In my family, most birthdays are in November and KarmaFree Cooking is certainly not the exception… and in the midst of all this traveling I completely forgot to celebrate it accordingly.

I just can’t believe this little blog has been 2 years in existence.  This really is one of my true joys and sources of pride.  

And now that Thanksgiving is approaching I want to give you great big THANKS and please continue your support.    I really would like to give a shout out of THANKS to a few key souls who were and still are instrumental in the birth of KarmaFree Cooking and it’s version in Spanish, KarmaFree Cooking in Español:

My friend Ana Yolanda – for always believing in me and encouraging me to bring my cooking to all of you, even if she is not a vegetarian, yet… 

My friend Kathleen – who had a blog way before I did, but inspired me to have my own by sharing with her readers some of the recipes I shared with her…  I hope you’re doing all-right.

To Josy LaTorre – Josy is a well-known vegetarian in Puerto Rico, having a weekly column in El Nuevo Día newspaper and weekly radio show spreading the word on the advantages of a vegetarian lifestyle.   She has interviewed me in her radio show and encouraged me to start the Spanish-version of KarmaFree Cooking.  She’ll be soon releasing a book on her views on vegetarianism and I wish her much success with it…

And last but certainly not least, I want to thank all of YOU who read this blog periodically… without you, this would just be a project without purpose.  Your comments, your questions and your words of encouragement give me the motivation to continue providing you with my recipes and commentary.  It’s rewarding to learn that my recipes and stories help and motive many of you to start and stick to a more vegetarian way of living.

And for those of you who are new to this neighborhood, here you can have access to the most popular posts in the last few years:

French Onion Soup

Comme Çi Comme Ça Salade Niçoise

Eggplant Parmesan Sandwich

Brown Rice Krispies Treats  

Hummus Sandwich

You can subscribe to e-mail alerts every time I post something new in KarmaFree Cooking

Puedes también leer todas mis recetas y comentarios en español visitando KarmaFreeCooking en Español

I have mentioned lassis to you before… I shared with you my version of a mango lassi earlier.  But after having lassis in India during my past trip there, I realized my version of lassi is not that authentic.

Lassi is a yogurt-based drink very typical to India.  It is made out of plain yogurt churned with some fruit, typically mango, but I learned that it can be done with other fruits too.  But the fruit is minimal, because all the lassis I had during this trip are white and do not take on the color of the fruit being mixed in.

Lassis are typically drunk as an appetizer before a meal…   I drank them also during the meal to help cool of my taste buds of all the spicy Indian food.  I even had it as an afternoon snack… when everyone at the hotel bar was ordering drinks after taking in the sights of the Taj Mahal, I ordered myself a lassi.  The server laughed but found it endearing and as a sign of us embracing of Indian culture.  He also thought I was Indian…

I learned there are 2 versions of lassi – salted or sweet.  I only knew the sweet versions, which was preferred by everyone I asked.  I got to try the salted version during our 1^st breakfast in Agra.  Nothing special, just imagine a liquid yogurt sprinkled with salt.  It only helped me to cool down the spiciness of the dosas and chutneys I had that morning… other than that, I will continue ordering sweet lassi.

Also, lassis are made with a churner, like the one you see below, instead of a blender, like I do…  I guess that was why the lassis would take a little while every time I ordered them.

So, for a more authentic version of lassi… you can still follow my recipe, just add a tiny bit of fruit, to maintain the white color of the yogurt.  and you can add some pistachios on top… to resemble the one I had at the ITC Agra Hotel… super chic indeed.

Via this blog, you’re getting to know me… and a little my friend Annie Mariel too.   And from our adventures in Paris this past September, you may already know we like to eat in nice restaurants, especially when we travel.

Visiting Delhi gave us the chance to eat at two fine restaurants – Fire at The Park Hotel and Zest at the DLF Emporio Mall.  Here is a recollection of what we ate…

FIRE @ The Park Hotel – New Delhi

This restaurant was recommended by our hotel concierge.  We asked him that if we were Bollywood stars staying in Delhi, where would we like to eat?  Among the recommendations given was FIRE, although what he actually said was AGNI, the Sanskrit word for fire.  But AGNI is the club, not the restaurant at The Park.

The décor of FIRE is super modern and chic.  A panel of “flames” highlights one side of the dining room, changing in color from deep magenta to deep orange to fire red.  Super nice indeed.

We loved that in the menu all vegetarian dishes are clearly marked with a green square next to the name.  No need to creatively ask how a dish is made to make sure it is truly vegetarian.  Now, finding out if a dish is spicy to our tolerance level of spiciness that’s another thing altogether. We also liked the menu had an Organic dishes section. 

This is what we ordered… a tandoori broccoli starter to share, stewed morel mushrooms for me, some organic black lentils for Annie Mariel, and a sweet couscous and plain naan to accompany it all.

Just after we ordered, in true fine dining fashion, we received an amouse bouche – don’t ask me in detail what it was, but what I know is that in had some lentils and yogurt and it was so spicy I was not able to eat more than two bites from it.  When the server asked me if I had not liked it and I replied that it was delicious but just too spicy for me, the chef sent over some mini roti with pineapple chutney that was just divine.  The perfect cooling effect my palate needed at the time.

The broccoli came with picled onions and it was delicious… to me it could have been a great side dish, more than a starter.  But I enjoyed it all the same.

Then the entrees arrived.   The server just serves a bit of everything on the plate for you to enjoy.  They don’t look particularly great on the plate, but they tasted delicious.  At least what I could stomach.  The morels were great, but spicy and I didn’t even dare try the lentils when Annie Mariel mentioned that they were even too spicy for her taste and she can handle heat way more than I can.  We complimented the server for her sweet couscous recommendation and the plain naan because without them, it would have been harder to eat all that spicy food.

But what also made the evening a success was the company… yes, I arrived at the restaurant with just Annie Mariel, but we left the restaurant with 4 new friends – Fabio from Italy, Sergio from Barcelona, my table neighbor from Bangalore and Steve from Singapore, who were all in Delhi on business.   Annie Mariel and I have a real talent to be able to make friends with total strangers when we travel and this trip to India was certainly not the exception.

I bring this up because our food was not the only dishes we tried that evening… my friend from Bangalore, being also a vegetarian, gave us a taste of his dish.  He was so intrigued when he saw me taking pictures of everything on the table, even the menu that we struck a conversation.  I believe he had the Gobhi Hara Masala, but I am not really sure.  It was also super spicy… so spicy indeed I ended up ordering a sweet lassi to help me cool off my tongue.

We didn’t order desserts because our friends Fabio and Sergio shared theirs with us… a true international night. 

ZEST @ DLF Emporio Mall – New Delhi

India is a very poor country overall… but there are people in India with money; a true juxtaposition of the haves and have not’s.  That is evident when you visit this DLF Emporio mall in the outskirts of Delhi – Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Dior, Giorgio Armani, Cartier, Tiffany, and every other designer store you might imagine.  And amidst all these designer stores you will also find delicious fine dining.

I learned about ZEST in a magazine we had at the hotel.  I was intrigued because it mentioned the restaurant had 6 kitchens – Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Thai and Continental.  I figured if we were not in the mood to eat Indian again there would be plenty of options there.

We arrived at ZEST in the early afternoon after a full morning of visiting temples and shopping.  We wanted to just nibble a few things so our appetite would not be spoiled for dinner.  This is what we ordered:

Vegetable Spring Rolls – For us, the best thing we ordered. Can’t fight with anything fried…

Grilled Paneer cheese seasoned with Carom – very spicy, but really nice.  I liked the taste the grill gave the soft cheese.  Tasted really Indian.

Foccacia-style bread – what we got resembled nothing to true foccacia bread.  It was basically pizza dough flavored with rosemary, parmesan and garlic.  Nonetheless, really tasty…

Z’attar Roasted potatoes – Too greasy for our taste, but I wanted to try z’attar.  Nothing to brag about in my opinion…

Charoli Kebabs – this was our least favorite of the bunch. Too spicy to even try to understand the rest of the ingredients…

We loved the service, the music and the total ambiance of the place.  We would have loved to visit it at night and try some of the entrees, but this was certainly too far away from our Connaught Place hotel to visit at night.  It took us almost an hour to reach the DLF Emporio mall with the Delhi traffic.  But if you are visiting Delhi and have the time, you should certainly try it too.

This is something I learned in this past trip to India…

Every time you visit a store or for breakfast you get offered tea.  And the tea they refer to is chai masala tea.  This is a tea made already with milk and seasoned with some kind of sugar/sweetener and a blend of spices or masala. 

The masala blend for the tea is usually a spice mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, ginger and sometimes even peppercorns.

I am not the tea drinker; Annie Mariel is the tea drinker here.  And the teas I usually drink are mostly herbal (chamomile, spearmint, linden, lemongrass, etc.) to avoid the caffeine in most teas.  But I was intrigued by this chai masala I was being offered all the time. 

I loved it… it is traditionally served in these clay cups.  Not to worry, the cups are disposable and used only once.  Even when you get seconds, the cups are never reused.  I was told the cup itself gave some flavor to the tea and that even a second pouring would not taste the same as the first one.  And when I had tea in a paper cup or in a regular china cup, it did not taste the same as that original clay cup.

The one-time clay cups are also the preferred way to drink lassi, I later learned.  I believe these disposable clay cups are partly the reason why there’s so much dirt flying in the air all the time… Imagine all these clay cups being thrown into the curbside, they get pulverized, the dirt then flies all over the place… you can imagine the picture.

But my love affair with this tea was short-lived…  I wondered why I had not been offered this tea during my first trip if it’s so popular everywhere in India.  The reason??  It has caffeine, and in the line of vegetarianism I practice, we avoid caffeine as it is a stimulant that is not beneficial to a healthy nervous system.

But it is sooooooo good, I am on a mission now to recreate this delicious chai masala tea in a decaffeinated version.   Just stay tuned…  OK?

Be careful what you wish for… because you might actually get it.

I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted my official job description to read – PROFESSIONAL JET-SETTER. Because travel is one of my true, deep passions… well, this last October I got to visit India for the second time.  In the last 2 months, this is my 4^th trip.  My friend Annie Mariel asked me to accompany her run some errands in Delhi and I immediately said yes.  How could I really say NO to that invitation?!?!?!

My first trip, exactly 5 years ago, had a spiritual purpose – visiting various religious temples in the Himalayas – but this one was much touristy.  We visited Delhi, Varanasi and Agra, to see the Taj Mahal. 

Breakfasts are really important to me… especially when traveling.  I do not know why, but my appetite is HUGE during breakfast when I travel.  Delhi has a lot of smog and is much dustier than what we’re accustomed on our side of the world.  So I made it a point to always eat lots of fruit and yogurt to maintain my body’s defenses.  Here are a few examples of typical breakfasts I had at our hotels:

The first was in Delhi – papaya pieces, plain yogurt, porridge or oatmeal made with milk.   Just the way I like it.  I always complemented breakfast with some freshly squeezed juice and apparently something very popular is watermelon juice.  I found watermelon juice in Delhi and in Varanasi.  They would even prepare it to order… super sweet and delicious.

This second was in Agra – papaya pieces with pomegranate seeds, plain yogurt, corn or wheat flakes.  Here breakfast was complimented by salted lassi and pineapple juice.  I much more prefer sweet lassi, but we’ll talk about that a little later on in a future post…

But these are very typical breakfasts… you might be thinking.   But this was not all I ate each morning… this was just the starter complimented also by one of two Indian versions of breakfast too.  Indians do not limit their curry and savory food intake from lunch on.  They have their savory and spicy foods right after they open their eyes.  Even though we stayed in Northern India, we got to taste the breakfast preferences of both North and South India.

NORTH INDIA

When we were in Delhi, I was intrigued by what my table neighbor was eating.  I saw this puffed up bread and I immediately was curious.  It is called chole bhature and it is fried bread made from either maida flour (very-fine wheat flour) or rice flour.  I had them both and you can barely notice a difference.  You eat this fried, puffy bread with curried chickpeas and spicy/sweet mango chutney.  The yogurt on my regular breakfast plate helped to cool my mouth because of the spices for the chickpeas and chutney. 

Our servers at the hotel restaurant were so impressed with our interest in their local food, after I ordered just out of curiosity, that they would bring a service of this chole bhature without us having to order it.

Not what I normally crave for breakfast, but certainly interesting enough to enjoy it while in India…  and I am all to have the most out of my travel experiences.

SOUTH INDIA

After an overnight train experience that left a lot to be desired, we arrived in Agra at 9:30AM and we were HUNGRY for breakfast.  The buffet spread was exactly what we needed.  That’s where we learned about Dosas.

Dosas are the typical South India version of breakfast… it’s a rice flour crepe filled with a curried-potato mixture.  They’re made to order and you enjoy them with a coconut or tomato chutneys.  And you know me, I am a crepe fanatic.

The potato mixture is spicy, but the chutneys were way spicier for my taste.  So after tasting them initially, I kept on eating without the accompaniments.  Salted lassi helped ease the spice level on the tongue.  They were so good, we had dosas every morning we had breakfast in Agra.

I hope this encourages you to try out these Indian favorites the next time you travel to India or visit an Indian restaurant in your neighborhood.  Tasting the local flavors is an integral part of getting to know a new country/culture.  It’s what separates the travelers from the tourists… don’t you think?

I have barely set foot in my house these last few months… you have “witnessed” from my posts from Mexico (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) to my whole series on Paris from a vegetarian perspective.  Right after returning from Paris, I went for a week to Miami to visit my family and to take care of some business at the same time…

I’ve been sooooooo many times to Miami that I never do any of the touristy stuff…  I rent a car and do regular stuff with my family and go through a list of places to go and things to do, usually shopping and eating at places not available in Puerto Rico. 

CRACKER BARREL

My sister took me the first time to a Cracker Barrel when she was living in Texas.  I looooooove breakfast foods.  I could eat breakfast foods at any time of the day every day.  Cracker Barrel is a restaurant that serves breakfast foods all day long. 

Every time I go to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale I make it a point to grab breakfast at least once there.  My mom, sister and brother-in-law are also fans.  We always order the same: Buttermilk pancakes, pecan pancakes, and our favorite Hash Brown Casserole.  This is a cheesy potato dish we ALL love… we may share in the pancakes, but we all order a personal serving of hash browns.  It’s that good…

CHICHARRITAS DE PLÁTANO

I already talked to you about Chicharritas de Plátano… also called mariquitas or as we call them in Puerto Rico, platanutres.  But I wanted to show you how they serve them at the restaurants in Miami.  You will find them usually in the appetizer section, although my aunt usually considers them as a side dish or a snack.

The best thing about ordering them in a restaurant… the garlic/lemon mojito they’re served with.  I used to go to this restaurant in Hialeah called Las Delicias, especially because they make their chicharritas super thin, but also because they served the mojito already on top the chicharritas.  Now, they serve the mojito on the side.  Oh well, it’s not the same thing but it’s still good…           

WHOLE FOODS                                                                                            

Every time I visit Miami, my mom and I need to make a pit stop at Whole Foods.  We wish we had one in Puerto Rico…  we usually buy stuff we have no access to here and to bring some treats to my sister’s house. 

This time around my mom was craving a cheese she used to buy at Costco with cranberries inside… the closest thing I could find at the cheese counter was this goat cheese covered with almonds, walnuts and cranberries – excellent.  I also bought a small piece of gruyere to snack with these whole grain water crackers.  This was the first time my brother-in-law tasted gruyere… he liked it.

SHOP @ TARGET

We do not have Target stores in Puerto Rico YET (I hope the operative word in that statement is the YET). So every time I travel to where there’s a Target, we usually stop to at least walk the store.  We usually like to go by the house wares department to check out the kitchen and bath stuff and the FOOD/Supermarket section to buy my favorite risotto mixtures.  A new addition to my shopping cart – couscous mixes.  Really good when you’re hungry right NOW…

EATING PIZZA @ LINCOLN ROAD

I love eating pizza and in Lincoln Road there’s a pizzeria that makes pizza on whole wheat crust any time of day – Pizza Rustica.  In Puerto Rico, whole wheat crusts are not very common and the place we go to, only makes pizza on Friday nights.  So it’s a real treat for us to eat pizza for lunch when we travel.

We ordered a whole pie divided into 2 flavors – Margherita (with fresh tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil leaves) and a roasted eggplant and goat cheese varieties.

The pizza was delicious… but what surprised me the most was that 1) I could find Orangina on the menu 2) and that it was double the size as the ones I had had in Paris and at half the price.  I paid 5€ (which is about $7USD) for a 8ox Orangina at the Deux Maggots in Paris.  I know Lincoln Road is not Paris, but the difference was astounding…

I have already shared with you my basic recipe for SOFRITO 101 here.  It’s a basis of flavor for most recipes I make… including onions, peppers and garlic.  However, there might be some variations.

You could also add into the mix some AJÍ DULCES… these are local sweet peppers.  These are grown by my aunt in her backyard.  Very similar to these are AJÍ PICANTES, or spicy little peppers.  As soon as I learn their names in English, I will share with you.

Ají Dulces give an interesting dimension to your Sofrito… plus, some color when they turn red.  They’re not as sweet as a bell pepper, but they’re not spicy like a jalapeno or Serrano chile.  It’s something in between, but really nice.

 I personally am allergic to the heat of the spicy ones.  And sometimes when you buy them in the store you need to be careful because they might mix the sweet and the spicy kind.  That’s why I only use the ones from my aunt’s backyard.  Because if I ever touch the seeds of the spicy ones my hands are burning for days.

Add some Aji Dulces to your sofrito next time… and if you ever get bitten by the sting of an ají picante, just dunk your hands in tequila… a trick I learned the hard way.

I have a sweet tooth… and for Halloween all I was craving were there lollipops from Yummy Earth.

I tasted them first when my mom received them as a gift for her birthday.  They are not easy to find here in Puerto Rico, but you can indeed find them.  They’re not only delicious, but they’re also ORGANIC.

The bag comes in 4 flavor varieties…  my favorite are Pomegranate Pucker and Mango Tango.

 Try them soon and let me know what you and your kids think, OK?

I am very fortunate to have friends living all over the world… my friend Clari is in Turkey, Sonia just moved back from Barcelona, Rocío thought a move to Australia was a good thing but came halfway around and is now living in Madrid, Mara was in Lima until last month but now is in Chicago, Jesiel is in NYC and wants to move to Paris…  But our friend Nicole is already living there… in Paris now for a year.

Nicole moved when her husband was transferred from PR back to Paris.  We were friends from the Alliance Française and she is part of the original Les Francophones group.  She was super excited when we told her we would be visiting Paris this September. 

As soon as we arrived, she and her husband Martin wanted to invite us for breakfast and to visit them at their home.  We agreed to meet for breakfast early so we could catch-up on or comings and goings and then continue with our sight-seeing.   I love hanging out with them because Martin speaks French beautifully and always lets us know when we are saying something we shouldn’t. 

This particular morning we learned how the French eat their breakfast – le petit dejeuner.    And the key word here is PETIT.  The French merely eat tartines, which are toasted baguette, or a croissant with butter or confiture.  They drink their café crème or café au lait and on their way they are.  The omelets or other egg concoctions you see on the menus is for the tourists… not the locals.  They eat them, but at other times of the day, not for breakfast.  Being the tourist that I was, that morning Martin ordered for us croissants and jus d’orange.  But I was left empty… I had to order a tartine to at least feel I had had breakfast, especially when on vacation that my appetite opens up exponentially.

After having had the tartine breakfast for a few days in a row, we needed a change… and we had seen a Le Pain Quotidien near our apartment.  I have mentioned Le Pain Quotidien to you on my last trip to NYC.  Their oatmeal is AMAZING and Annie Mariel and I were craving something warm and different.  To our surprise, Le Pain Quotidien in Paris, or at least this one we came to, does not serve oatmeal.  People would just never order it, and as a result, they took it off the menu.  So what did we order???  Bread and Croissants, AGAIN!!!   At least this time, the bread was whole-grain. We just could not eat the whole basket, so we took the leftovers to our picnic at the Tour Eiffel.  And the juices were freshly squeezed – orange and guess what the red one is made of…  vegetables!!!   Tasted just like a V8, but looked more like beet juice.

 Later on in the week, Nicole and Martin invited us to dinner at their Parisian apartment in the 20^th arrondissement. 

Knowing we are vegetarians, they treated us to a nice variety of goodies:  puffed pastry filled with cheese, guacamole with tortilla and potato chips, as well as apple and cheese skewers for appetizers.  Dinner was a cucumber and yogurt salad, cheese and veggie quiche-like tart and a tomato and goat cheese tart.  For dessert, we had fruits, cheese, bread  and fruit tarts.  Delicious… it was a much appreciated effort knowing they are not vegetarians and they bended-themselves backwards to accommodate us. 

The evening was really lovely… plus hanging out with Nicole, Martin and their daughter we got to speak in all three languages simultaneously – English, Spanish and French…  Merci beaucoup!!!

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.