Adriana and I love to cook together, but this time she gets sole credit for this intoxicating Moroccan Spice Rub and the juicy roast she marinaded it with.
Pork Roast with Moroccan Spice Rub
From the moment she waved the deep brick brown paste under my nose when Leandro and I arrived at her home for a sleepover, I was hooked and dabbing the sides of my mouth. And not because it looked a lot like hashish, because of course I do not know what a hunk of hashish looks like, do I? Continue reading
I had a butternut squash from way back in the fall and a desire for real arroz con habichuelas (Puerto Rican pink beans and rice), which may seem not to have anything to do with butternut squash soup, but after I boiled the squash, I realized I had about twice as much as I needed!
Waste not want not is my motto (as much by necessity as by design), so I thought it would be nice to simmer up a warm soup.
A bit of home-made sofrito (substitutes included in recipe!)
Thus, this ever so simple butternut squash soup, vegan (unless you swirl in some yogurt or sour cream at the end), and rich without being fatty. I used some sofrito I made the other day, but give instructions for store-bought or home-made substitutes.
squash and seasonings simmering
Easy Butternut Squash Soup
2 Cups butternut squash, peeled and boiled until soft in vegetable broth. RESERVE broth
1 tsp olive oil
2 Tbs sofrito (homemade or Goya. May be substituted with a tablespoon of finely minced onion and a tablespoon of finely minced green cooking pepper like cubanelle, in which case you need to saute a bit longer until tender)
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp mild curry powder
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp salt
Fresh cracked black pepper
(dab of pesto, hot sauce or –if you aren’t vegan – yogurt or sour cream to finish, optional)
In a medium soup pot, heat oil at high until fragrant. Lower to medium, add sofrito and garlic and sauté until fragrant and getting dry. Add curry powder and cumin and toast until slightly fragrant. Add broth and squash, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes until very, very soft. Use an immersion blender or food processor or blender to liquefy. Season to taste and serve with optional toppings.
Arroz con habichuelas (click for basic recipe!)
Or click for another MORE basic recipe!
Let’s face it, if you are eating a salad (again) and your son is across the table chowing down on spinach and cheese ravioli coated in real parmigiano and a schmutz of butter…you are secretly hoping he doesn’t finish so you can have just a little, just a taste…
Marinating in oil and lemon
So I am very much looking for more dishes we can eat together and that don’t tempt me into carbohydrate sin while I am trying to work on those troglodytes, I mean, triglycerides that my doctor says I need to reduce. And really, I want to reduce the number of dishes I prepare and have to wash up after! Continue reading
As we get into the planting season, several people have asked me where I get my seeds. The answer is, from several sources (not all organic, as it happens, with my Puerto Rican herbs and peppers): the local garden supply stores like Hicks or Starkie Brothers, giveaways at foodie events, friends who send, seeds I’ve saved from our own garden or from the C.S.A. box.
Click on the radishes for Botanical Interests.
Click here for High Mowing Seeds. Click here for Johnny’s Seeds.
So, I’m putting it out there…what are your most reliable and/or beloved seed sources and why? Please click on Comments at the bottom of the post to add your spoonful of wisdom.
And the poll (which refuses to be centered!)
While I work on other posts that help you make real food, please take a few minutes (it is long, but riveting) to read this New York Times article how the junk food industry formulates their products! Illuminating, scary, weird science, indeed! Just click on the header, or the picture and you should get there.
It’s a sad irony that I finally have perfected Latin white rice (thanks to my dad’s technique) and the doctor tells me that I have to reduce carbs for my triglycerides or somesuch! Terrible.
But Leandro received no such warning, so he gets to enjoy my now fantastic rice with any number of dishes.
Here’s franks and beans with an ever-so-slightly Latin flavor. Goya’s Latin-style tomato sauce and cilantro and culantro put a little spring in the step of this easy, kid-friendly dish. My parents used to make us something similar when we were kids, so it was fun to try and recreate them. They have very little in common with the sweet gooey canned Franks and Beans you find. This are actually grown-up worthy too!
Beans and Franks
I use Applegate Farms Organic Beef Hotdogs. I prefer organic meats as a rule. These also don’t use synthetic nitrites, but it isn’t clear from what I have read that natural nitrites are any better than synthetic. They are more expensive than your standard supermarket dogs, but I feel that they are worth it.
Leandro loves these, and they reheat very well for his lunch thermos the next day. (In the morning, when I am boiling water for tea, I boil extra to pour in the Thermos to warm it up. Then I dump the water, put in the hot food, and it is still warm a few hours later for his lunch ).
Frankenbeanie!
Frankenbeans
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
½ Cup onion, minced
1 tsp garlic, chopped
3 hot dogs, sliced into ½ inch rounds
1 Tbs fresh cilantro chopped
1 tsp fresh culantro (recao; sawtooth coriander) or other green herb of your choice, chopped, optional
8 oz can Goya Latin Style Tomato Sauce
2 pinches salt
2 pinches hot red pepper flakes
½ tsp ketchup
1 Cup pink beans (soaked or from a can)
In a large skillet, heat oil on medium high and add onions, Stir to coat, lower heat, and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add garlic and cook an additional minute or two, until the house smells good and the vegetables are wilted. Add hot dogs and stir, then add cilantro and culantro or other herbs. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then add tomato sauce, salt, red pepper, and ketchup to taste. Add beans. You will probably want to add about ¼ Cup water to thin. Simmer for 10 minutes r more and serve with Latin-style white rice.
I really don’t want to have to get involved. I don’t want to be That Mom. I leave others to let their kids eat the cafeteria food (uncrustables, whatever they are; tacos; chicken nuggets; whatever) and kill myself to make sure my kid gets home-cooked food or whole-grain/natural/unprocessed/organic three meals a day. Most of the time.
Read the label…what? You can’t understand it? Me neither. That’s why I don’t buy it!
On occasion, he has sweets (a lot of them we bake together), we hit Friendly’s, or All-American Burger. He has pizza once a week. At least!
I know I am something of a maniac, but I am not unreasonable. And I know people don’t always want to hear it, so I mind my own business, blog, and feed my kid my way. As a single parent who works full time, I don’t have time to try to change school policy, and I don’t have the energy to give a rat’s ass if everyone else wants to stuff their kid with junk. I am tired enough already.
Another view. I am sputtering in disbelief.
But the garbage my son came home with in his backpack today has me bouncing off the bloody walls in a sugar rush of the enraged kind. Continue reading
Been waiting so long to do it that I almost ran out of real New York Maple Syrup to do it with (Sugar Brook Maple Farms, Kerhonkson, NY)!
Maple Snow
But a few scoops of fresh snow(center cut) and some drizzles of maple syrup later, Leandro and the neighbors had real ices, Little House on the Prairie style…or in more modern parlance Maple Nemo Sno-Cones…..
Are postal workers wishing that no-delivery Saturdays had started now, rather than August?
Stay warm and cozy folks.
My intentions were good. But the road I am on took a turn that was paved completely with…Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I was supposed to take Leandro and his buddy, Scott, to the gym with me for their regular weekly play date, where they could scramble in the habitrail (like McDonald’s Play Places without the Happy Meals), watch movies, draw, or just run like the demented maniacs they are after a day cooped up in school. Meanwhile I would do a virtuous hour on the treadmill, go home and make dinner.
It started so innocently…making trail mix!
But between one thing and another, we did not go. I attempted to recuperate from said setback by having the boys make their own trail mix for snack. Craisins, walnuts, sunflower seeds and…semi-sweet chocolate chips. Just enough virtue. But mischief was lurking… Continue reading
Chorizo on toast
If you are getting ready for a Super Bowl party, I’ve got some styling, kickin’ tapas ideas for you! Just click on the picture for the recipe…they are all pretty easy (with the exception of the tortillas, which require a bit of derring-do, but are well worth it). They are also portable! Have a great Game Day…I’ll be back with more ideas soon!
¡Ole! ¡Fantástico!
Mussels vinaigrette (make em the night before)
Tortilla Torcal
Great food - Simply
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It was another summer Friday in the neighborhood and that called for another festive cocktail. Riding high on the success of last session’s passionfruit mojitos, I decided to make mango mojitos. The drink itself followed much the same construction, but the mango was decidedly sweeter than the passionfruit, so I decided that it needed a […]
Summer evenings in the neighborhood can be wonderful. Occasionally on a Friday some of us neighbors bring out folding chairs and sit together in one front yard for a bit of happy hour while the kids go mental on someone else’s lawn. It’s pretty much BYO, but we do mix up a pitcher of experimental […]
We spent the better part of last summer in Puerto Rico, and among the tasty things that my little guy fell in love with was tembleque, a jiggly (temblar means to tremble) dessert that falls somewhere between pudding and flan. I promised him we’d make it back in New York, and this weekend, for a […]
When the heat gets tropical, so should the drinks. On a recent trip to the mountains of Puerto Rico, I was inspired by a wonderfully cooling and exotic sangría I had up around and about El Yumque (Caribbean National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service system) at Noelia’s, recommended to us […]
There are a number of land crab species skittering about Caribbean coastlines. Some are edible and the one we eat most here in Puerto Rico (although I am told they mostly are imported from Venezuela these days) is Cardisoma guanhumi which we call juey and — if you are English-speaking — you might call the […]
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