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Lasagna Latina: Tortillas, Beans, and Shredded Chicken

The start of the semester for me and kindergarten for Leandro has me in a tizzy.

One month in, the days seem never-ending and yet never long enough. I am up at 5:30 a.m. every day. Eighteen hours later, I still find myself vertical, eyes open, preparing food, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom (!), folding clothes, laying out everything for the morning in a semi-headachy fog, wrinkling my nose and wondering, in the words of David Byrne, “How Did I Get Here?”

Scenes from the Farm

So when — oh s**t! — the Restoration Farm End-of-Summer-Potluck came roaring up, I was sort of astonished, and not a little dismayed. Continue reading →

Tags: buffet dishes, chicken, cooking, easy black beans, food, Lasagna, lasana, Mexican lasagne, party foods, Puerto Rican, recipes, Restoration Farm

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Comida Criolla, CSA, farming, Food, Picnic, Puerto Rican, Recipes, Spanish, Super Bowl

Zucchini Fritters, with Manchego, Rosemary, and Thyme

1 Oct

What am I gonna do with this!?! Basta, ya! As enormous bats of zucchini continue to be a big part of our C.S.A. pick-up this summer-into-fall, we start to get desperate for different ways to prepare them. I generally grate them into salads (I dislike raw zucchini, but grated into a salad makes it much more texturally appealing for me!), my dad grills them with just a bit of oil, or we roast them.

Grated zucchini

As much as I adore absolute simplicity in food — from both a preparation and a consumption standpoint — enough is enough. One does need to mix it up a bit, and try new techniques, too. So it was time to be inspired by a recipe for zucchini fritters I saw recently at Emmy Cooks, and another one for zucchini latkes at Deborah Rivera Pittorino’s chef’s blog, Seasoned Fork (full disclosure – you will find book reviews I have written there; The Big Oyster is my favorite). Both recipes seemed simple enough, a lovely change for us over here, and as they are pan-fried, I thought I was in with a chance at getting Leandro to try veggies this way. Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, courgettes, easy recipes, food, latkes, savory pancakes, summer squash, vegetarian, what to do with zucchini, zucchini fritters

Comments 25 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening, lunch, Picnic, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetarian

Roasted Green Beans (Salvaging and Sweetening When Less than Farm Fresh)

27 Sep

We’ve had piles of green beans this season, both from Restoration Farm and from our own little beds. This means that sometimes they stay in the fridge longer than we meant them too.

Then, when the season is over, we’ll probably buy from the supermarket (ssshhhhhh – not particularly seasonally virtuous, but I am working on it) and they won’t have that snappy-sweet farm freshness that we have become used to in late summer. But now I have a new way to make them taste much, much better. Continue reading →

Tags: caramelizing beans, cooking, food, green bean recipes, haricots, improving supermarket vegetables, recipes, roasted green beans, simple food, summer food, vegetarian

Comments 3 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening, Recipes, salad, Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetarian

Easy Stir-Fried Rice (with the secrets for tasty, good-looking egg bits!)

25 Sep

I have always loved stir-fried rice, but as I’ve gotten older, I am less and less satisfied with the greasy stuff at the Chinese takeaway. And as I’ve gotten older, I cook more meals and therefore have more bits and bobs laying around getting ugly in the fridge. You know, half an onion here, a bit of cold rice there, some veggie bits that aren’t quite enough for one serving on their own, but make a pretty good pile if thrown together. And I always have eggs.

Just pour the lightly beaten egg in and leave it cook on medium.

Stir-fry, therefore, is perfect. It uses everything up (virtue), fulfills my veggie quota (more virtue), and gives us a vacation from my usual seasonings to go more Asian (variety). And now that I know the easy secret of how to get the egg bits looking and tasting great, well I think I am positively gourmet. It’s already vegetarian; vegans can skip the eggs and pan-sear super-firm tofu instead. Continue reading →

Tags: Asian recipes, cooking, easy Chinese, eggs, food, recipes, rice, stir-fry, using leftovers for stir fry, vegetable fried rice, what to do with leftover rice

Comments 15 Comments
Categories Asian, Chinese, eggs, Food, Recipes, Side Dishes, Stir-Fry, Vegan, Vegetarian

Arroz con pollo clásico (Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice, traditional and epic)

21 Sep

Finally!

Piled high in a platter and garnished with roasted red pepper and peas, this is a Puerto Rican classic!

Puerto Rican food is not as widely known as some other Caribbean cuisines (think Cuba and Jamaica), but when it comes to arroz con pollo — chicken and rice — you know what I am talking about. And I know I should have blogged this one for you a long time ago. Here, finally, is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Continue reading →

Tags: arroz con pollo tradicional, comida criolla, cooking, food, Puerto Rican recipes, recetas, recipes, Spanish cooking, traditional Latin chicken and rice

Comments 17 Comments
Categories Chicken, Comida Criolla, Food, Puerto Rican, Recipes, Spanish

Party Snacks: Spanish-Style Tortilla (omelette) with leeks, potatoes, and peas

18 Sep

You say party, I say tortilla. I have loved Spanish tortillas since I tried them on my first trip to Spain a million years ago and have been making them just about as long.

Let us be clear. I am not talking about the bread-like Mexican tortillas that are used for wrapping burritos and quesadillas. I am now talking about Spain, where tortilla means a stove top egg cake, a thick omelette, a frittata. Many are vegetarian (and many are not). All of them allow you to play with ingredients!

Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, food, leeks, potatoes, recipes, small dishes of Spain, Spain, tortilla

Comments 11 Comments
Categories CSA, eggs, Food, lunch, Party Snacks, Recipes, Spanish, Tapas, Vegan, Vegetarian

Party Snacks: Tapenade (Black Olive Spread)

16 Sep

This is one spread that makes no excuses. It has full-on, big-ass, unapologetic, salty flavor: black olives, capers, anchovies…This is for your friends who really enjoy robust and lusty food and who will slather spreads generously and lavishly. It is not subtle, so don’t waste these party snacks on the tea and crumpet crowd.

Continue reading →

Tags: anchovies, capers, cooking, dips, easy party recipes, food, jewelry party snacks, olive spread, party spreads, recipes, tapenade

Comments 17 Comments
Categories Food, Italian, Party Snacks, Recipes, Side Dishes, Tapas, Uncategorized

Basic Home-Made Tomato Puree (freezeable!)

13 Sep

I have just done a listening exercise with my ESL students on The Marshmallow Test … a 1960s experiment that offered four-year-olds one marshmallow off the bat, but an additional marshmallow if they could just wait alone in a room for 15 minutes with that first marshmallow and not eat it.

Plunged into ice water and ready for processing into tomato sauce

Astonishingly the findings over time showed that kids who could delay gratification for longer times at four, were likely to be more successful socially, educationally and professionally when they grew up than the kids who couldn’t wait and sucked that first marshmallow down as soon as they were alone with it.

Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, easy preserving, food, freezing produce, home-made puree, no-cook preserving, recipes, summer recipes, The Marshmallow Test, tomato puree, tomato sauce

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Food, gardening, Italian, Preserving, sauce, Uncategorized, Vegan, Vegetarian

Back-to-School Freezer Fillers 3: Pollo Guisado (Stewed Chicken)

9 Sep

Pollo Guisado is one of those abuela (grandmother) dishes that Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-Caribbean folks grow up on. It is uncomplicated, but rich in flavor.

Yes, there is both wine and beer in it; that is not an error in the recipe! This is a modified and milder version of the classic Pollo Guisado which I have posted before (which uses flavorful chicken thighs rather than mild breast, and twice the beer). Very kid-friendly, it is best served with rice. It looks and tastes impressive, but is a cinch to make and is mostly hands-off.

Continue reading →

Tags: back to school recipes, comida criolla, cooking, Easy chicken dishes, food, freezeable, kid-friendly recipes, lunchbox ideas, Puerto Rican chicken stew, recipes

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Comida Criolla, Food, lunch, Puerto Rican, Recipes, Spanish, Uncategorized

Green Tomato and Tomatillo Bisque (Life-Goes-On-Lessons from the Garden)

4 Sep

I got my first inkling of disaster from the Blogosphere.

The fabulous Karen of Backroad Journal chronicled her battle with late blight in a recent post about her tomatoes. I gasped. In my myopic focus on avoiding the blossom end rot that plagued my tomatoes last year – a result of uneven watering while we were gallivanting about the island keeping the boy on the hop and too busy/tired to cause trouble — I had neglected to consider the possibility of late blight. After all, wasn’t that all done with in the catastrophic 2009 season? (It should have been done with after the Irish Potato Famine of 1845, but apparently not). Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, food, green tomato bisque, green tomatoes, late blight, recipes, soup, tomatillos, vegetarian

Comments 14 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening, Recipes, soup, Uncategorized, Vegan, Vegetarian

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¡Comida Hispana! Recipes to unleash your inner Latino

Mango Mojitos With Ancho Chili Salt

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 […]
Passionfruit Mojitos by the Pitcher or Glass

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 […]
KID IN THE KITCHEN: Tembleque (Tropical Coconut Pudding)

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 […]
Sangría Tropical (and rainforest paradise pictures)

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 […]
Salmorejo de jueyes (Land Crab Stew)

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 […]