in Puerto Rico, but pumpkin is a favorite of mine and I wanted to do something that would highlight the flavor and nutrition of the pumpkin.  Plus, I still had some pumpkin seeds in my fridge I wanted to use up…

 

 

PUMPKIN POLENTA

1 ½ cups of pumpkin, peeled and cubed

4 tbs quick cooking polenta

½ cup of water

½ cup of milk

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

½ cup Pecorino Romano cheese, grated

¼ cup pumpkin seeds, toasted – as garnish

 

1. First we steam the pumpkin… place in a steamer for about 10-15 minutes to cook thoroughly.  After the pumpkin is done, mash it well and place it in a colander lined with a coffee filter or a paper towel and let the moisture of the pumpkin drain out a bit.  This can be done well in advance before moving on to the rest of the steps.
2. Then we make the polenta… I heat the water, milk and salt in a medium pot and bring to a boil.  Add the polenta while stirring to avoid getting lumps.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue stirring until the desired consistency, which is like a smooth cream of wheat.  I’ll be honest; I follow the instructions on the polenta package I buy.  If the instructions on your package are different, follow the instructions on your package, but what I do is to replace ½ the water the recipe calls for milk – makes a creamier polenta, in my opinion.
3. When the polenta reached the desired consistency, add the drained pumpkin puree, the grated cheese and season with pepper.  Stir well for the cheese to melt and the pumpkin to combine well with the polenta cream.
4. Serve warm and sprinkle with the toasted pumpkin seeds.

 

Great vegetarian alternative for Thanksgiving lunch or dinner… don’t you think?

Caprese Pasta Salad July 23, 2009

A while ago, I was shopping in Plaza las Américas with my friend Annie Mariel.  We decided to grab something light to eat at a restaurant there called La Patisserie.  She had her usual salmon fillet over lentils and I decided to have a pasta salad with tomatoes, pesto and fresh mozzarella.  That’s what the menu said – FRESH MOZZARELLA.

When I received my pasta salad… it was nothing like I had expected.  The pasta was overcooked, the mozzarella was certainly not fresh, the pesto tasted from a bottle and the cheese was added when the pasta was hot, so the pieces had melted into a strange goo.  Yuck…  I was not a happy camper.

 When I started making strange faces about my dissatisfaction with my entrée, Annie Mariel said:  “I am sure you can make a 200% better version of that pasta salad.  Go for it.” 

So this is it… my better version of a Caprese Pasta Salad… let me know if you like it too.

 

 

CAPRESE PASTA SALAD

½ pound of whole grain pasta – brown rice or whole wheat spirals, macaroni or penne will all do

1 cup of tomatoes, diced

¼ cup of sun dried or oven roasted tomatoes, diced or sliced

About 1/3 cup of olive oil, plus more to dress the salad

Kosher Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper to taste

1 clove of garlic, smashed once

3-4 large fresh basil leaves

3-4 thick slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, cubed

 

1. In a large bowl marinate the tomatoes – add the fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, basil, garlic, salt and pepper.  Mix well all the ingredients together and let the fresh tomatoes break down and the dried ones plump up with the juices released from the fresh ones.  Let it sit for about 30 minutes mixing it well a few times throughout.
2. In a medium pot filled with boiling salted water, cook the pasta about 3 minutes shy of what the package directions say.  You want them a bit undercooked from al dente… 
3. Drain the pasta, rinse a bit with filtered cold water and add to the marinated tomatoes. Mix it all well carefully so you don’t break the pasta.   Make sure you remove the garlic clove before mixing the pasta… nobody will like to bite into a raw piece of garlic.  The pasta will absorb the juices of the tomatoes while it cools off.  Add more olive oil if you feel the pasta is too dry.
4. After the pasta has cooled off, add the mozzarella cubes and mix well again.  You can serve room temperature or place it in the cooler before serving.

Rioja-style Potatoes July 10, 2009

This recipe is an adaptation from a recipe presented by chef José Andrés in his PBS show Made in Spain and made by him later on at the Martha Stewart show.

I’ve been fascinated with Spanish cooking all my life, but after my recent trip to Spain 2 years ago, I’ve become a fan of chef Andrés and his cooking.  The thing is that most these recipes are not vegetarian per sé, but we just need to give them a few nudges to make them perfect for us.  Besides, he’s so passionate about Spain and its cuisine it’s contagious.  I TiVo his show every weekend and already know many episodes by heart.

What I liked about this recipe is that it’s simple and hearty.  You can eat it as a tapa, alone or even over rice – very versatile. And the ingredients you probably have already in your pantry.

 

 

RIOJA-STYLE POTATOES

2 medium-sized potatoes, russets work fin here – cut into 1-inch cubes, but cut them haphazardly to get some rough edges on them

½ onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 link of Tofurky kielbasa-style sausage, sliced on a bias into ¼ inch pieces

1 tsp Spanish sweet pimentón – paprika in English

½ tomato, grated

Salt and Pepper to taste

Spanish olive oil

Filtered Water

 

1. In a medium sized skillet with tall sides over medium heat, heat olive oil and sauté the onions and garlic.  The idea is to cook and soften the onions, not necessarily to get color on them.
2. Add the pieces of tofu sausage and cook to get a golden brown color on them.
3. 
4. Now we add the potatoes…  stir them into the onions, garlic and sausage pieces and cook for about 10 minutes.  Add the pimentón and enough water to almost cover the potatoes. 
5. 
6. Cover for a few minutes to bring the water to a boil.  After water is boiling, uncover and let it simmer for about 30 minutes until the potatoes are cooked and the water is reduced in half.

 

Very easy to do and very delicious… Gracias José.

Galician Empanada July 9, 2009

During my trip to Spain, Walter and I visited the north of Spain – San Sebastián, Bilbao, Santander – mostly part of Basque Country.  I was a little apprehensive at first because even though I have always heard it is super beautiful, the Basque Country does not have the best reputation of safety. 

I am here to attest that I never, ever felt unsafe while traveling in the Basque Country of Spain. The coast of the Cantabric Sea is beautiful and is something that needs to be enjoyed and visited by all.  We wish we had more time to stay and visit with even more leisure than we actually did.

      

One of the fascinating things about this region is it’s in the path of the Camino de Santiago – the Saint James Trail.  The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage made by the followers and believers of St. James.  People walk from Roncesvalles in Navarra to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia to visit and honor the remains of the Apostle St. James, buried at the Cathedral.  People take about 1 month to walk the whole trail, about 800kms, staying in posadas or places specially designated for the pilgrims. 

Walter and I were taken by the Camino and its pilgrims.  The scallop shell is the symbol of the Camino and you can see tiles marking the way in many of the cities we visited.  Partly because of the religious significance and partly because the adventure and our love for Spain and travel, Walter and I decided we would definitely make the Camino de Santiago, specially on a Holy Compostellan Year , which is whenever July 25 falls on a Sunday.  I just learned this will be NEXT YEAR, in 2010. 

      

On this year, I was told you’re given a “passport” that is stamped at several intervals to testify you’re indeed a pilgrim doing the trail.  When you arrive at the Cathedral in Santiago, you get the final stamp and your country of origin is mentioned during the daily mass at noon to bless and celebrate the pilgrims.  I really want to do that!!!!

And what does this have to do with food, you might be asking yourself?  Isn’t this a blog about vegetarian food???  

When watching my other favorite Spanish cooking and traveling show, Spain on the Road Again with Mario Batali and Gwenyth Paltrow, they mentioned how these Empanadas Gallegas were super popular by the pilgrims because they are very portable, they are very nutritious, they keep well without refrigeration and best of all delicious.  I just have always seen them in the Spanish panaderías here in Puerto Rico since forever, but have not had one in many years because they’re made mostly with tuna or chorizo…

So in honor of our upcoming trip to the Camino de Santiago, here’s my interpretation of an Empanada Gallega…

 

 

 GALICIAN EMPANADA / EMPANADA GALLEGA

1 sheet of puffed pastry, thawed on the counter for 30 minutes or in the fridge overnight

1 medium onion, sliced thinly

About ½ cup of TuNo soy-based product

1 tsp of tomato paste

1 garlic clove, minced

About 3 tbs of white wine or apple cider vinegar

1 tsp of Spanish pimentón

 5-6 Spanish olives stuffed with pimientos – sliced

1 bay leaf

Spanish Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

About 1 tbs of whole wheat breadcrumbs

1 tbs of buttermilk or butter

Some bench flour – whole wheat preferably…

 

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F.
2. In a small skillet over medium heat, add olive oil, onions and garlic.  Sauté for a few minutes until the onions start to soften and become a bit translucent.  Add the bay leaf to season.
3. Add the crumbled pieces of TuNo and let it cook all together.  TuNo usually comes frozen, but you will not need to defrost it for this application.  Just let it defrost and melt in the pan with the onions. 
4. Add the tomato paste, pimentón and the vinegar to the pan and let it combine well.  Add the olives and season with salt and pepper.  Let it cook for a few minutes and turn the stove off.  Set it aside to cool off for while you work with the dough.
5. I cover the baking sheet of my toaster oven using a layer of aluminum foil and then parchment to ease up on the cleaning. 
6. The puffed pastry usually comes folded in thirds, I don’t even bother to unfold it… dust it with a little bit of whole-wheat flour, cut it into two halves and flatten it out using a rolling pin.  Roll the two halves of puff pastry one a bit larger than the other… Place the larger half onto the baking sheet lined with parchment. 
7. Add the breadcrumbs to the onion/TuNo mixture and remove the bay leaf.  Transfer the mixture carefully onto the puff pastry leaving about a ½ inch border all the way around.  Try to flatten the mixture a bit to make it an even layer. 
8. 
9. Cover the filling with the smaller layer of rolled pastry.  Bring the edges of the puff pastry together folding one onto the other and securing by pinching with the tines of a fork.
10. Brush the top layer of pastry with the melted butter or buttermilk, whichever you have on hand.  Make 2 slits on the top for the steam to escape.
11. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and smells delicious.
12. Take it out of the oven carefully and out of the baking sheet to cool off a bit into a cutting board.

   I just hope we can find a vegetarian version of this empanada like this along the Santiago Trail… what do you think??

 

Getting a peak inside the filling…  yum!

Spanish Tortilla July 8, 2009

A Spanish Tortilla is one of the most quintessential dishes in Spanish cuisine.   But if you ever visit Spain, please do not ask for a Spanish omelet or Spanish Tortilla… because a “madrileño” might reply you that ALL tortillas in Spain are indeed Spanish tortillas.

That’s what happened to us when visiting the island of Mallorca.  Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.  In Puerto Rico, we eat a sweet bread original to Spain and specifically to Mallorca, that we just simply call “mallorcas”.  When my mom asked where we could buy some “pan de mallorca”, the gentelman replied: “All breads in Mallorca are “pan de mallorca”. 

Which made me think how many other food items we traditional know with the name of the region they originated from, but if you go to that country/city, no one will know them by that same name…  here are a few I could think of:

 

If you  visit:	Do not ask for:	Instead, call it:
Mallorca, Spain	Pan de Mallorca or a Mallorca	Ensaimada
Spain	Spanish Tortilla	Tortilla de Patatas
France	French Fries	Frites
France	French Toast	Pain Perdu
France	French green beans	Haricots verts
France	French Bread	Baguette
Switzerland	Swiss Cheese	Emmentaler
Belgium	Belgian Waffle	gaufre de Liege or suikerwafel
Greece	Greek Salad	horiatiki
Turkey	Turkish Delight	Loukoum
Poland	Polish Sausage	kielbasa

 Although, if you’re vegetarian… you shouldn’t be ordering that last one at all.

Notice that the title of this post is Spanish Tortilla and not Spanish omelet… why, because traditionally a Spanish omelet or Tortilla is made with potatoes, onions and eggs.  And even though some vegetarians consume eggs, the line I practice does not.

So my version of a Spanish Tortilla is egg-less.  And I ate a LOT of potatoes testing recipes to achieve a similar consistency of a tortilla without using tofu or soy products… I wanted to use ingredients right out of my pantry and that no one has to go out and buy specifically for this. And to make things even easier and with less oil, we’re baking it in the oven, instead of making it stovetop.

 

 

SPANISH TORTILLA

3 medium potatoes, russet or Idaho work best here…

1 small onion, sliced thinly

1 garlic clove, minced

About ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese

About 2 tbs breadcrumbs

Spanish Olive oil – about 3tbs or so… remember I do not measure much

Canola oil Spray

Salt and pepper to taste

 

1. In a medium skillet over medium heat, add a drizzle of olive oil and sauté the onions.  Add the garlic clove, season with salt and pepper and cook until the onions are soft and translucent.
2. Spray a medium sized pyrex dish with Canola Oil Spray and sprinkle with about 1 tbs of breadcrumbs.  Shake the pyrex so the breadcrumbs coat the dish as much as possible… just as if you were flouring a pan to bake a cake…  Set aside.
3. Using a mandoline, slice as thinly as possible the potatoes.  Place in a bowl and add about 2 tbs of olive oil, the grated parmesan cheese, the onions, some additional salt and pepper.   Toss well to combine the potatoes, onions and seasonings.
4. Place the potatoes and onions into the breaded pyrex dish.  Place them with your hands trying to create layers after layers of potato and onion.  It does not need to be perfect, but try to lay them all flat.
5. Sprinkle some added breadcrumbs over the top and add a bit more parmesan cheese to create a nice crust on top.
6. Because I do this in a toaster oven, I never pre-heat… but place it in a 400F oven for about 1 hour.  If you feel the top is browning too fast, just cover with a piece of aluminum foil with parchment paper underneath so the aluminum does not touches the food.

 

The potatoes collapse onto each other and create this creamy consistency…  it’s not a traditional Tortilla de Patatas, but it sure tastes like that…  Buen Provecho.

 

Potato Zucchini Gratin July 4, 2009

I got the inspiration for this dish by a recent post from Heidi from 101 Cookbooks.  When I read her recipe I realized I had most the necessary ingredients waiting for me in my kitchen.  And what I didn’t have, I would substitute and improvise…

I had received a couple of great zucchinis from my CSA box that I was wondering how to cook…  Heidi and her recipe came to the rescue.  Thanks a lot.

 

 

POTATO ZUCHINNI GRATIN

3 medium russet potatoes, washed well and peeled

1 medium sized zucchini

¼ teaspoon of sea salt

About 1 ½ tbs of basil/parsley oil

About ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese

About ¼ cup of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Canola Oil Spray

About 2 tbs of fresh whole wheat breadcrumbs

Some additional sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

 

1. Spray a medium-sized pyrex dish with canola oil spray and sprinkle with about 1 tbs of breadcrumbs.  Shake the pyrex so the breadcrumbs coat the dish as much as possible… just as if you were flouring a pan to bake a cake…  Set aside.
2. Using a mandoline, slice as thinly as possible the zucchini.  Place in a colander and sprinkle about ¼ teaspoon of sea salt and let them drain some if its moisture out. 
3. 
4. Using the same mandoline, slice as thinly as possible the potatoes. 
5. 
6. Place in a bowl and add the basil/parsley oil, the grated parmesan cheese, the Pecorino Romano, some salt and pepper.  
7.  After about 5 minutes after salting the zucchini, squeeze them to release as much moisture as possible.  Using a paper towel pat them dry.  And add them to the bowl with the potatoes.  Toss well to combine potatoes, zucchini and seasonings.
8. Place the seasoned veggies into the breaded pyrex dish.  Place them with your hands trying to create layers after layers of potato and zucchini.  It does not need to be perfect, but try to lay them all flat.
9. 
10. Sprinkle some added breadcrumbs over the top and add a bit more parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheese to create a nice crust on top.
11. Because I do this in a toaster oven, I never preheat… but place it in a 400F oven for about 30-45 minutes – the perfect amount of time to allow you to take a shower and meditate.

 

I had this with some goat cheese toasts on the side… The potatoes cook well and the zucchini tastes perfect in it.  It was super good. 

Thanks again to Heidi at 101 Cookbooks… this will definitely be a go-to recipe from now on…

               

Broccoli and Cauliflower Stuffed Shells June 24, 2009

  A few weeks back I was figuring out what to do with the broccoli I had gotten in my CSA box…  I like it steamed or as part of a salad… but the farmer had told me the leaves are really good and I just was not sure how to cook them.  In Puerto Rico, or maybe it’s just me, we are not too fond of cooked leafy greens.  It’s just not part of our regular culinary vernacular.  But lucky enough, I saw this recipe for stuffed cannelloni from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home.  It was just the recipe I needed to use up a lot of broccoli in one single recipe.

The broccoli I get in my CSA box is small… sometimes I questioned if it was really broccolini or even broccoli rabe.  So that’s why I used a few bunches of my CSA broccoli, but the recipe calls for ½ a broccoli stalk.  I guess you could use it all if you wanted.  This CSA broccoli came with lots of leaves, so that’s why I really wanted to use up and not waste.

When I am trying out new recipes, I rarely like to cook them just for myself.  Some people call me brave because I am willing to test and try out things I have never cooked before on my friends.  So I invited my friends Annie Mariel and Laura to try out this recipe with me… these were the brave and lucky two who got to try this one first.  Since then, I have made this recipe a bunch if times… they loved it!!!  When my mom tried it she thought the filling had cheese in it…   it’s so creamy.

But don’t be intimidated by the ingredient’s list…  I looks like there are too many ingredients, but if you think of it in components in the dish, it’s neither that long nor very difficult.  You’ll see…

  

BROCCOLI AND CAULIFLOWER STUFFED SHELLS

½ of a large head of broccoli, chopped into medium sized pieces, including the stem and leaves

½ head of cauliflower, chopped into medium sized pieces too

2 tbs olive oil, divided for the filling and the tomato sauce

6-7 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

A pinch of Red pepper flakes – you can add more if you like the heat

About 12 -16 brown-rice pasta shells – I use the Tinkyáda brand

½ cup sour cream

½ cup Devon double cream – it’s a Jamie Oliver-inspired recipe, I had to use English cream…

¼ cup parmesan cheese

1/3 cup fried tomato sauce or pureed tomatoes

About 1 tbs vinegar – I’ve used white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

3 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese

Basil leaves – optional

 

1. Bring a large pot filled with salted water to a boil. 
2. While the water boils, chop the cauliflower and broccoli.  Make sure you peel the outer skin of the broccoli stalks and chop the leaves as small as possible.  Do not use the stems of the leaves, just the leaves.  The stems will never puree well… I tried. 
3. 
4. Add the chopped broccoli and cauliflower to the salted boiling water and cook for about 10 -15 minutes.
5. When the broccoli and cauliflower have been for about 5 minutes already in the pot of water, heat 1 tbs of olive oil in a medium sized pan with tall sides.  Add the garlic slices and the red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic is golden, but not browned or bitter.
6. Very carefully pass the broccoli and the cauliflower to the pan where the garlic and pepper flakes are.  Drain the vegetables as much as you can before placing in the oil, because the oil WILL SPLATTER.  I usually have a splatter guard in hand to make sure the oil does not catch me.  Mix the veggies with the garlic and pepper. 
7. 
8. Add some salt and pepper to season and cook covered for about 30 mins, until the vegetables turn into an unrecognizable mass where they no longer retain their vegetable shape.  The leaves will not disintegrate…
9. While the veggies cook, let’s prepare the sauces…
10. For the tomato sauce, mix together the tomato puree, salt, pepper, vinegar and a small drizzle of olive oil.  Set aside. 
11. For the white sauce, mix together the double cream, sour cream, most of the parmesan cheese and season with some salt and pepper.  Set aside.
12. Also, bring again the large pot of water (with new water please…) to a boil.  Add salt and add the pasta shells.  Cook for about 5-7 minutes until they have grown in size a bit, are flexible to the touch, but still not fully cooked.  Drain the pasta shells and rinse with cold filtered water to stop the cooking process and cool them enough to handle.  Set aside.
13. 
14. After the veggies are cooked, use an immersion blender to turn the veggies into a puree.  Make sure all the leaves are pureed and remove any stringy parts that may be around…
15. Now we assemble… in your baking dish pour the tomato sauce on the bottom.  Using a small spoon, fill each shell with the broccoli/cauliflower puree and place in the baking dish. 
16. 
17. After all the shells are filled and placed on the baking dish, spoon the white sauce over the shells.  If you want, now is the time to add some basil leaves, put I have made it without and the dish doesn’t need it…  now sprinkle some additional parmesan cheese on top of the white sauce and finish with pieces of fresh mozzarella on top.
18. Now we assemble25-30 minutes, or until the top crust is golden brown.  As always… when the time is up, just turn the oven off and leave it there for about 10-15 more so it finishes cooking.

  

I served this with a very simple tossed salad and sweet baked plantains.  We had mango sorbet with kiwi pieces for dessert…

Cook with your Kids… June 8, 2009

I have 2 “nieces” I have told you about… Mariana and Natalia.  “Nieces” is in quotations because they’re actually the daughters of my best friends – but to them I am their Titi Madelyn.

Fortunately and very grateful, they’re two very lucky girls whose parents can provide anything and everything to them.  So it became a challenge for me to choose a birthday gift for them every year.  Since last year, Titi Madelyn decided she would only provide experiences as gifts.  They do not need one more toy or one more t-shirt…  really.

Natalia turned 7 last month and as a birthday gift she got a cooking class by yours truly…  She had the choice of learning to make a cheesy lasagna, “pastelillitos de Shrek” or Italian Quesadillas.  She chose the cheesy lasagna, because I think in another life we were both mice…

I truly believe that when you get kids involved in preparing what they’ll eat, they’ll be more inclined to try new things and to eat whatever is on their plate.  I always tell Natalia and Mariana that if it wasn’t good tasting or good for them I would not even offer it.  They get it…

Natalia had to make several decisions to make her Cheesy Lasagna.  She had to choose between:

1. Small or Large pyrex mold – she chose the larger one
2. What ingredients to include in it – her choices were spinach, oven roasted tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, almonds and button mushrooms

She finally chose spinach, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and skinned almonds.  She wanted it all…   She squeezed dry the spinach and I explained to her how all that green water would not be helpful for a cheesy lasagna.  She skinned almonds with me.  She arranged the almonds on a sheet to toast in the toaster oven.  She cleaned and sliced very carefully the button mushrooms and the organic heirloom tomatoes and placed it in separate dishes for the upcoming assembly.  She loved that the mushrooms looked like little trees.

                                 

I explained to her we would make a cheese sauce to pour in between the layers we were going to assemble.  The cheese sauce was a mixture of every cheese I had in the fridge at the moment… I assure you I did not buy one cheese for this project.  We used cream cheese, ricotta, parmesan, shredded mozzarella, fresh mozzarella and goat cheese.  She tasted each cheese individually before adding them to the milk seasoned with sofrito, salt and pepper.  She already knew the cream cheese, parmesan and shredded mozzarella from making pita pizzas with me.   But she tasted ricotta and goat cheese for the first time. She LOVED the goat cheese… and ate 2 goat cheese toasts while we were making dinner.  Titi Madelyn tasted goat cheese for the first time about 7 yrs ago… figure that one out.

Natalia added each cheese to the cheese sauce pot and stirred it carefully to help the cheeses combine and melt together.  I was in charge of boiling the water for the Jerusalem artichoke pasta.  I just set some water to boil, turned the stove off and let the noodles soften in that water.  The cheese sauce would continue to cook the pasta perfectly when the lasagna is assembled and in the oven.

This is more a method of making lasagna more than a recipe per se… but if you would like to replicate what Natalia and I did, here’s the ingredient list:

NATALIA’S CHEESY SPINACH, ALMOND, MUSHROOM AND TOMATO LASAGNA

½ package of DeBoles Jerusalem artichoke lasagna noodles

½ cup defrosted cut leaf spinach

6-7 button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

3 small organic tomatoes, washed and sliced

a handful of almonds, peeled and toasted

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp of sofrito

About 1 ½ cups of milk – I really used what was left in the carton so I didn’t measure it

½ brick of cream cheese

¼ tub of ricotta cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella – the one you use for pizzas…

½ log of goat cheese

About ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese – but you could also use pecorino romano, asiago, grana padano, etc.

Salt and Pepper to taste

3 slices of fresh mozzarella – to top the lasagna only

 

Natalia then assembled the lasagna.  She decided in which order she would add the filling components:

1. We started with a layer of sauce, then noodles, then more sauce. 
2. Now goes the filling layer – spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and almonds. 
3. Add a sprinkling of more parmesan cheese before adding the next layer of sauce, pasta and more sauce. 
4. Repeat until you create 3 layers of filling. 
5. Then finish off of with the fourth and last layer of pasta covered with the remaining sauce you have and topped with pieces of fresh mozzarella. 
6. I helped out with the hot noodles and the hot sauce, but Natalia did all the rest. 
7. I baked the lasagna at 400F for about 25 minutes in my toaster oven.   We basically waited until the top got a nice brown color.  

Natalia was super hungry by the time the lasagna was in the oven and I was in a hurry to feed her…We served her a nice piece with a side salad dressed with my Left-Over Dressing.  She ate so much; I had to give her a few papaya enzyme chewables to help her with her digestion and overfull tummy.  Her mom loved it too and took a great big piece home with her so daddy would also get a chance to try it.

The moral of the story…   Cook with your kids OFTEN.  Allow them to make decisions into what they’ll have for dinner, as long as they’re within what you believe is good for them.  Let them feel they’re part of the process and they will in turn reward you with the satisfaction of enjoying what they eat, enjoying foods good for them, raving all about it and asking you for more.  Natalia already wants us to schedule another “cooking class” when her Summer Camp ends.

Fresh Fettuccini with Barely-Cooked Fresh Tomato Sauce June 3, 2009

This was an exercise in maximizing the concept of fresh, seasonal and local cooking…  even though the dish initially looks more Italian, but this is Puerto Rican cooking at its utmost expression. Why?

Because the main components of this meal were grown or produced right here in Puerto Rico:

• The pasta is freshly made here in San Juan by my friend Karla from nudi pasta…
• The tomatoes and basil for the sauce came from my CSA box… as did the mesclun greens and the cucumber for the salad
• The green peppers in the sofrito came from the CSA box too and the “ají dulces” came from my aunt’s backyard

I have made marinated/un-cooked tomato sauce before, but I just wanted to see if I could pull-off a sauce that did not need to be on the stove for hours to achieve a deep flavor.  I believe we have reached success here.  Also, fresh fettuccini is super delicate… I am not used to cooking pasta so little. So a friend gave me the idea to cook the pasta in the same sauce, instead of boiling it first.  It actually turned out really nice… even though I feel I have not yet mastered the art of cooking fresh pasta to perfection.

 

FRESH FETTUCCINI WITH BARELY-COOKED FRESH TOMATO SAUCE

3 small organic tomatoes, chopped

2 sprigs of fresh basil, leaves and stems separated

1 tsp sofrito

1 tsp tomato paste

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

1 tbs olive oil

½ package of whole-wheat fresh fettuccini

 

1. In a medium skillet with tall sides over medium heat, pour the olive oil and the sofrito. Cook for a few minutes while you chop the tomatoes.
2. Add the basil sprigs and leaves.  Cook for a minute and add the tomato paste.  Stir to combine.  Add the chopped tomatoes with all its juice… make sure you have all the seeds and juice to make the sauce liquidy. 
3. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add the balsamic vinegar.  Cook for about 5 minutes so the flavors combine.
4. 
5. Add the fresh fettuccini to the sauce and toss to combine well.  After a few minutes, turn the stove off and cover to allow the pasta to cook with the steam and heat of the sauce.

 

Enjoy with a nice tossed salad using any seasonal vegetables you might have on hand.  I used mesclun greens and cucumbers with a light lemon vinaigrette.

If you would like to see other recipes of Seasonal Pastas… visit the Serious Eats website were a round up of various recipes are featured as part of the weekly feature Cook and Tell.

Blue Cheese Mac with Walnuts May 31, 2009

I am a cheese lover… I guess this has been established and proven by the posts on this blog already.  However, blue cheese is a relatively recent acquired taste for me. I always found it too salty and pungent for my taste.  However, I few years ago I went to a really nice restaurant in Ponce, Mark’s at the Meliá, that featured a Boston lettuce salad with crumbled Maytag blue cheese and vinaigrette.  I was a convert after that dish.

Now I do not shy away from blue cheeses anymore.  I love it in desserts, in salads, and lately, in pastas.  That’s how this Mac & Cheese came about.  Kind of like a grown-up version of a mac and cheese. 

I did this dish the first time improvising at my aunt’s house in Miami.  She wanted macaroni with a white sauce.  So I decided to give it a twist to make it interesting.  She loved it and my cousin, whose daughter is a chef, loved it too.  She had never tasted my cooking and she was nicely impressed.

I hope when you make this, you’ll also impress the ones you love and cook for.

 

 

BLUE CHEESE MAC WITH WALNUTS

1 tbs sofrito

1 tbs olive oil

½ cup milk

4 oz cream cheese

1 handful of grated Italian-blend cheeses

6 oz of blue cheese – your favorite blue cheese will do here

½ cup of walnuts, toasted

½ package of your favorite whole-grain tubular pasta – penne, macaroni or rigatoni will all do

 

1. In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Salt the water and add the pasta.  Cook for about 10 minutes, until almost cooked thru.  Try not to cook them too long, so they do not break when you stir the sauce in.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium sauce pan over medium heat add the olive oil and sofrito.  Cook for a few minutes and add the milk.  Let it warm through, but be careful it does not boil.
3. When the milk has heated up add the cheeses.  I leave the blue cheese for the end.  Stir a few times to make sure all the cheeses melt well.  They melt faster and better if they’ve been out of the fridge for a few minutes.  Not necessarily room temp, but not out of the fridge either.
4. When the pasta is done, drain it and return to the pot.  Pour the sauce over the pasta and stir to combine.  Add the walnuts.

Spinach Puffed Empanada May 9, 2009

I visit the Serious Eats website almost daily… I love it as a source of news and inspiration in regards to food. 

They just recently launched this series of Weekend Cook and Tell where they scour the various food sections of national newspapers to find an article or recipe to inspire a weekend cooking project.  This weekend’s project is to make a great weekend meal by cleaning out your pantry.  They were inspired by an article in the Chicago Sun-Times  about making meals out of whatever you have on hand.

I am pretty anal-retentive about having a tidy fridge and lately I have not been able to keep it as organized and tidy as I would like.  So I am on a rampage of using up everything in my fridge and to liberate it as much as possible.  So you would think why I was so drawn to this project…  I actually went to the market today and I did not use up anything that entered the house today… all of the ingredients have been in the house for at least a week.

I actually used a bunch of stuff I had mostly in my fridge and freezer… and not new things I had; I used up stuff I had bit and pieces, like:

• ¼ bag of frozen cut-leaf spinach – I don’t know how long this was in there because I was using another bag and moving thing around this morning I found this other bag…
• 1 2-inch piece of leftover gruyere cheese – left over from making Popeye Pita Pizzas and the Cauliflower and Cheese Mac
• 1 sheet of puff pastry – left over from a get-together I had last Saturday where I made Spinach Pinwheels that got too soft and fused together and re-froze because I did not know what to do with it at the time…
• ½ onion – left over from making a batch of my Veggie Dip
• 1 scallion – left from making a Green Goddess dressing for a friend
• toasted pepitas – leftover from my Mexican Lasagna recipe
• breadcrumbs I made a few months ago from bread that got too hard for a sandwich

 The results were spectacular…  I was inspired by a recipe from Ina Garten in her Barefoot in Paris book.  When I read the recipe I realized I had all the most important ingredients in my pantry to recreate it. 

 

 

SPINACH PUFFED EMPANADA

1 sheet of puff pastry, defrosted for only 30 minutes or overnight in the fridge

About 1 ½ cups of frozen cut-leaf spinach, thawed and as much water squeezed our as possible

About ½ cup gruyere cheese, grated

About ¼ cup Parmesan cheese

½ medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves

2 tbs olive oil

1 scallion, sliced thin

About ¼ cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds), toasted

About 2 tbs whole-wheat breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbs butter, melted

Whole-wheat flour – to work with the puff pastry

 

My apologies in regards to the amount of ingredients in this recipe… because my intention was to CLEAN THE FRIDGE, I really didn’t measure them when I was putting it together.  I just took what was left of the spinach, what was left of the gruyere, a few finger-fulls of breadcrumbs… and “played it by ear”/improvised.  I include a few photos so you can see how the mixture looked when put together…

 

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F.
2. In a small skillet over medium heat, add olive oil, onions and garlic.  Sauté for a few minutes until the onions start to soften and become a bit translucent.
3. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the spinach, scallions, onion mixture, gruyere and parmesan cheeses, breadcrumbs, pepitas.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

The puffed pastry usually comes folded in thirds, but I defrosted it at room temperature for over 40 minutes and it basically fused together and I was not able to open it up as you usually can.  So what I did was to dust it with a little bit of whole-wheat flour, cut it into two pieces and roll it out.  What’s puff pastry than layers and layers of pastry rolled together… so ours will have 3 extra layers than what the manufacturers intended… 

1. I rolled the two halves of puff pastry one a bit larger than the other… you’ll see why later on.  I rolled it enough to fit the baking tray of my toaster oven.  I cover the baking sheet using a layer of aluminum foil and then parchment to ease up on the cleaning.
2. Place the larger pastry half onto the baking sheet lined with parchment. 
3. Transfer the spinach mixture carefully onto the puff pastry leaving about a ½ inch border all the way around.  Try to flatten the mixture a bit to make it an even layer. 
4. 
5. Place the smaller layer on top of the spinach.  Bring the edges of the puff pastry together folding one onto the other and securing by pinching with the tines of a fork.
6. 
7. Brush the top layer of pastry with the melted butter.  Make 3 slits on the top for the steam to escape.
8. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and smells delicious.
9. Take it out of the oven carefully and out of the baking sheet to cool off a bit into a cutting board.

 

I was so thrilled to make a large spinach “pastelillo”… served with a nice Salade des Haricots Verts, this made for a great light dinner. 

And thanks to it… my freezer and fridge have a few less clutter than before.  This challenge came in with great timing…  I created a delicious meal I have never done before with ingredients I already had in my fridge.

I am sure I can come-up with a few extra of these; I’ll definitely keep you posted…

Mexican Lasagna May 5, 2009

Today we celebrate 5 de Mayo… which many US people think it’s the celebration of the Mexican Independence and of great consequence to Mexicans, but it’s not so…   I believe 5 de Mayo it’s a nice holiday to them but not nearly as important as the celebration of their Independence, celebrated on September 16.  I know… I moved to Chicago around that time and it was impressive the amount of Mexicans with huge flags riding on their cars up and down the main avenues.  However, on 5 de Mayo, not nearly enough…

I think it’s just easier in English to say “5 de Mayo” than to say “16 de Septiembre”… you know, that issue with the rolling r’s.  So if the US wants to celebrate Mexican culture, let them do it at the beginning of the Spring/Summer season… it’s more festive anyhow.

Jumping on the bandwagon myself, I decided to treat my friend AnnieMariel to lunch the other day with a Mexican-inspired lunch.  The theme had dual-purpose – to celebrate the upcoming 5 de Mayo and to support our Mexican friends whose been getting such a bad rap lately with all this “swine flu” news.  They’ve been hurting health wise and they will continue to hurt due to decreases in travel to Mexico.  It’s just unfortunate that the level of poverty over there just prevents people to seek medical health as easily or rapidly as we do here in the US and probably that’s part of the increased severity of the cases there.

Both AnnieMariel and I had trips planned to Mexico that were abruptly cancelled or postponed.  So we want to support them symbolically with our lunch…

 

MEXICAN LASAGNA

About 8 corn tortillas

4 tomatillos, washed well and quartered

1 medium onion, chopped into large pieces

6 garlic cloves

The Juice of 1 lemon/lime

¼ cup textured soy protein, re-hydrated in about 1 cup of water

2 tbs sofrito

1 vegetable bouillon cube, divided in half

¼ cup red-wine vinegar

¼ tsp Herbamare

1 cup Italian-blend grated cheese

½ cup Parmesan Cheese

½ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas), toasted

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Canola Oil Spray

 

This is a simple recipe, but we need to take care of a few steps before we assemble. 

1. First you need to re-hydrate the textured soy protein.  Place the soy protein in a medium bowl or measuring cup and fill it with water and wait for it about 30 minutes to re-hydrate well.

For the tomatillo salsa…

1. In a pyrex pan, place the tomatillos, onion and garlic.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste.  Mix them all together to make sure everything is well-coated with the oil.  Roast in a 350F oven for about 30 minutes, or until you see the onions and tomatillo getting caramelized on top.
2. Wait a few minutes until the tomatillos/onion mixture cools down a bit.  Transfer the contents of the pyrex to the bowl of a food processor.  Add the juice of a green lemon and pulse a few times to make a thick sauce.  Set aside.

 

While the tomatillos are roasting in the oven, we can make the soy picadillo… but this soy picadillo is dryer than the versions I have showed you before…

1. In a small skillet over medium heat, drizzle about 1 tbs of olive oil, add ½ of the vegetable bouillon cube and the sofrito.  Cook for a few minutes and add the soy protein after you’ve squeezed out as much water as you can from it.  Mix it all together to combine.  I want to add some moisture to help it cook along… so I add the vinegar at this point.  Season it with a bit of pepper and Herbamare. 
2. Cook over medium-low heat until the soy looks cooked, about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Set aside too.

 

1. In a medium tall-sided skillet, warm up about ½- ¾ cup of water with the other ½ vegetable bouillon cube to make a vegetable “broth”.  Add about ¼ cup of the tomatillo salsa to this broth and whisk well to combine.
2. In a medium-sized glass dish sprayed with canola oil spray we’ll start layering the lasagna…
3. Take the tortillas and cut in half 4 of them.  This will help you layer them as evenly as possible in the glass dish. 
4. Take about 1/4 cup of the thinned tomatillo salsa and place it at the bottom of the dish.  Now dip in the thinned tomatillo salsa one whole tortilla and 2 halves.  Place them on the bottom of the dish. 
5. 
6. Now spread intact tomatillo salsa on top of the tortillas to create a layer and sprinkle a third of the cooked soy picadillo.
7. 
8. Sprinkle parmesan cheese, a layer of the grated Italian cheeses and sprinkle a third of the pepitas.  
9. 
10. Now we start all over again, starting with the tortillas, creating 3 layers and finishing off with wet tortillas covered with parmesan cheese, Italian blend cheese and pepitas.
11. Place in a 350F oven for about 30 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown.

 

 

I always turn off the heat in the oven and leave it there for a few minutes until the lasagna settles a bit.

It takes a few steps, but your hard work will be rewarded…    it tastes very Mexican because of the corn tortillas, but the tomatillo salsa gives it a nice tang, different than a regular tomato-based sauce.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did… and  ¡¡VIVA MEXICO LINDO Y QUERIDO!!

Cashew and Tofu Stir-Fry May 4, 2009

I’ve always loved Chinese food.  Ever since I was little my parents have been taken us to Chinese restaurants regularly…  past favorites were always Sweet and Sour (fill in the blank), Pepper (fill in the blank), BBQ (fill in the blank)…

When I first moved to NYC, I went to lunch with my dad and he suggested I should try the Chicken with Cashew Nuts…  Cashew Nuts!!!  What are those??  Well a few minutes later, I was a convert for life.  And after that day that became my usual order at Chinese restaurants.

When I decided to become vegetarian, I would order at restaurants Chicken with Cashew Nuts WITHOUT the Chicken.  It was the simplest way for me to describe to Chinese waiters that I wanted sautéed vegetables with cashew nuts.  I even ordered it so often at a restaurant close to my former place of employment that I stopped describing it – just ordered the usual – Sautéed Broccoli with Onions, Peppers, Carrots and Cashew Nuts.

I just looooooove the combination of soy-based sauce with the crunch of the nuts…  This is the version I make at home.  This version has tofu, but most of the time I leave it out.  The protein in the nuts is enough for me.

 

 

 

CASHEW AND TOFU STIR FRY

1 medium onion, chopped into medium sized pieces

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped into medium sized pieces

1 small carrot, peeled and sliced thin using a vegetable peeler

1 tbs canola oil

Canola Oil Spray

Marinated Tofu slices

¼ cup tamari sauce

1 tsp cornstarch

The juice of 1 lime

1 handful of roasted cashews

1 cup of whole grain basmati rice – to serve

 

For the Marinated Tofu:

1. Take half a block of Extra Firm Tofu and slice it into ¼” slices.    I take a baking sheet, line it with 2-3 layers of paper towel, place the tofu slices on top of the paper towel, cover them with 2-3 more layers of paper towels, top with another baking sheet and apply some weight on top.  Press it for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
2. In a medium skillet, sprayed with canola   medium-high heat we need to get the tofu pieces golden.  Just place them on the skillet until they get some color.
3. While that is happening, mix together in a shallow pyrex dish the tamari sauce, the lime juice and a bit of water.  Dip the tofu pieces in the tamari/lime mixture and let them soak the seasoning.  Soak them for about 15-20 minutes and set them aside.

 

Now on to the stir-fry…

1. Prep the vegetables while the tofu pieces are marinating.
2. In a medium-sized skillet, over medium-high heat again, heat up the canola oil.  Add the onions, peppers and carrots and sauté them until they begin to cook, but are still crunchy.  Add the tofu pieces so they can dry up a bit and get hot.  Stir everything together.
3. Mix the leftover tamari/lime mixture with the cornstarch.  If you have little sauce left (less than ¼ cup) just add a bit more tamari or lime juice, whatever you prefer.
4. After a few minutes, add the cashews to the skillet.  Mix well the tamari/cornstarch mixture and add to the skillet.  The sauce will thicken as it heats up.  When the sauce gets somewhat thick, turn the stove off.  Don’t let the sauce get too thick on you.

Serve over whole-grain basmati rice.

Cauliflower and Cheese Mac April 28, 2009

This is another one of the recipes described in my Foodbuzz 24,24,24 – A Very Veggie Experiment post…

 

A few weeks ago I tested my Undercover Carrot Mac and Cheese as a way to “sneak in” some added veggies into my niece’s, Mariana, dinner.  A reader suggested me to try it too with cauliflower.  So this is my version of mac and cheese with added cauliflower.  I also used Jerusalem artichoke pasta to add to the nutrition and unknown vegetables used.

                                                               

I usually make mac and cheese with a white cheese sauce. I thought it would be something different the kids would enjoy – steering away from the orangy sauces they’re so used too. 

 

 

CAULIFLOWER AND CHEESE MAC

½ a head of cauliflower, chopped into small pieces

½ a box of macaroni pasta, I used De Boles Jerusalem Artichoke pasta

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbs sofrito

1 ½ cups of soy milk

4 oz of cream cheese

¼ cup gruyere cheese, shredded

¼ cup pecorino romano cheese, shredded

2 handfuls of Italian-blend grated cheeses

¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated or shredded

Kosher salt and Black pepper to taste

 

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Salt the water as if if were sea water.  Add the cauliflower pieces and cover for about 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile, we need to prepare the cheese sauce…

1. In a medium pot over medium high heat, add the olive oil and sofrito.  Cook for about 2 minutes until the sofrito doesn’t look raw anymore.  Add the soy milk and heat up. 
2. When the 10 minutes of cooking the cauliflower had passed, add the macaroni pasta to this same water.  Move all well so the pasta does not stick and boil all contents for about 8 minutes more.
3. When the soy milk is heated start adding the cheeses – I use this order cream cheese, gruyere, pecorino romano.  Whisk them all to make sure they melt well into the milk.  Finally I add the Italian blend of cheeses and I take it off the heat. 
4. Strain the pasta and cauliflower and return to the pot.  Add the cheese sauce and mix it all together.
5. 
6. Transfer to a baking dish and top with parmesan cheese.
7. Place in a 350F oven and bake until the top is golden brown about 30 minutes.

 

Mariví was amazed that this has cauliflower and was so good.  Ignacio felt there was something more in there than just mac and cheese and kept asking me how I made it…  Diego just didn’t care and started shoveling it in.  The two little ones did not understand how a mac and cheese was white instead of orange.  So I convinced them to try it again after I mixed in a few slices of American cheese into their portions – bringing to the cheese total to 6 – the cheesiest I have ever made a mac and cheese before.   

                                            

 

The learning…   you make mac and cheese from scratch for the little ones, make it ORANGE with regular orange-color cheddar cheese.  They’ll find it more familiar and will not look at it as funny as Kamila and Daniel did.

Foodbuzz 24,24,24: A Very Veggie Experiment April 26, 2009

When I was a little girl I was a very picky eater… so much that my parents put me in a school where they offered lunch to see if I would expand my eating horizons.  For 2 years I ate white rice and ketchup for lunch.  True… my mom would ask me everyday what I had for lunch and I would reply – Arroz con ketchup!  Proudly…

But my pickiness never came because my parents never offered me a wide variety of foods.  They always instilled in me I had to TRY EVERYTHING BEFORE I could say I didn’t like it.  In my former life, before I became a vegetarian, there used to be a time where I would only eat the paella rice and not eat anything else in it.  I would only eat the sauce of stewed beans and still remember how my dad tried to teach me to swallow oysters with cocktail sauce… never did it, but became a fan of the sauce and horseradish.  Also, when in a ballet summer camp, they made us go on a diet where we ate steamed broccoli and cauliflower…  I hated the taste, the smell, the texture, but now I eat them regularly.  I also remember how in my Quinceañero I spent the whole evening eating these delicious “onion rings”.  When I told my mom how good they were, my mom told me there wasn’t any onion rings on the menu… that they must have been the calamari rings!!!  I never took the calamari off the paella anymore after that.  And I remember the first time I had marinated tofu in a sandwich and fried gluten… that fried gluten tasted like pork “chicharrones” rinds and I was “scared” that someone at the yoga center got confused and made something not suitable for the vegetarians at the party. 

                     Don’t they look like onion rings???

 My point… people, kids and adults alike are many times prejudiced with what THEY THINK something tastes like.  They think they do not like to eat something because of its color, its appearance, their idea of its taste.  Something I have learned throughout the years is that you might not like a specific ingredient in a specific preparation… but if you give it a few tries you might like it prepared differently.  For example, I much prefer eggplant battered and fried than stewed.  I very much prefer garbanzo beans in a hummus than in a bean salad… you would “never” see me eating a bean salad.  That’s something I have not been able to conquer or think I will…

                                                                              

Being such a finicky kid, believe it or not, I was not the finickiest…  My friend Mariví was worse than me.  We have a LOT of history together.  And it was not until we were late in high school that she came to eat at her first salad bar.  We went to Ponderosa to eat and she asked me if she had to eat the salad… I said emphatically “OF COURSE!!!, why else would we come to Ponderosa if not for the all-you-can-eat salad bar???”  She confessed, with her salad plate in front of her, that she thanked me because it was the first time she had tried lettuce, tomato and corn.  I could not believe her mom had not taught her to eat salad…  It was so far-fetched to me, as finicky as I was…

                                                      

 Now time has passed… Madelyn is vegetarian and Mariví has 5 kids!!!  Yes, that was not a typo…  5 kids – Ignacio who’s 11, Diego who’s 10, Kamila who’s about to turn 8, Daniel who’s 4 and the newest one, Sergio who’s just 3 months old.  They’re as finicky about eating as Madelyn and Mariví were when growing up…  the thing is that by having also a finicky mom, it’s my theory they’re not as exposed to as many foods as they should be…  And this might be my own impression, but I see plain hamburgers without an ounce of lettuce, tomato, or even ketchup at their birthday parties… and when I mention certain things to eat to my goddaughter Kamila, she makes faces at me…

So I decided to hold a little experiment…  I would prepare a meal for Mariví and her 4 oldest kids without telling any of them what is in any of the dishes.  They will eat them, enjoy them, hopefully even LOVE them and then afterwards tell them what was in it…  to prove to them that they do indeed like to eat more than what they’re exposing themselves to and to expand their eating horizons.   It is my belief that kids learn mostly by example and what better example than their parents habits.  If the parents do not eat something or do not expose kids to certain things they will not gain an appreciation for them.

 

They came over without knowing of the experiment… I did not want them to prejudice themselves knowing I am vegetarian.  I explained to them I had made dinner and I assured them they would love it all.  And if they wanted to know about how anything was made, I would tell them at the end of the meal.

  Here was last night’s menu:

Asparagus Party Sandwiches

Cauliflower and Cheese Mac

Breadfruit Tostones

Lettuce, Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Thousand Island Dressing

Vanilla Ice Cream with Fresh Strawberry Sauce

 

THE TASTING

Asparagus Party Sandwiches

      

I can remember the first time I ate an asparagus sandwich at a birthday party.  I just ate it thinking it was a regular “sandwichito de mezcla” just rolled into a different shape and loved it.  It was not after I had eaten about 10 of these little sandwiches that someone told me it was asparagus.  I was hooked. 

I knew Mariví’s kids would be surprised about liking them too…  I just make a mixture of jarred asparagus and egg-less mayonnaise and spread it onto whole-wheat bread.  I flatten the bread so I can roll the sandwiches and give them a fancier look.  Sometimes people place a whole asparagus spear in the center and then roll the bread around it, but because I knew these guys are finicky, I just made a puree out of the ingredients to avoid any apprehension before they tasted them.

Both Ignacio and Diego smelled them before putting them in their mouths… so typical of a finicky kid!!!  Ignacio, Diego, Kamila and Mariví all loved them.  They were all trying to figure out what was in them.  Ignacio and Diego had about 4 each and even told me they would love to have them again…

   This was Ignacio’s face when I told him the sandwiches were made from asparragus – HUH?!?!?

 

 

Cauliflower and Cheese Mac

A few weeks ago I tested my Undercover Carrot Mac and Cheese as a way to “sneak in” some added veggies into my niece’s ,Mariana, dinner.  A reader suggested me to try it too with cauliflower.  So this is my version of mac and cheese with added cauliflower.

I usually make mac and cheese with a white cheese sauce. I thought it would be something different the kids would enjoy – steering away from the orangy sauces they’re so used too.   I cooked the cauliflower in the same water as the macaroni.  I used Jerusalem artichoke pasta instead of the regular semolina pasta.  I then combined it all with a cheese sauce made from soy milk, gruyère, pecorino romano, cream cheese, an Italian-blend grated cheeses and Parmesan.  I baked it all in the oven for about 30 minutes to get the crust golden brown.

Mariví was amazed that this has cauliflower and was so good.  Ignacio felt there was something more in there than just mac and cheese and kept asking me how I made it…  Diego just didn’t care and started shoveling it in.  The two little ones did not understand how a mac and cheese was white instead of orange.  So I convinced them to try it again after I mixed in a few slices of American cheese into their portions – bringing to the cheese total to 6 – the cheesiest I have ever made a mac and cheese before.   The learning… when you make mac and cheese from scratch  for the little ones, make it ORANGE with regular cheddar cheese.  They’ll find it more familiar and will not look at it as funny as Kamila and Daniel did.

                             

 

 

Breadfruit Tostones

Tostones in Puerto Rico are typically made from plantains… but you can make tostones also out of Breadfruits.  We call them PANA in Spanish.  Breadfruits are very polarizing – people either love them of they hate them.  There’s a breadfruit tree behind my grandma’s house and I decided to expose Mariví’s kids to breadfruit. 

These were a complete hit!!!  Everyone wanted to be in the kitchen with me when I fried them and everyone gobbled them up.  Even the little ones went for the tostones first before they started on the fixed-up mac and cheese.

Tostones need to be fried twice… so I had fried them for the first time earlier in the week and kept them frozen in a Ziploc bag.  I defrosted them in salted garlicky water and fried them again right before eating them.

  Diego going first after the Breadfruit Tostones…

 

 

Lettuce, Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Thousand Island Dressing

I knew this was going to be the most difficult one to “sell” to these kids.  They are just not used to eating salad. But I had to give it a try…  I used organic romaine lettuce and organic cucumbers.  I bought mini cherry tomatoes and told them these were tomatoes specially made for kids.

I made them a Thousand Island Dressing to go along with the salad.  That used to be the only dressing I liked when I was a kid, so I figured they might prefer that to any vinaigrette I could make.  I started with a Mayo Ketchup base and added some sweet pickles.

Some of them tried the tomatoes only but they were not impressed.  It was so sad to see all the salads left almost intact…  I was the only one who really ate the salad.  Everyone else, including the mom, left salad on their plates.  This was the real challenge… but I will not give up.  I will make them eat salad if it’s the last thing I do for that family…

 

 

Vanilla Ice Cream with Fresh Strawberry Sauce

Recently, Kamila had told me she loved strawberry ice cream. So when this idea started I decided to make strawberry ice cream from scratch for her.  Unfortunately, I live this crazy life that I did not have time to fix it.  So I decided to do the next best thing I knew… prepare a fresh strawberry sauce to top vanilla ice cream.

This is great with any berry, in fact, the original recipe I learned from Ina Garten in her Barefoot in Paris book.  I had made it with raspberries, but strawberries are cheaper and more readily available.

Just cook some fresh strawberries with some water and brown sugar.  Mix them in a food processor with strawberry preserves and voilà!! – Fresh Strawberry Sauce.  Kamila even wanted hers with a fresh strawberry as a garnish. 

Surprisingly, the little ones loved this strawberry sauce, not so much the older ones.  They exchanged it for plain ice cream. 

 

THE RESULTS

I believe all in all this VERY VEGGIE EXPERIMENT was a SUCCESS!!!!  More thumbs up than thumbs down… overall.

Marivíand her kids were exposed to a bunch of different foods they are normally not exposed to – asparagus, cauliflower, gruyere and pecorino romano cheeses, Jerusalem artichoke pasta, pickles, breadfruit…  And out of the 5 things I prepared, they liked 4 of them with the salad being the most challenging of all.  Which I was really expecting…

      

I hope Mariví now has learned how exposing her kids, and even herself, to foods she might not be familiar to is a good thing.  They will in the end be healthier and better-rounded individuals. 

Based on this experience, I will make an effort to invite the kids over more often to expose them to foods I know they might never try otherwise and even teach them how to prepare these dishes for their parents.

 

For complete directions on how to prepare all these dishes, stay tuned in the next few days to KarmaFree Cooking when I will share the recipes and instructions in detail.

Re-creating the Pizzas as Co. Part 2 – Margherita Pita Pizza April 12, 2009

When we visited Co. in New York City, we had their wonderful Pizza Margherita.  To me, this is the best pizza hands down.  It highlights the best of ingredients… the simpler the pizza the better the ingredients must be.

This is my own attempt to recreate Co.’s Pizza Margherita to my friends…

 

 

MARGHERITA PITA PIZZA

Makes 1 personal pizza

 

1 whole-wheat pita bread, the larger the better

2 tbs of my Chunky Tomato Sauce or any other light tomato sauce for that matter

 3 – 4 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese – make sure it’s the fresh kind, not the part-skim processed kind

3-4 basil leaves

A drizzle of olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

 

1. Pre-heat your oven to 450 F.
2. Place pita bread in a parchment lined baking sheet.  Spread the tomato sauce all over the bread.   Place the slices of mozzarella on top.  Place the basil leaves around.  Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper and drizzle a bit more of olive oil on top.
3. Place in the oven and bake until the edges of the pita bread start to toast and the mozzarella browns a bit.
4. Take out of the oven and let it cool off a bit.  After about 3 minutes, cut into 4 slices using a pizza wheel slicer.

 

 

That night, we also had our homage to Co.’s Popeye Pizza.   Check it out…

Re-creating the Pizzas at Co. Part 1 – The Popeye Pita Pizza April 9, 2009

Recently, my friend AnnieMariel and I were bored and took a plane to spend a weekend in NYC…  during this visit we had lunch at Co., a new pizza restaurant in Chelsea. 

When we were talking about our travels and dining experiences to our French class friends, they asked us to please recreate for them the pizzas we had at Co.  They just though they sounded as delicious as we thought they tasted.  We described them in such detail they just could not be left out in the dark.

We gathered at the house of another friend, which meant I had to transport everything to her house to make the pizzas.  And since I am not dexterous in the bread-making department as you already know… I decided to make these pizzas on Pita bread.  Pita bread is perfect and super reliable t make quick pizzas at home and are in the round shape people expect.  You already saw the version I did for my “nieces” when we were traveling in Vermont.

Here is what you will need to make this spinach-lover pizza…

 

POPEYE PITA PIZZA

Makes 1 personal pizza

 1 whole-wheat pita bread, the larger the better

About 1 tsp olive oil

About 1 tbs gruyere cheese, grated

About 1 tbs pecorino romano cheese, grated

 3 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese – make sure it’s the fresh kind, not the part-skim processed kind

About 2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach, washed and dried in a salad spinner

Garlic salt and freshly cracked black pepper

 

1. Pre-heat your oven to 450 F.
2. Place pita bread in a parchment lined baking sheet.  Drizzle a bit of the olive oil and spread it all over the bread.  Grate the gruyere and the pecorino cheeses on top of the pita bread.  Place the slices of mozzarella on top.  Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper.
3. Now place as much spinach as you can on top of the pizza.  Try to accommodate as much of those 2 handfuls of spinach as possible, because it will cook down a lot.  Drizzle with extra olive oil and sprinkle with additional salt and fresh pepper.
4. Place in the oven and bake until the edges of the pita bread start to toast.
5. Take out of the oven and let it cool off a bit.  After about 3 minutes, cut into 4 slices using a pizza wheel slicer.

 

The girls could not believe how good this pizza was… they were raving all about it for days.  My mom had a chance to try it too the next day.  She was also impressed at the flavors and the look.

Chickpea Cocido April 1, 2009

I’ve been meaning to eat more beans… because to me beans are an acquired taste.

Rice and beans is a staple in most Puerto Rican meals, except in mine.  My mom eats them but never cooked them at home. My grandma would make rice and beans almost every day… and for the first 17 years of my life I got offered rice and beans everyday to eat and every day I would say no, thanks.  I would only eat the rice and the sauce of the beans. The actual beans… never.

I truly do not know what happened about 10 years ago, but I saw this nice plate of garbanzos and I not only had the sauce, I actually put some garbanzos in my plate.  I liked them.  I still do not crave them, but I can enjoy them up to a point. 

Because my mom never made beans at home, I never learned to make them from her.  And when my grandma was making beans each day, I was not interested in learning how to make them.  So this recipe is my way to learning how to make beans in a way I would enjoy eating them the most.  This recipe had several incarnations… but by far this is the best one so far.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

 

 

 

CHICKPEA COCIDO

1 tsp olive oil

½ vegetable bouillon cube

2 tbs sofrito

1 small onion, chopped

½ green bell pepper, chopped

1 small carrot, peeled and sliced thin

½ can stewed tomatoes

½ chopped tomato

1 small can garbanzo beans

1 roasted red pepper

5 manzanilla olives, chopped

2 tbs tomato sauce

1 bay leaf

½ tsp Herbamare

Salt and freshly cracked pepper

 

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the olive oil, ½ bouillon cube, sofrito, onion and pepper. Sautee everything for about 5-6 minutes until onions start to get translucent.
2. Add the carrots, the tomatoes and the garbanzo beans.  Now add the red peppers, olives, tomato sauce, bay leaf and season with salt, pepper and Herbamare seasoning.  If you would like more sauce… add about ¼ cup of water.
3. Simmer over medium/low heat for about 20 minutes.  Turn the stove off and let it continue cooking for about 10-15 minutes.

 

Serve over whole grain rice or over steamed potatoes.