Archive | 2008

Vanilla Maple Carrots

21 Jan

Believe it or not… this is one of the recipes that started it all.  I found this recipe in the November 2007 issue of Martha Stewart Living, did it and was sooooo easy and tasty that I shared it with my friend Kathleen.  She made it, liked it and posted it on her blog Kathleen’s Vegetarian Kitchen.  The rest… is blogosphere history.

 So far, I have made this about 3 times at the Yoga Center I attend and I always get requests to make it again.  I know my pictures are not yet to Martha’s standards, but with practice, I hope to get there one day…  at least the flavors are already there.

 Again, the times I have done this, I have done 5 lbs. of carrots at a time.  So I will follow the original recipe’s quantities to adapt to the regular household amounts.

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VANILLA MAPLE CARROTS

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 cup water
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1-2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp butter
Salt and Pepper to taste
  1. Combine carrots and water in a large skillet or saucepan. Season the water with salt and scrape the insides of the vanilla pod and mix in with the water. Throw in the vanilla pod left as well.
  2. Bring to a simmer and cook carrots until they’re tender, about 10-13 minutes. Martha’s recipe says the water evaporates, mine never does evaporate a lot. So….
  3. Drain all the water from the carrots.
  4. Add syrup, honey, pepper and toss to combine. Be careful not to break up any carrots.

 This makes a great side dish on any night, but would also work particularly well for Thanksgiving or for any potluck dinner.

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Stuffed Mushrooms

21 Jan

I realized last night, I made this recipe a few months ago and forgot to post it…

I love mushrooms.  I salivate when I travel to visit my sister in Indiana or to New York and go to any regular supermarket and see the wide variety of fresh mushrooms available.  Here we get mostly white button mushrooms and with luck, sometimes we can find portobellos, creminis or oysters… but they’re usually old soggy-looking, so I never buy them like that.

I learned this recipe from my other good friend, Giada De Laurentiis.    And until now, I haven’t realized my photo resembled so much the photo in the Food Network website.  I usually make this by “eye-balling” the proportion of the ingredients… so we’ll just use Giada’s proportions as a guide this time.

 stuffed-mushrooms-2.jpg

 STUFFED MUSHROOMS

1/2 cup whole-wheat bread crumbs – I grind ww breadsticks or leftover bread in the food processor 
1/2 cup shredded Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
Salt and Black pepper to taste
Garlic & Herb Seasoning or Italian Seasonings
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
28 large white or cremini mushrooms, stemmed
Save about 1/2 the mushroom stems
  1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Prepare the stuffing by mixing in a bowl the breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic, parsley, seasonings, salt and pepper.  Add olive oil until the mixture is damp and holds somewhat together when you press it between your fingers.
  3. Take about 1/2 the mushrooms stems you took off and chop them very finely.  Add them to the breadcrumb mix and combine.
  4. Fill each mushroom cap – not too tightly because they might break.
  5. Drizzle olive oil on a baking sheet, place mushroom caps on sheet and drizzle additional olive oil on top of the mushrooms.

 stuffed-mushrooms-1.jpg

6.  Bake for about 30 minutes until mushrooms are soft and the top of the filling is golden brown.

7.  Serve warm.

These are great as an appetizer or as a side dish.  I once made a “stuffed night” and served these mushrooms with my Stuffed Peppers and worked great.

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Clementines – My favorite winter citrus

20 Jan

Citrus are mainly in season during winter-time. I read somewhere the season starts in November.  I know we have lemons here all year round… but when I visit Costco, it’s near the December/January time-frame where I see and can purchase one of my favorite citrus fruits… CLEMENTINES!!!!!!!

 clementines.jpg

I learned about these delicious and cute Clementines about 10 years ago, but was not able to get them here in PR… and when Costco opened their doors about 6 years ago, they started bringing them.  I love them because they’re petite, mostly seedless, super sweet and their membranes are really thin, so they’re easy to eat in segments.

I regularly do not eat regular oranges in segments… I learned this when I was in school in Chicago and we had to do a project about the introduction to market of an Orange.  People would talk about eating them without a knife and I was – hello!!! speak for yourself!!!  I have to peel an orange with a knife and cut them in half … just like you would if you were using a juicer to make fresh squeezed juice.  I eat oranges like this because i can’t stand the bitterness of the membranes around the segments.

So for those of us who do not like orange membranes, Clementines are the perfect orange for you… as they are for me.  And the cute wooden crate is just an added plus.

Try some soon and tell me all about it…

 http://www.producepete.com/shows/clementines.html

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Freezing Berries

20 Jan

I guess I am in a very fruity mode these days… but I indeed mentioned that one of my new year’s resolutions were to eat more fruit and vegetables.  I am taking you along for the ride…

I love making myself fruit smoothies in the mornings.  Particularly, I LOOOOOVE adding fresh berries to them.  Unfortunately,  in a way, is that berries are pretty expensive… I am paying these days between $7 and $8 for a pound of strawberries.  I guess they’re not in season in the US and they’re bringing them from God-knows-where. And there’s little I can do to reduce my carbon footprint in regards to this… because we don’t grow berries in Puerto Rico, I either buy them imported, frozen, or not eat them at all.

What I want to share with you is about freezing berries… this is a trick I learned, again, from my good friend Martha Stewart (she does not know how good friends we are…)   With the price I pay for berries, I can’t eat them all at once and they’re prone to spoil fast.  To avoid this when I purchase these beautiful strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or any other berry… is to freeze them individually on a baking sheet and then store them.

I wash the berries, remove any stems, dry them as well as I can and place them without touching on a baking sheet.  Place the baking sheet on the freezer overnight and then store the berries in a freezer plastic storage bag.  Never freeze them all clumped up in a bag, because then you’ll have a tough time separating them if you need just a small amount at a time.

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This way, I have great tasting berries anytime.

Hope this helps…

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Acid Fruit Salad

19 Jan

Fruit salad come in different varieties – those made with what we call “sweet” fruits – like bananas, papayas, mangoes, red apples, etc.  And my favorite, “acid” fruit salads, made with fruits that are more tart, like oranges, kiwi fruit, grapes, strawberries, pineapples, etc.

At work, we planned a breakfast to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday.  I was somewhat surprised thta no one had offered to bring any fresh fruits.  The “pot luck” menu was full of baked goods, greasy foods and not a fruit in sight.  So I offered to bring a fruit salad.  This is one of my favorite combinations…

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ACID FRUIT SALAD

1 pineapple, peeled, cored and cut in small pieces
5 kiwi fruit, peeled and cut in small pieces
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut in small pieces
1 medium bunch of green or red grapes, cut in half and seeded, if not seedless
2 navel oranges, peeled and supremed
4 red plums, peeled and cut into small pieces
the juice of 1 lemon
honey to taste
  1. Mix in a large bowl the pineapple, kiwi fruit, grapes and plums. 
  2. When you peel and cut the apple, drizzle some of the lemon juice to prevent browning.  Add to salad.
  3. To supreme the oranges, peel all the orange until you reach the flesh.  With a paring knife, cut in between each membrane so you get clean segments of orange without the membrane.  This way it’s easier to eat.  Add to the salad.  Squeeze the membrane over the salad to capture any remaining juice.
  4. Drizzle with some honey to sweeten if the fruits are too tart.  This will also help “juice” the fruits a bit.

This is the best way to start your day… Enjoy!!!

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