Archive | November, 2009

Adobo

30 Nov

I’ve come to believe that food tastes as good as the seasonings you put on it…

A lot of people steer away from vegetarian food because they believe it tastes bland or boring.  But it all comes down to the seasonings.  And in Latin cooking, ADOBO is a key part of the seasoning.  Adobo is used mostly on meats, poultry or fish, but vegetarian cooking can also benefit from a sprinkling of this delicious seasoning.

For Puerto Ricans, adobo is a mixture of various dry spices mixed together with salt.  Anything we cook, we first sprinkle some adobo on, wait for a few minutes for the flavorings to penetrate and then cook.  The typical flavorings in an adobo mix are salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and dried oregano.  There are versions that may include also cumin, paprika or even dehydrated lemon pieces.  You need to be cautious to look for a brand that does not include chemicals or additives, like MSG… but most good brands do not include it. 

                     

                        

     

You can find adobo in any supermarket here in Puerto Rico – it’s a staple in our cooking.  But you can certainly find it also in the Latin section of your supermarket if you live outside of Puerto Rico.  But if you can’t find adobo already packaged, it’s something fairly easy to make and store in your cupboard… here’s how:

ADOBO

1/3 cup Kosher or Sea Salt
2 tbs Garlic Powder
2 tbs Dried Oregano
1 tbs Onion Powder
½  tbs Coarsely Ground Pepper
  1. Mix all this together and sprinkle on your favorite food to season.
  2. Keep it in a dry, cool place to avoid the salt from clumping. 

I use adobo to season my Potatoes a la Angie, to season my Portobello Burgers, and to give flavor to roasted potatoes.  You can also sprinkle it on top of any frozen veggie burgers so you can taste how the flavor greatly improves…

Cranberry Trifles

27 Nov

It’s been a few years now that I gift Cranberry Preserves as a Xmas gift.  People love it…

Cranberry juice is popular here in Puerto Rico, but eating fresh cranberries is not.  I usually get asked by EVERY cashier at the supermarket every time I buy the Ocean Spray bags of fresh cranberries what do I make with them.  It’s super weird…   I usually explain to them that I make a jelly with them… but now I can also mention that I make these trifles too… which will bring us to a different dilemma with them – explaining what’s a trifle?

I like this recipe because it makes use of any leftover cranberry preserves you might have from Thanksgiving and looks super pretty too.  We made them last in wine glasses, but you can certainly make them in a large trifle dish too.  I got the inspiration for this dish from the Everyday Food December 2008 issue.   I like it because you can prepare some parts ahead, buy some others and just assemble… and if you purchase the pound cakes, no baking necessary.

 

CRANBERRY TRIFLES

2 cups of cranberry preserves – recipe here
1 loaf of pound cake – or make this recipe for egg-less yellow cake here… – cut up into 1” cubes
1 tub of whipped topping
½ cup passion fruit juice
  1. In your preferred presentation dish assemble first a layer of the cranberry preserves at the bottom.
  2. Then place a layer of cake cubes.  Dampen them with a little passion fruit juice using a pastry brush.                                                
  3. Place a layer of cranberry preserves on top of the layer of cake.
  4. Place a layer of whipped topping on top of cranberries.
  5. Continue layering this same way until you reach the top of the dish you’re serving it in… finishing with the whipped topping.

Place in the refrigerator for about an hour before serving.  This will allow the flavors to mix in together.

Happy Birthday, KarmaFree Cooking!!!

22 Nov

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

Incredible India… Lassi

19 Nov

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 1st 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.

Incredible India… Fine-Dining

16 Nov

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.

AM @ FIRE   Made @ FIRE

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.

FIre - Amouse     Roti w Pineapple chutney

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.

  Menu Fire 1      Broccoli Starter

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.

FIRE MENU   Menu Fire 2

FIRE my food

Menu Fire 4   Menu Fire 3

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.

Food from india guy  P1090606

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

Fire Friends

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.

ZEST

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:

Menu ZEST

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

ZEST - Spring Rolls

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

ZEST - paneer

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…

ZEST - Focaccia

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

ZEST - Potatoes

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

Kebabs

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.

Incredible India… Chai Masala Tea

14 Nov

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. 

Chai masala 1

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

Masala Blend

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.

Drinking Chai      Chai @ Train

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?

Incredible India… Breakfasts

12 Nov

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 4th 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. 

nataraja    varanasi 2

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.

    Breakfast Delhi

watermelon juice - KFC

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…

Agra Breakfast

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. 

North India Breakfast

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.

Dosa 4

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.

 Dosa 1     Dosa 3

Dosa 2

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?

Miami Favorites

11 Nov

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…

Cracker Barrel

CB Breakfast

hash Browns

 

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.

CHicharritas Delicias

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. 

Goat and Gruyere Cheeses

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.

Pizza Rustica

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.

pizza - margherita and eggplant

margherita   Orangina Miami

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…

Pizza Menu

Sofrito 102

9 Nov

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.

 aji dulces 2

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.

aji dulces 1

 

Organic Lollipops

8 Nov

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

 

Paletas

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?

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