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Lunch @ Panera Bread

15 Oct

I am sandwich lover… I could live off sandwiches my whole life. That should be no secret to you guys…

My sister is always raving about . Florida is full of them. She’s always bragging about how good the bread is, how delicious the sandwiches are. But I am a picky person… picky in the sense that if I do not see exactly what I like or crave that moment on the menu, I think places should make an effort to please me as best they can.

I have become a master of navigating thru a restaurant’s menu and identifying what is it exactly that I can and want to eat. And my former experiences with Panera Bread were not positive. I can’t pin point now what it was… but I remember looking at the menu over and over and over again trying to figure out how to build a sandwich that would hit the spot. Because of that impression, I would drive past Panera Bread places without thinking too much into them.

But recently I was driving from Orlando to Miami and we needed to eat something before we left on our 4 hour drive south. I tried several places I was more interested in eating but fate would have it that the best place suitable was Panera Bread, so we decided to give it a shot.

I was pleasantly surprised to find on their menus these Sandwich and Salad combos. They also have soups, but I never trust soups at restaurants, even if they say they’re vegetarian. Besides, it was hot outside and my stomach preferred the cold bit of a salad to the warmth of a soup. Besides I always feel I am not being that naughty when I eat lots of bread and cheese if somehow it’s paired with a large and abundant salad.

I was pleasantly surprised to see they had 2 vegetarian sandwich options on their menu… This is what we ordered:

 Caprese Panini with Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil pressed in a baguette with a Greek Salad

Veggie Sandwich on Whole Grain Bread with a Garden Salad

The salads were extremely generous and the ½ sandwiches were just enough to fill us up. The lunches tasted fresh and hearty at the same time. I liked it so much to the point of starting to crave the same thing the next day and the next day. That to me is the sign of a good meal… when you are willing to have the same thing every day for a few days straight.

So to my vegetarian friends… if you’re ever in a pinch to select something for lunch, give Panera Bread a try. I may not have been blown away the first time I tried them, but it paid off to give them another try. People and places always deserve second chances… no??

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October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month

1 Oct

October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month… YEAH!!!!! And as part of the celebration, I received an email listing 30 reasons to go vegetarian/vegan and I wanted to share with you the ones that resonated with me most…  (I guess, one per day of the month… but they left Halloween out. Why???)

This list was compiled by The Huffington Post.

  • Because if you want to get healthy, you should start with food! Replace cancer-causing, fat, pesticide and hormone-laced meats with cancer-preventing, anti-inflammatory, cholesterol lowering foods like apples, broccoli, blueberries, carrots, flax, garlic, leafy greens, nuts and sweet potatoes.
  • Because vegetarians are about 40% less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters.
  • Because our meat-centric diet is woefully lacking in health-giving fiber, contained only in plant-based foods. A minimum of 35 grams per day is recommended; the typical American consumes only 12.
  • Because four out of five Americans with cardiovascular disease who switch to a healthy (low-fat, whole foods) vegetarian diet reverse their symptoms completely.
  • The news gets better. Heart and blood-vessel diseases, diabetes, and of course obesity are preventable for 95% of us if we follow a healthy vegan diet, exercise, and manage stress.
  • Because of pink slime. PERIOD.
  • Because we are going to run out of food if we keep growing most of it to feed animals, who in turn feed far fewer people than if we grew the food to feed directly to people. (One can feed 16 to 20 vegetarians with the same amount of natural resources as a single meat eater.)
  • Because along with hundreds of scientists and many major media, the head of the U.N.’s Nobel Prize-winning panel on climate change urged people to cut back on meat to combat climate change.
  • Because in ways that truly matter, we are all the same. Think about it. Whether human or non-human animal, we all seek happiness and pleasure, we all try to avoid pain and suffering. We all have rich and complex emotional lives.

 

Even if you’re not ready to take the plunge completely into a vegetarian lifestyle, I hope KarmaFree Cooking helps you see that a vegetarian lifestyle is something doable, delicious, and easy-to-follow. Cutting meat once a week, a few days a week, the whole work-week or everyday… whatever little change you make for the better will be an improvement to your health, your lifestyle and the whole world around us.

Help me spread the word…

 

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KarmaFree Cooking nominated by US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as 2012 Top Food Blogger

5 Sep

If you’re following my tweets and our FaceBook page you might already know that last week, KarmaFree Cooking was nominated for the 2012 HispanoBloggers Awards.   KarmaFree Cooking is nominated together with 4 other bloggers in the Food Category.

How did this happen????   I could not tell you at all, but it did. All I remember was that I joined HispanoBloggers.com and asked YOU, my fans, my friends, my followers to nominate me. Apparently, you responded my call and here we are now… WOW!!!

Bloggers in 11 different categories were nominated – Baby, Beauty, Culture, Family, Fashion, Food, Health, Kids, Life, Love and Parenting. The nominees were announced during the annual convention of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Among the nominees we can find several of my blogger friends like Jeanette from Sazón Boricua, Yadira from El Club de las Diosas, Sofía from Living la Vida Blogging, Bren from Flanboyant Eats and Laura Termini from Natural, Orgánica y Latina.

Here you can find a list of all the nominees in all categories – http://hispanobloggers.dialogo.us/awards

The winners in each category will be announced at the 33rd Annual National Convention of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on September 18, 2012. So stay tuned for the results.

Crossing my fingers, toes, legs, arms… LOL!!!!

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El Palenque in Montevideo… Delicious Vegetarian Parrillada???

27 Aug

I love good food… and I particularly like to eat good food when I am traveling. I love to find out what are the best local places and experience what’s typical and traditional about a specific country’s cuisine and culture. And try everything, within my dietary playing field…

When I traveled for the first time to Uruguay in 2003 for work, we were taken to El Palenque in Montevideo. Located in the historical Mercado del Puerto we were told this was Montevideo’s most loved restaurants by far. It’s a parrillada restaurant and I do not have to tell you what is served traditionally in these parrillada places. But I have always been one to be resourceful when analyzing menus and I ordered the Provençal Mushrooms with French Fries. It was delicious and everyone was gawking at my plate to see what the vegetarian was eating…

 

I loved it so much indeed… that a few days later I went back to El Palenque by myself, sat at the very typical counter inside the market and ordered the exact same thing again!!! That’s me… that when I find something I love, I go back to the same place and order it over and over and over again.

 

Flash forward 8 ½ years later… I got the chance again to visit Montevideo, now as a day trip with my mom after a week in Buenos Aires. We took the Buquebus from Puerto Madero to Montevideo which in a few hours takes you across the Río la Plata. I was so excited to show my mom around Montevideo, a place I had very much enjoyed a few years back.

 

I was not sure of how I would find the city after all these years, but one thing I was sure of… we would have lunch at El Palenque!!! This is what we ordered:

Provençal Mushrooms and French Fries

Lettuce, Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad

 

I felt we could now have a salad because we are now 2 sharing this meal and not just me eating by myself. And check out how the server made the balsamic vinaigrette in front of us… so cool!!!

Dressing our salad…

 

Cooking our mushrooms… 2012!!!

 

Here are my cooks in 2003… Doesn’t the guy on the left look like the chef cooking my mushrooms in my last trip??????

The food and the service were as good as I remembered it. Below you’ll find evidence if we enjoyed it or not…  Check out the pics from this trip and my first one… I think I look better now than what I did then, don’t you think???

 

 

I tried to locate another restaurant I enjoyed very much during my first trip – ROMA AMOR de Donatella, an Italian restaurant which taught me so much about enjoying delicious and beautiful food. It was sad it was no longer open. I really wanted to show it off to my mom and to you guys too!!!   😦

A tip to you travelers… Montevideo, for some reason, is mostly closed on the weekends. So much of what I enjoyed during my business trip, I was not able to show my mom because the streets were empty the Saturday we visited. So if you plan a trip to Montevideo, please keep that in mind when scheduling.

Do you have a favorite restaurant you love to visit whenever you travel to a specific city??? What is THE MUST thing to order there??? Tell me all about it….

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Sopa Paraguaya vs. Chipaguazú

13 Aug

A while ago I shared with you all my friend’s Rosani recipe for Sopa Paraguaya, or Paraguayan Soup… which is really not a soup. Sopa Paraguaya is a sort of corn pudding made from cornmeal and cheese.

When I visited Paraguay earlier this year, the first thing I wanted to taste was a Sopa Paraguaya made in Paraguay by Paraguayans. I always want to taste how the original versions taste and how they compare to the versions we create at home. I told you once that what I call Sopa Paraguaya is called Chipaguazú over in Paraguay. Well, not exactly true…

There are two dishes made in Paraguay – Sopa Paraguaya and Chipaguazú. They are different from each other…

Thanks to my friend Ester… a whole crew went to her house one day to cook for the whole yoga group, but also to cook some soy and yuca fritters for a shelter of homeless boys and girls. She was gracious enough to cook to cook both Sopa Paraguaya and Chipaguazú side by side so that I could see firsthand how the recipes differ from each other.

They’re both made from corn… they’re both baked. That’s about where the similarities end.

Sopa Paraguaya

 

 

  • It’s made from cornmeal flour mixed for a long time with milk, butter, baking powder, salt and anise seeds. The anise seeds are particular to the Sopa Paraguaya recipe.

  • This yields a very smooth batter that is poured into a baking dish lined with banana leaves. You pour only ½ the batter and add cooked onions, Paraguay cheese and butter beans. When you pour the second half of batter, the filling gets sandwiched in between.

 

 

Chipaguazú

  • It’s made by grinding fresh corn kernels. These people usually grind them by hand. To the ground corn you add some milk, but not a lot, cooked onions and salt. No cheese!!!!

 

  • The corn batter is poured into a baking dish lined with banana or plantain leaves.

We baked them using a wood burning oven… I know my friends from Serious Eats Water Cooler would go crazy over that oven… I was dying to make some cool pizzas there!!!! 😉

 

Here are both dishes after baking for about 30-45 minutes…  Chipaguazú is at the left and the Sopa Paraguaya is on the right.

The verdict… as delicious as these traditional recipes are, the Sopa Paraguaya we make here in Puerto Rico is actually my favorite!!! Maybe because it’s a hybrid of these two recipes. We use cornmeal that we cook a bit over the stove, add cooked onions, corn kernels and grated cheese to the batter. And in my humble opinion, I prefer our hybrid version to any of the originals. I think we have taken what’s great about each and combine it into one great dish.  I feel a bit like Tyler Florence with his TV show, Tyler’s Ultimate…

Even though Rosani now likes to now make Chipaguazú at the Yoga Center, I will continue to make our local version of Sopa Paraguaya because to me, it tastes THE BEST!!!!

 

Have you ever had traditional Sopa Paraguaya or Chipaguazú?? How does it compare to my original recipe???

 

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