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Chayote Salad (Ensalada de Chayote)

2 Jan

After some of the excesses of the holidays (and believe me when I say excesses), I decided that a cool, crisp, low-cal, high-fiber, generally good-for-you salad would be just the tonic. However, me being me, I wanted to go a different direction from just a serviceable green salad.

Enter the chayote (Sechium edule — you may know it as christophene if you are French, or alligator pear if you are not). It is a fruit that is used as a vegetable, can be eaten raw or cooked and has many, many uses.

My chayote salad is one of the simpler ways to love it (and at just 11 calories per half cup for chayot, pre-dressing, you will very much love it). The whole thing is reputed to be edible, skin and all, but I do not care for the skin, so I peel it. I do love the seeds (my family has no idea they are edible because I eat them surreptitiously before they ever get to the table!); try them and see what you think!

Look for firm fruit – they may be minty green or white – both are great!

Ensalada de Chayote (Chayote Salad)

Serves four as a side salad

4 Cups water (enough to cover chayotes in a pot)

¼ tsp salt

2 chayotes (firm), rinsed and sliced in half or quarters lengthwise

4 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp cilantro leaves, chopped fine (optional)

¼ red onion, sliced thin

1 tsp roasted red pepper, diced

1-2 tsp capers

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Boil water and add salt. Add chayotes, return to the boil and cook for 15-20, until they slide off easily when pierced with a knife.  Allow chayotes to cool.

In the meantime, whisk olive oil and vinegar in a bowl until blended. Whisk in cilantro leaves. Stir in red pepper and set aside.

 Peel cooled chayote with a paring knife (it will come off in sheets if you use the knife to pull the peel off). Chop into rustic chunks. You may eat the seeds right then (which is what I do! Don’t tell) or chop them up and add to salad.

In a bowl, mix all ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve. Makes a great side salad for four.

 

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Tostones: Puerto Rican French Fries – Made of Plantains!

8 Dec
If you have ever eyed those oversized, overthick, green banana-looking things in the supermarket and wondered what people do with them, this is your great revelatory moment.

Pre-soaking in salted, garlicky water

Those things are plantains – Musa paradisiaca – a kind of banana we in the Caribbean use to make all manner of delicious, stodgy things, preferably plunged into hot fat and heavily salted. Plantains originated in SouthEast Asia or the Near East or thereabouts and came over with colonialism. They flourish in the tropics and are now integral to the Caribbean culinary canon.

Fry and smash

Tostones – called patacones in other parts of Latin America – are disks that – much like French fries – are sliced and fried twice -once to cook through and the second time to crisp. As the holidays approach and I feel more and more festive, I am saying “Calories be damned, I need some of those!” So I’ve been making tostones for dinner. Yes, the whole meal. And we are all loving it.

Assembly line: note beautiful Pipo Grajales-made tostonera in background

My son dips them in ketchup, my favorite Dominican restaurant serves them with a garlic mojo sauce, and Puerto Ricans like them dipped in mayo-ketchup, a quick stir of mayonnaise and ketchup (that Kraft actually markets on the island!). These days I just sprinkle salt on them; some folk like garlic salt or powdered garlic. Years ago my friend, Chef Patricia Wilson pioneered serving them topped with sour cream and caviar at noted Old San Juan restaurant Amadeus…with a flute of dry sparkling they dress up real nice. You can dip them in hot soup too…mmmmm.

So give tostones a try; the first soak in water is critical; the second one less so, but it doesn’t really add much time to the procedure and it does add flavor and texture, so why not?

 Tostones (Fried green plantains, serves four as a meal, 6-8 as a side)

(Note: you will need two boards or two plates to smush the disks between rounds in the frying pan)

5 green plantains*

3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

4 Cups water

2 tsp salt

¾ – 1 Cup vegetable oil (for frying, enough oil to be about ½ inch deep in your chosen frying pot or pan)

Preparing the plantains:  Slice both tips off. With a knife, make lengthwise slits through the peel on two sides. Try not to pierce the flesh too much. Peel the thick skin off.

Stir garlic, water and salt in a bowl. Slice the plantains into ½ inch chunks, on the bias, and place slices in bowl of salted water. Soak for 15 minutes to one hour. Drain on paper towel.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot or pan.  When the oil is shimmering, add as many plantain slices as will fit comfortably. Fry until golden (really golden – not just beige) turning with tongs.

This is where you begin to make an assembly line. Be ready with a couple of plates covered in paper towels for absorbing oil.

Remove and lay the first set on paper towels and place the next round in the hot oil. While the second set is frying, take the first set (the one you’ve already fried) and squash fairly flat in a tostonera, if you’ve got, or between two plates. Dip in the salted water and lay back on the paper towels. You may have another raw set to go (it depends on the size of your fry pot).  Follow the same pattern until all plantain disks are pre-fried until golden, squashed flat, and dipped. Then start returning plantain disks for the final fry to crisp them up. Remove when beginning to brown and lay on clean paper towels until cool enough to eat.

*Look for firm, green, thick skins. As they yellow, they become sweeter and have other uses…

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Classic Spanish-Caribbean Black Beans (Frijoles Negros) and Perfect White Rice

4 Dec

I have a four-year-old boy, so you know that toilet humor reigns supreme around here. I don’t particularly like all the burp and fart and poop talk, but I am a pragmatic woman; I try to make my reality work for me and try not to dwell on the way things “should” be.

So, what passes for classic poetry in my house starts out, “Beans, beans, good for your heart…” and you probably know the rest. I have no problem getting Leandro to eat beans several times a week; what preschooler could resist the lure of stinking out family and friends with such jackhammer potency? It goes much the same for asparagus; I reeled him in with the promise of sulphurous-smelling pee and now it’s one of his favorite (of very few) vegetables.

This is perhaps not the most appetizing of ways to introduce a recipe, but I’ll take my chances that you are interested enough in making fast, easy and healthy black beans that taste just as good as whatever you get in your local Cuban joint to overlook the other factors. Or, if you are a boy of any age, perhaps it is just the intro you need to start incorporating more beans into your diet!

(Note: the more often you eat beans, the better your body processes them, so some of the gassy part dissipates over time. And the low-fat, fiber, protein benefits are incredible. They are also cheap, especially if you soak your own*).

Classic Latin Black Beans (Frijoles Negros)

1 Tbs olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

½ red or green bell or cubanelle – Italian long sweet – pepper (about ¼ Cup), diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

28 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained (4 Cups if using dried*)

½ Cup water (you can add more as needed)

1-2 stock cubes (vegetarian vegetable is fine; I use Knorr chicken)

1 Tbs dry oregano (or 1.5 fresh)

1 tbs cider vinegar (optional)

Heat olive oil in a heavy soup pot at medium high until fragrant. Add onion and peppers and stir to coat. Lower heat and cook until softened, about five minutes. Add garlic, stir to coat and cook another minute. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then cover and lower heat to simmer, about 15 minutes. Serve with white rice (recipe below).

*Soaking dried beans: Rinse a pound of beans (from a store that seems to move a lot of dried beans – one of the problems is that if the beans are old, they will never soften up nicely), soak them in two quarts water overnight. Change the water in the morning and in the evening rinse and change water. Simmer them for two hours and holy legumes, Batman: 1.5 quarts of beans to play with.And talk about cheap: a pound of dried beans costs about the same as a 15.5 oz can of them and you choose how much sodium you want with it.

 

Perfect White Rice (you can halve this recipe if you are not big into carbs)

1 Tbs olive oil

2 Cups long-grain white rice (Sello Rojo, Goya or other Latin brand preferred)

4 Cups water

½ tsp salt

Place olive oil in a medium pot (with a tight lid). Begin heating to high while adding the rice. Stir to coat, Add water and salt. Stir once, then bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and allow water to evaporate until it goes below the surface of the rice and there are a couple of holes in the surface. Turn rice over once with a big spoon. Cover and cook on low another ten minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve.

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Mango Tango Salsa!

16 Nov

It was almost too late for that poor mango, bought in a frenzy of nostalgia for the tree my grandmother planted in her backyard in Mayagüez, a Puerto Rican town celebrated for its delicious, juicy, juicy, sweet, meaty, fiber-free mangos. In June, those suckers drop out of the sky and plop heavily onto the ground where you have to get them before the other critters do. They fall in such quantities that I spent many mornings cutting, slicing, peeling and freezing – you can’t possibly eat them all as they ripen. Friends in San Juan used to love to see me arrive with freezer bags full of Mayagüez mangos; they’d have the blender, booze and ice ready for action before I could even lock my car and get to the front door.

No such welcoming committee for this mango, even after its long journey from Brazil or Mexico or somesuch warm place, after its boring days in a chilly supermarket produce aisle next to a basket of equally foreign avocados, after too many days in the pale fall light of my southern exposure window, defended from attackers by its only company: several very busy spiders and a valiant Venus Flytrap. No, this poor mango was in dire need of attention and accessorizing, as its best days were behind it.

So, Mango Salsa it was, quick and dirty. Good excuse to eat blue corn tortilla chips, which are a weakness of mine (Waterloo to any attempt to get bikini ready) and to further prove that the Spanish love for fruit and cheese is grounded in pure genius and has infinite possibilities. The salsa sweet-tartness and the tortilla crunch just beg to be completed with some salty squeaky cheese – Queso Blanco (the firm kind of Latin white cheese) and Monterey Jack are my choices, but salted mozzarella would likely work also.

So here it is – a one bowl operation, served up in a margarita glass, a neglected mango finally loved up the way it should be.

Mango Tango Salsa

1 cup mango, chopped into small chunks*

1 cup cucumber, peeled, seeded (or not) and chopped into small chunks

3 Tbs red onion, minced

1 Tbs mango-orange juice (or mango or orange)

2 tsp chipotle in adobo paste (spoon it off the chipotles, but don’t include the peppers themselves)

3 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1 pinch salt

Put all ingredients into a small bowl. Mix thoroughly, add seasonings to taste, cover and refrigerate until chilled. Serve with sliced Caribbean white cheese, salted mozzarella or Monterey Jack and tortilla chips.

* To cut up a mango, hold it on its side lengthwise on a cutting board and choose a spot about a third of the way in. You want to slice down on either side of the seed so you have two bowls.  Score the flesh of each bowl like a checkerboard and turn it inside out (we call this a porcupine). Slice off the chunks and dice as needed. Yo can also cut flesh off the seed (or just eat the flesh off the seed yourself- you are the cook after all and deserve the treat!)

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Ahead of the Holidays: Simple Clean and Green Kitchen Tips (from ewg.org)

15 Nov

I sometimes avoid reading suggestions on greening my kitchen — or indeed, my life — because they make it seem like everything I touch, clean or consume is bad for me and my family. The cumulative terror, frustration and exasperation (as well as the time, energy and money suck) is just overwhelming and often results in paralysis rather than action.

Having said that, the Environmental Working Group does have some good suggestions, backed up by research, and spooned out in easily-digested, non-toxic (haha) portions that are not so bad going down.

In honor of the impending holidays (and, apparently, in honor of a new fund-raising deal they have with amazon – brace yourself for some product placement) Environmental Working Group has posted tips for a safer, more environmentally friendly kitchen. It is short, sweet and fairly easily incorporated into your life.

Hope you find them useful!

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Crispy Oven-Fried Sweet Potatoes (new and improved)

12 Nov

If I couldn’t oven-fry sweet potatoes, I probably wouldn’t eat them at all. I find them too sweet, too mushy, too cloying and too dense to fall in love with when they are roasted or baked or steamed or boiled. Argue with me all you want (better yet, send recipes!) but that’s really how I felt about them, until oven fries changed my whole perspective.

Let’s face it, fried foods taste good, no matter what. I mean, how could clams EVER be a kid’s menu item if they weren’t breaded and fried? Leandro won’t even look at them raw, but coat them in crumbs and plunge them in a deep fryer and watch them disappear! Don’t even get me started with French fries…crispy outside, creamy inside, the perfect vehicle for ketchup…Lord have mercy. Fried foods, if not fundamentally good, are fundamentally delicious. Continue reading →

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Halloween Party Snacks for Kids (adaptable to any holiday)

3 Nov

My friends greeted the news with gasps. With disbelief. With wide-eyed incredulity.

Yes, it was true. I actually bought a loaf of sliced white bread last week, smeared it with variations of cream cheese, jelly and butter and served it to my son. I also bought cupcake mix from a box AND, horror of all horrors, two tubs of pre-made icing with all manner of indecipherable ingredients written on the side by the (seriously?) “nutrition” information. I had my reasons. And I have no regrets.

Halloween is Leandro’s favorite, number one, most-anticipated holiday, so we invited a few of his beastie besties for a Halloween get-together on the Sunday afternoon before Halloween. Between goody bag decorating, scavenger hunts, and cupcake decorating, I felt like I had the activities covered, but it was a challenge to make good-looking seasonal stuff that would impress the moms, be attractive to the kids and still fit with my food values.

In the end, I kind of compromised my values, but two out of three…well you know the song…and, thanks to bat, pumpkin and ghost cookie cutters, I felt pretty cool in the end.

The little white bread sandwiches looked very cute once Leandro and I used the cookie cutters on them. And Pam had given me a recipe that became the recipe below: apple party dip with baked tortilla chips — also given the cookie cutter treatment (you can call it overkill, but we had fun and Leandro was totally engaged in the prep).

Pam’s cool serving idea for a spooky “Witch’s Brew”

Pam also made a “witch’s brew” of hot apple cider, cranberry juice and cinnamon – hope to get that recipe soon — and other folks brought even more cupcakes and brownies…Thanks everyone! And I made some devilled eggs (how could you not?) with olive slices and capers for eyeball effect….It was a lot of fun! (P.S. Thanks to my dad, Pedro, for rescuing the pictures from a wormhole in the alternate universe that is my computer)

Apple Pie Party Dip and Tortilla Chips

(this tastes quite like apple pie…without the fuss of crust or lengthy baking)

Dip

2 Cups apples, peeled, cored and diced

1.5 tsp lemon juice

2 heaping tsp light brown sugar

¼ tsp cinnamon

2 generous tsp lingonberry preserves (can be substituted with apricot, blueberry, etc)

Combine all dip ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate until chilled (may be made several hours ahead).

Chips:

5-6 large (8”) burrito-style flour tortillas (fajita-style are too hard for cookie cutters and little hands)

2 Tbs butter, melted

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbs light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Using cookie cutters, cut tortillas into desired shapes, or simply cut into pizza-style slices. Arrange on a lightly greased baking sheet, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cool before serving.

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Adriana’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts (Autumnal Awesome)

24 Oct

If you’ve never seen Brussels sprouts in the fields, you really should try to get a look. Now is the time; they reach their peak in November and December (which is why so many of us have them at our Thanksgiving table) and so may very well be growing at your nearest farm right now. They look like tropical ornamental succulents – a thick stem studded with  green bulbs and topped with lush foliage — and you’d never-ever think of them as something as pedestrian as cabbage. But mini-cabbages are exactly what they are (Brassica oleracea, Gemmifera).

Before cooking (we also did roasted asparagus)

I didn’t like them as a kid – the old sulfurous smelly thing that kids are ever-so sensitive to – but I adore them as an adult. Here at mine we usually do some sort of boil with lemon and such for Turkey Day (more about that in November), but when Adriana told me she was going to roast hers for our recent playdate/sleepover, I got really excited. Adri is a fantastic cook who likes simple but stylish meat and veg and I always learn a lot from her. Like me she is a single mom working full time, so like me, she has had to streamline the production of good meals. That is not a bad thing; it keeps you very focused on the quality of the ingredients, because you don’t have the time nor energy to make up for cruddy produce or take fancy steps.

And since the kids keep each other busy while we are mucking about in the kitchen and having a glass of wine, it is always a fun time.

So, here are Adriana’s oven-roasted Brussels sprouts. They were so easy, so fab, great with steak…you know I’ll be doing these a lot for the next couple of months!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts by Adriana

2 pints Brussels sprouts*, outer leaves removed and halved lengthwise

Liberal grindings of salt and pepper

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

8 sage leaves, cut into narrow ribbons

Leaves from one long sprig of rosemary

Preheat oven to 450°F. Place Brussels sprouts in a single layer in an oven dish (with sides). Sprinkle liberally with the salt and pepper (preferably from a grinder). Toss thoroughly with olive oil and herbs and bake in the oven for about 35 minutes, or until you have nice crispiness on the edges of the sprouts. Serve, finishing with sea salt if desired.

*When buying Brussels sprouts, look for tight bulbs that are bright green and bottom stems that are smooth and clean. In this recipe, any leaves that fall off during cooking tend to get nice and crispy, like chips!

 

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Bits and Bobs Broccoli Pasta (FAST)

9 Oct

My dad took Leandro for a haircut when we got home from the workday– they love to do the man thing at the barber together  — so I dashed off to do some solo grocery shopping which I find heavenly (It is a sad commentary on the state of my life that an unaccompanied trip to the supermarket has replaced dinner and a show on my top-five list of things to do). Then it was off to the farm for pick-up and then I headed home with no time to fuss over dinner, but nothing prepared and a child about to realize – with the suddenness of an improvised explosive device — that he is STARVING.

I did call my dad on the way home to see if he could get water on the boil, which he did! Masha danki, Padushi! (Mark Bittman – the NYTimes Minimalist food writer and one of my heroes — says whenever you get home you should get the water going, so you can throw anything in there, inspired or not). So on the rest of the 15-minute drive home, I did a mental inventory of all the scraps in my fridge and larder that needed using – Multigrain pasta, check. Leftover olive oil from tortillas, check. Unused peeled onion halves from another dish, yup. Too many peppers from the farm, uh-huh. The ever-present broccoli that represents probably 50 percent of Leandro’s vegetable consumption (heavy sigh), right. Dab of tomato paste I didn’t need for the meatloaf…etc. etc.

And by the time I got home, I was good to go and get dinner on the table in about 15 minutes (6-minute pasta was key). You should note that tomato paste is a great thing to add tomato tang and depth. I guess it is thanks to its concentration that it releases its flavors with just a bit of sauteing (unlike purees or whole peeled tomatoes, which much be cooked for a while to get really good). That’s a criollo trick I learned in Puerto Rico!

In this recent version, I used two tablespoons of the reserved olive oil that I had used to saute the onions and potatoes for a recent tortilla, which adds a nice flavor, but you can just use extra virgin olive oil as stated in the recipe.

Not only did this work for Leandro’s evening meal, but he asked for the leftovers for lunch the following day and I was very happy to oblige. You can see the lunch he took to school here!

Typical Leandro lunch: pasta, yogurt and mini-muffins for dipping

Bang Together Bits and Bobs Broccoli Pasta (makes two kid servings)

6 oz whole grain medium pasta shells(about half a 13.5 oz box)

A handful of broccoli florets separated into forkfuls (and peeled and chopped stems, if you like)

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

½ onion, peeled and chopped fine (about ¼-1/2 Cup)

½ green pepper (Cubanelle, sweet or bell are fine), chopped fine

1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped

1 Tbs tomato paste

2 tsp chopped herbs of your choice (basil, oregano, thyme, culantro; halve for dried herbs)

Grated cheese (such as Parmigiano Reggiano or Gran Padano) or nutritional yeast (optional)

Prepare pasta according to package directions in a medium to large pot, adding the broccoli 3-4 minutes before the boiling is finished. Drain, reserving ½ Cup cooking liquid.

Let the same pot dry over the burner, add the olive oil and heat at medium high until loose and fragrant. Add the onion and green pepper and stir to coat. Add garlic and lower heat to medium and cook for a minute. Add tomato paste and herbs and stir around until fully incorporated. Add the pasta and mix thoroughly (if you find it too dry, add tablespoons of the reserved cooking liquid). Add cheese and serve.

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Quickie Criollo Tomato and Avocado Salad (great side for spicy, salty or otherwise highly seasoned food)

3 Oct

A go-to side for spicy creole cooking!

This is a super-quick, healthy side dish that we use in the Caribbean to accompany really salty stuff, like bacalao (salt cod) dishes, or to cool the palate between bites of something spicy. It goes wonderfully with creole soups, or as the lightest, yet most satisfying of dinners when you don’t want to fuss (A hard-boiled egg or a scoop of tuna would be a fine protein accompaniment). The colors and slices lend themselves to festive; this dish looks like a party, even if it’s just a party of one.
We had it tonight with a mini-tortilla española (potato and egg stovetop frittata) I made while doing a bigger sized one for our Restoration Farm potluck on Sunday, green salad and some string beans blanched and then sauteed with garlic and oil (and a bit of bacon fat, truth be told).



Quickie Tomato and Avocado Salad

1 ripe avocado (responds to pressure, but isn’t totally mushy*), sliced into eight wedges and peeled

1 ripe tomato, cut into eight wedges

¼ red onion, peeled and sliced thinly, lengthwise

Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

Salt for sprinkling

Freshly cracked pepper, if desired

Arrange avocado and tomato wedges on a small plate, alternating

Scatter red onion on top. Drizzle olive oil as desired.

Sprinkle salt and optional black pepper and serve cold

*Buying avocado is not easy, I know! Lately I have had a 50-50 record of success with the little black Hass ones, despite my years of practice. I don’t know what’s up with that, but the general rule is to buy it hard and stick it in a paper bag — with an apple, if you’ve got — for a couple of days. If you are buying an avocado for the very same day, look for something that yields to pressure, but doesn’t totally mush. If it is ripe but you are not ready to use it, it will keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

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