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Super Easily Dressed Green Salad

22 Dec

This is my go-to dressing…

It’s sooooo simple, people usually don’t believe it only has 4 ingredients.  And the only thing you’ll dirty is your hands to toss it together with the salad.

This works with ANY green salad – romaine, arugula, iceberg, baby spinach or a spring mix. I added this time grape tomatoes, but it’s your salad, you can add whatever you’d like.  I’m just showing you the dressing…

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SUPER EASILY DRESSED GREEN SALAD

1/2 bag of spring mix salad
6-7 grape tomatoes
the juice of 1/2 a lemon
about 1/4 cup of olive oil – use the best stuff you have around here
salt and pepper to taste
  1. Place salad greens and tomatoes in a salad bowl.
  2. Squeeze the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper on top of salad.
  3. Toss gently with your hands to dress.

Serve immediately.

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Falafels

20 Dec

I love any type of street food, but I’ve had to learn to make my own sometimes because the original versions are not suitable for vegetarians.

Thankfully, falafels are great right from the start.  I had my first official falafels when I traveled to Israel.  They eat them inside a pita bread as a sandwich.  You then add tahini sauce, a tomato/cucumber salad and any extra fixings you desire.  We only ate falafels for lunch for a whole week… 

This is my friend’s Rosani recipe, but we collaborated.  We used chickpea or garbanzo flour to avoid using canned chickpeas or having to soak and cook the chickpeas first.  As I’ve said, we’re busy vegetarian girls… we love our shortcuts.  And did I mention we also love our fried foods?

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FALAFELS

1 1/2 cups chickpea or garbanzo flour
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of water – if needed
Canola oil for frying
  1. Place the chickpea flour, onion, parsley and garlic cloves in the bowl of a food processor.  Process a bit until blended, but not pureed. 
  2. Add the baking powder, salt, pepper, cumin.  Pulse a bit.
  3. If the mixture is too dry, add water and process until mixture becomes a small ball . If not dry,  skip right over to next step.
  4. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes.
  5. Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts.  Let them dry up a bit while the oil reaches temperature.
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  7. In a large skillet, heat up canola oil at medium heat and fry falafels until golden brown.  It’s important not to have the oil too hot, because the falafel will brown, but not cook inside.  We want the whole falafel to the thoroughly cooked.

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Enjoy the falafels inside a pita bread and tahini sauce.  Or enjoy them as appetizers with a tamarind sauce or mango chutney.  As soon as I find tamarinds or tamarind puree, I’ll show you how to do it.

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Creamy Cranberry Dip

16 Dec

Using my Cranberry Preserves recipe, I decided to try it in a dip. People flipped when they tried it.

It looks like frozen yogurt, but it’s only my Cranberry Preserves recipe and mixed it with cream cheese.  That’s it.  Tastes sweet and looks like the holidays.  Enjoy!

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CREAMY CRANBERRY DIP

1/4 cup of Cranberry Preserves recipe
4oz cream cheese, you can use the 1/3 less fat kind
  1. Mix Cranberry Preserves jelly with the cream cheese in a food processor.
  2. Garnish with a bit of the cranberry preserves jelly on top… so people know what’s in it.

Serve with your favorite cracker.

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Coquito – The Perfect Holiday Drink

14 Dec

Coquito is the Puerto Rican ultimate holiday drink.

It’s served in a small glass, like a shot glass or jigger, but it’s sipped slowly. It’s never meant to be a shot. This is the Puerto Rican version of an eggnog. There are many versions out there – with raw eggs, with rum, with “cañita rum”, however, my version is the Vegetarian way – the spice and warmth comes from the ginger, anise seeds, star anise and cinnamon. The only way to know this does not contain alcohol is because you’ll not get drunk… because it still has a nice kick. And the nice thing, you don’t need to do a kiddie version.

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COQUITO

1 can condensed milk
1 carton evaporated milk
1 can coconut milk
3 cups of water
4 inch piece of fresh ginger
5 sticks of cinnamon
4 tablespoons anise seeds
4 tablespoons star anise
2 tablespoons whole cloves
2 tablespoons ground nutmeg
1 vanilla pod
1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder or alcohol-free vanilla extract
ground cinnamon to taste

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  1. In a medium saucepan create a “spiced tea” – pour the 3 cups of water, ginger, cinnamon sticks, anise seeds, star anise, nutmeg and cloves. Scrape the seeds inside the vanilla pod and add to “tea water”. Throw in the vanilla pod too.

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  3. Steep for about 15-20 minutes to create a strong spiced tea. This will give the coquito most of its spiciness. Let cool a bit.
  4. In a blender, mix together all the milks with 2 “cans-worth” of the “spiced tea” and the vanilla powder.
  5. Pour into a clean bottle and chill in the refrigerator.
  6. Serve chilled in small shot glasses.  Sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Salud, Dinero y Amor!!!!!

I try to avoid buying anything canned, but unfortunately condensed milk is something that ONLY comes in a can. The same happens with coconut milk. If you can make your own coconut milk, I highly recommend it. But, I am a working vegetarian woman and I do not have the time to do it.

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Marinated Olives

12 Dec

Last Summer I went to Spain and we ate olives as appetizers almost every night.  I love them.  The salty bite kind of gets your appetite going.  I use olives frequently in cooking, but not necessarily much on their own.  We’re having an office party this week and I thought it would be nice to take some marinated olives.

This is my interpretation, from what I can remember, of the marinated olives served at Olives, the Todd English restaurant.  He did the recipe in one of the old Martha Stewart shows.  I did the recipe a looooooong time ago, and this is what I came up with this time around.  Hope you like it.

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MARINATED OLIVES

1 jar of manzanilla olives, with pits (just be careful when eating)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped (it could work with dry parsley too)
2 tablespoons rosemary
1 tablespoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
a few cranks of freshly cracked black pepper
1 piece of lemon rind or 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Just mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Let the mixture sit for a few hours so the flavors meld.  It’s even better if the olives can marinate for a few days ahead in the refrigerator.

 No need to add salt… the olives will be salty enough by themselves.  And you can play around with the spices if you don’t have all of them.  Just use what you have and see how it tastes…  tell me about it, OK?

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