Tag Archives: food

Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Caliente – Sweet Memories

1 Feb

For my six-year-old, it was all about the creamy, sweet, warm yumminess of some homemade hot chocolate. For me, it was all about channeling my grandmother.

2014-01-30 04.21.40 chocolateWhen I was a kid and my grandmother was still alive, my brother and I would spend part of our summers in Puerto Rico with her in her breezy 10th floor apartment in metropolitan San Juan.

Why we would need hot chocolate during the summer in a place which rarely dips below 80°F is an abuela’s own private mystery, but it may be a legacy of the Spanish colonial days when liquid chocolate – a New World treasure — would have been a favorite beverage. Chocolate is a huge part of Latin American history; cacao was born in South America and for more on that you need Maricel Presilla’s The New Taste of Chocolate.

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All I know is I have delicious memories of the lovely Old World style package of Chocolate Cortés, a big bar of dusty brown chocolate, and my grandmother breaking off sections and dropping them into a bit of milk. I can still hear the metal spoon swirling against the metal pot as she melted the chunks of chocolate in a bit of milk until it was a thick syrup, then added more milk and served it up in little tea cups with tiny teaspoons.

2014-01-30 04.24.11 chocolate Amazingly enough, in my local suburban Long Island supermarket they sell Chocolate Cortés – which, as it turns out, is a company in the Dominican Republic that began exporting chocolate to Puerto Rico in the 1930s — in the International section, somewhere between the Coco López and dried lentils, and so today when my son got home from school we made hot chocolate the way my grandmother used to do, me stirring up that same sound and those same memories and noticing, not for the first time, that I have her same hard-working stubby-sturdy fingers.

chocolate syrup

chocolate syrup

“This is the best hot chocolate ever!” said the little man with his chocolate mustache.

And yes, although I didn’t have more than a tiny teaspoon to taste, I have to say it was.

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Melt one bar per cup desired in a bit of milk. Stir frequently. When you have a syrup, add one cup milk per cup desired. Heat and serve!

Chocolate Cortés

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Pan-Roasted Chicken with Harissa Chickpeas: The Heat is On!

25 Jan

I first saw this gorgeous chicken recipe recipe in Bon Appetit magazine on an otherwise uneventful doctor’s visit. I considered walking out with the magazine or tearing out the page or even asking one of the attending staff if they would make me a photocopy, but settled on copying down the basics of what I needed to remember.

Browning the drumsticks in a cast iron skillet

Browning the drumsticks in a cast iron skillet

Then I promptly forgot where I had written it down.

But the recipe stayed on my mind — it was a haunting blend of everyday easy, basic ingredients I knew I had around or could get in any supermarket, and a sultry North African vibe. Plus chickpeas. I love chickpeas.

So I hunted the recipe down in a Google search and took the chicken out to thaw.

Golden brown and waiting for the spicy bed

Golden brown and waiting for the spicy bed

Continue reading →

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Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Dip (Barefoot Contessa Lightened Up Just a Bit!)

24 Jan

Recently my editors at Edible Long Island asked what we contributors were doing to eat local in the middle of winter.

Hmmm. Embarrassingly, I am not doing enough. Except drinking Long Island wine and using up the home-grown tomatoes, and CSA peppers, garlic scapes, and berries I froze this past summer when the getting was good. I must do better next year!

This will make an impact at your next party

This will make an impact at your next party

But, I am reading about cooking local…my godson, Sean, who understands me better than most, got me Ina Garten’s The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook with a forward by Martha Stewart for Christmas. For those who don’t know, The Barefoot Contessa is a specialty food store in East Hampton, Long Island, owned by Ina Garten, a former White House nuclear policy analyst and now Emmy-winning Food Network host. She is very charming, very Hamptons, and that makes her very local to me! Bonus, Martha Stewart also has a home in East Hampton, which makes her local too, at least part of the year.

Anyhoo, I do like Ina Garten and her relaxed style. She’s forever cooking up special treats for her beloved husband, Jeffrey, who seems to enjoy it very much. And since Super Bowl is coming up and that means a lot of entertaining, I adapted one of her signature recipes from the book to what I had in my fridge to see what happened.

Continue reading →

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Grilled Rib Steak with “Bordeaux” Mushroom Sauce

22 Jan

Marianne and I cooked together again, this time doubling and adapting a recipe she found (I can’t remember where, so I can’t credit it, but will add it in should she remember later) to use up the mushrooms I had bought on sale. That this involved buying more mushrooms not on sale is not something I consider particularly relevant right now.

When buying mushrooms, look for the area under the cap to be closed. That says freshness.

When buying mushrooms, look for the area under the cap to be closed. That says freshness.

Another view of a tightly closed cap

Another view of a tightly closed cap

Our plan was to divide it up. I would use it to help dress up some simple steak I had in my fridge and she would use it to top some Salisbury steak she had in her weekday menu plans. Continue reading →

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2014: The Year of the Empanada (first in an occasional series)

18 Jan

I love empanadas. The “pan” part of the word comes from the word for bread in Spanish, and empanadas are basically stuffed bread pockets. That’s basically…they have many permutations and depending where you are from they might be made with corn dough, wheat flour, fried or baked. They may be stuffed with meat or chicken or seafood or vegetables. We also call them pastelillos in Puerto Rico, pastel referring to pies, much like meat pies are hand-held dough pockets in other places.

Entry-level empanadas...premade discs. Do not be ashamed! I am not.

Entry-level empanadas…premade discs. Do not be ashamed! I am not.

Regular readers know that my son and I are not big sandwich eaters, but empanadas actually do the same job and we love those. You can pack them up for a picnic, grab them on the run and eat them in the car, have them for an afternoon snack after school, serve them as appetizers with an aperitif when your guests walk in the door.

Improvised rolling pin. Yet another reason to enjoy wine responsibly

Improvised rolling pin. Yet another reason to enjoy wine responsibly (photo: Ashley Fifer)

Every country seems to have a version of empanadas; Jamaican meat patties, Indian samosas, even Chinese dim sum (potstickers) could be called empanadas.

Picadillo

Picadillo

This year I want to explore the world of empanadas. My friend Ashley and my godson Sean have agreed to go on this journey with me (and calling them out here is my way of holding them to it). Ashley was my cooking buddy for this first go and took the picture of me rolling the dough. Continue reading →

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Lasagne, Lasagna, Lasaña: keeping it simple, making it Puerto Rican

14 Jan

No matter how you spell it, lasagne is great food for entertaining and with the SuperBowl coming up, you may want to consider this version as an option for the buffet table!

This is a wonderfully homey dish

This is a wonderfully homey dish

In its original Italian version (which may actually be adapted from a Greek dish) from Emilia Romagna (if Wikipedia is to be believed and on this one I am not really sure), lasagne is pasta layered with ragu, bechamel (creamy white sauce) and parmigiano reggiano. Lasagne has since been adapted and changed and reworked in so many ways that it has as many permutations as there are cooks who make it.

I have to say, I do not love bechamel. It’s okay when someone else makes it, but I would rather not. So, I do what so many do: layer mozzarella and ricotta and grated parmigiano and I am at peace with this shortcut that results in a creamy gooiness, no doubt horrifying to the Emiliani, but they are far away living their Italian lives and are not doing my dishes for me here in New York. And with apologies to the late, great Marcella Hazan, I am not ready to be making my own lasagne noodles, even though she maintains it is heresy to do otherwise.

Layers of gooey goodness

Layers of gooey goodness

Continue reading →

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Lunchtime Blues: Today’s letter to the teacher

10 Jan

A sad irony of American life: loads of food, not all of it nutritious.

I can’t honestly say that I love making lunches for my son. It takes an extra half hour in mornings that are already too short.  I get him up around 6:30, since I start teaching at 8 a.m. and have to leave him at before-care. Since breakfast at before-care is a choice of not-really-food cereals or more-like-dessert cereal bars, I give him juice, toast and fruit at home. I make (or heat up) and pack lunch — usually leftover rice and beans or pasta with vegetables or quesadillas — and then after school there is snack and of course dinner. It’s a lot to think about, plan, shop for and do!

There are lunches to buy at school, but they are either stuff he doesn’t like or things I don’t trust. And he is not a sandwich guy. I don’t have time to fight the system, so I make hot lunch every day. I am glad to do it (because the alternative is unacceptable) and he is glad to eat it. But….I’ll let today’s letter to the teacher explain the rest, then await your comments. Continue reading →

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Blueberry Whole Wheat Pancakes

7 Jan

The recent snowy days led many of us to use our housebound, lazy mornings to make big breakfasts. The little guy had been begging for pancakes for a while and I ran out of excuses, so we put together some delicious whole wheat blueberry pancakes. He has been baking with me for a long time, so he was able to do a lot of the mixing and we are moving into measuring and understanding that

1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 1 1/2 teaspoons,

when we can’t locate the 1 tsp measure. The teachable moment is ever-present and just waiting to be exploited.

While recipes often recommend lighter flours, I actually used stone-ground whole wheat with just a bit of white flour and the results were not heavy at all. While I call these blueberry, I did make a few without the fruit (I just made a batch without and then added the blueberries to the batter) and both were excellent. This recipe gives the right amount for the whole batch.

We like a bit of maple syrup on our pancakes. It adds umami...nice rich mouthfeel

We like a bit of maple syrup on our pancakes. It adds umami…nice rich mouthfeel

“These taste like heaven, Mom,” was the verdict. And I’ve got six leftover pancakes frozen in wax paper and a plastic tub to crisp up in the toaster oven one of these cold, but not leisurely mornings soon! Read on for recipe! Continue reading →

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Guineitos en ájili-mójili (garlicky green bananas)

4 Jan

“What!?!”you are asking yourself. “Bananas with garlic!?! Eeeeew!!!!”

Yup. they are banans. But they are green.

Yup. they are bananas. But they are green.

But wait…this is not a sweet yellow eating banana dish. Nor is it a plantain dish. It is a savory, salty salad, served at room temperature and made with boiled green bananas (basically yellow ones – Musa sapentium – that are not at all ripe and must be cooked). They are widely used in the Caribbean and Central America because they are cheap and readily available. (For more on the origins of Puerto Rican ingredients, buy my ebook: Eat Your Way Through Puerto Rico!)

This is how you prepare them for boiling.

This is how you prepare them for boiling.

You might have a bigger challenge finding completely green bananas in your local supermarket; we usually get them at a Latin supermarket. I believe that Indian cooking also uses green banana; it makes sense, since the banana and all its relatives are believed to have originated in the Asian subcontinent, so if you have an Indian grocery near you you may find them there. And I have noticed that Costco’s bananas tend to be totally green; not good if you are looking for a raw fruit snack right away, but great for Latin cooking! Continue reading →

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Gravlax: Salty-Sweet Salmon, Fragrant with Dill

3 Jan

You might not expect my Caribbean family to serve something so distinctly Northern European as gravlax, a salt and sugar-cured Swedish delicacy, but we are equal opportunity gourmands. And there are two important sources of inspiration for how gravlax has become a frequent element of our party buffets. I’ll tell you about those and then give you some nifty background on the dish itself!

Start with the freshest salmon you can find/afford

Start with the freshest salmon you can find/afford

We get ours from Two Cousins Fish Market in Freeport. They are very accommodating to kids and to folks looking for sustainable options.

We get ours from Two Cousins Fish Market in Freeport. They are very accommodating to kids and to folks looking for sustainable options.

One source of inspiration is my Swedish sister-in-law, Annika, who has introduced us to the joys of Scandinavian cooking over the years and whose recipes have become part of family tradition. Second is Frank Eldridge, the college mentor for both my parents who helped them get together at Springfield College more than a half-century ago and who apparently introduced them to gravlax as well. He is no longer with us, but his gravlax is; this is an adaptation of his recipe, sent to us by his wife. 

Be lavish with the dill

Be lavish with the dill

The etymology of Gravlax is pretty cool…and not just because it comes from cold weather countries or because it is a fish dish served chilled. Continue reading →

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