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Broccoli Mashed Potatoes

17 Sep

Broccoli is not something I grew up with. I learned to eat broccoli in my adulthood, and probably something I started to appreciate more once I decided to try more and more vegetarian recipes. My first memories of broccoli are not fun and were associated with dieting at an early age because I was in Ballet Camp… you know the days when I barely weighed 85lbs, but my ballet teacher told us all we could lose 10 more pounds. Oh, how we long TODAY to be as “fat” as we were then…

The truth is… broccoli is delicious, but it’s even better when you add some cheese to it. This recipe… has two cheeses, but you can indulge and add any or as many cheeses as you want.

This is a great recipe to use broccoli that’s a little past its prime… and to use the whole vegetable, florets and stalk too. It’s also awesome for times when you’re super busy. The potatoes and broccoli boil/steam on their own with little tending to. Check it out…

 

BROCCOLI MASHED POTATOES

3-4 medium Yukon Gold or red-skinned potatoes
½ a head of broccoli, florets and stem or you can use just florets if you prefer
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 tbs of butter
2 ounces of cream cheese
2 tbs of plain greek yogurt
1 handful of shredded 6-cheese blend
Drizzle of Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

 

 

  1. Boil the potatoes by placing them in a medium pot with water almost covering the potatoes. Salt liberally. Place over medium-high heat. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling and steam is starting to escape the lid, turn the heat to medium low and boil/steam until the potatoes are tender for about 10-15 minutes.
  2. While the potatoes cook, prepare the broccoli… By cutting the florets away from the stem. Peel the stem to reveal the tender inside. Cut the stem into small pieces and put them to boil together with the potatoes. Dump in the garlic cloves too. Reserve the florets.
  3. When the potatoes are about to be done, place the florets inside the pot over the potatoes and cover the pot again. Count until 10 and turn the stove off. The broccoli florets will cook with the steam inside the pot already. Wait about 10 minutes until you uncover the pot again.
  4. After the 10 minutes have elapsed, drain most of the water and return the potatoes and broccoli to the same pot you cooked it all in. Add the butter, drizzle of olive oil, cream cheese and yogurt. Mash them well. When all is mashed, add the shredded cheese and season with freshly cracked black pepper. Mix in well.
  5. You can certainly serve at this point… but if you want a crunchy top, transfer to a bake safe dish, add a little more shredded cheese on top and bake in a 400F over until the top turns golden brown. This is also the way I reheat any left-overs of this mash.

 

This is more a method than a recipe… because you can add any cheese you prefer to this recipe. I sometimes use the little bits and pieces of cheese I have laying around my cheese drawer for this. Any will work and will still taste delicious…

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Chopped Avocado Salad Dressing

20 Aug

My grandpa instilled in us a love for avocados… to him, a salad with dinner would mean slicing a few “rajas” of avocado on the side. His favorite was rice and corn with ketchup and avocado. I know it sounds “kookie”, but you need to try it.

But the love for avocados comes from both sides of the family because once, while visiting my aunt and uncle in Miami, I had to buy a new suitcase to be able to travel with the 5 huge avocados my uncle bought for me to bring back home.

And as much as we love avocados, we don’t have a lot of family recipes using avocados. We just love them so; we do not see them as an ingredient in a recipe. They’re the exclamation point to any dish they’re added to!!! A few slices or wedges of avocado on the side of anything make the meal better. A soup??? Drop a few pieces of avocado inside to make it sing… A sandwich?? Slice a few avocados to make it creamier…

Lately I am training for a ½ marathon and I am trying to eat better and leaner. I am eating more salads, which I like, but I am particularly lazy to make them at home often. I’ve found the best way to fall in love with a salad is to make a killer dressing. Fall in love with a dressing and you’ll fall in love with the salad underneath.

And because I want you to love avocados as much as I do… I want to present to you a very easy avocado based dressing that’s much a dressing as a salsa to brighten other dishes too.

CHOPPED AVOCADO SALAD DRESSING

½ large avocado, cut into little pieces
1 small tomato, diced finely
½ small white onion, diced finely
½ cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
2 tbs Rice Vinegar
The juice of 1 small lime
½ tbs kosher salt
1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
  1. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and allow the mixture to meld and combine a few minutes before serving over your favorite salad.

Because the dressing includes avocados, tomatoes and onions, it’s great for a simple lettuce-only salad. You don’t need anything else IMHO. But this dressing also works as a topping for tacos, for burritos, for enchiladas… or as a sauce in sandwiches.

If you want more recipes using Avocados from Mexico, visit this link here. And if you live in the US, check out the coupons for Avocados clicking  right here.

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Quinoa Pilaf

6 Jun

I have never heard of quinoa until I met Diane Carlson a few years back. Diane is the wonderful chef behind the Conscious Gourmet culinary retreats and one of the founders of the Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC.

I took one of these culinary retreats once when they were still offered in Florida and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I still carry with me recipes and friendships from that retreat. And at that retreat was where I learned I could use a blog to share my recipes with all of you. So many good things came about from that retreat. I am thankful…

But this is not my recipe… This quinoa recipe is Diane’s recipe that has become my way of making quinoa ever since. I have made some tweaks to it by all the times I have made it, but I can’t take full credit for it. Diane taught me how to make quinoa and she should get the credit.

Now quinoa is all the rage. I hear its super popular way west in California. And us at the yoga center make it a lot too. The first time I bought quinoa was at Whole Foods right after finishing the retreat because I thought I would not be able to find it here in Puerto Rico. Now, I can buy it at Costco in 3 lbs bags. How things change, no??

QUINOA PILAF

1 cup quinoa, rinsed under cold water and drained well
1 ¾ cup vegetable broth
½ tsp salt
2 tbs olive oil
1 small onion, chopped finely
1 carrot, peeled and cut into very small pieces
1 rib of celery, chopped finely
½ red bell pepper, chopped finely
½ green bell pepper, chopped finely
½ cup peas, frozen works fine
Salt and Pepper to taste
¼ cup of chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
  1. In a large pot, toast quinoa over medium-hi heat. Stir it occasionally until the grain is nearly dry. Then, stir constantly about 5 minutes more until it browns evenly and gets a nutty fragrance.
  2. Add the vegetable broth to the pot of quinoa. Add ½ tsp of salt and bring the pot to a boil. Once it starts boiling, lower the heat to simmer, cover and cook until quinoa is tender. That will take about 15-20 minutes.
  3. In the meantime, in a large skillet over medium-hi heat add the olive oil and the onions. When the onions have softened a bit, add the carrots and cook for a few more minutes. Add the celery, peppers and peas. Sauté for a few minutes until veggies are cooked tender but still somewhat crisp.
  4. By now the quinoa will be cooked. Add the vegetables to the pot of quinoa and mix well. Stir in parsley. Serve immediately.

I love making quinoa because it’s a grain full of protein and nutrients and it’s very easy to make. This is the basic pilaf recipe I learned to make, but I have made this with many other combinations of veggies. Just like rice, it’s a great vehicle to use those little odds and ends you have in your fridge… go crazy and tell me what’s your favorite combination.

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Brown Rice with Corn – Quickie Version

1 Jun

Arroz con Maíz, or Rice with Corn, is a very typical Puerto Rican dish. My granddad loved it very much… it was something my grandma would fix for the family quite often.

The traditional way to make it is to cook the rice with tomato sauce, sofrito and the corn, all together. It’s traditionally made in a “caldero” or large pot, but as you know me, I can make it in a rice cooker. My grad school roommate, Michelle, was a big fan of my Arroz con Maíz. I used to make it for her and leave it in the rice cooker for her to eat when she was back from classes in the afternoon.

And even though making rice in a rice cooker is fairly simple… sometimes I don’t plan too much ahead to make food. I tend to go with what I am craving at the moment. For that same reason, I have developed a method to get almost the same flavors of the traditional Arroz con Maíz but in a quick easy way using left-over rice.

Brown Rice, as easy as it is to make in a rice cooker, it just takes time. It’s not something that you just pull together as easy as boiling some pasta or making a sandwich. To me, it’s very easy to just make a cup or two of plain brown rice in the morning, right after I am done with breakfast, and then by lunch time figure out what I can have with it. Sometimes I have made a quick stir-fry, sometimes I stuff some peppers… sometimes I make this quick Brown Rice with Corn recipe.

BROWN RICE with CORN – QUICKIE VERSION

2 cups of cooked brown rice
½ medium yellow onion, diced
1 tsp sofrito
1 cup frozen corn kernels
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Garlic Salt – optional
  1. In a large skillet over medium heat, drizzle a small amount of olive oil and add the sofrito and diced onions. Cook the onions for a few minutes until they begin to soften.
  2. Add the frozen corn kernels… no need to thaw then first. Just add them straight from the bag. Mix well with the onions so the corn cooks and the flavors mix. Season with salt and pepper, or the garlic salt if using. If you have a lid, cover the skillet and let the corn cook for a few minutes.

3.  Add the cooked rice to the skillet. Mix well and cover again. The steam in the skillet will soften the rice again if it’s hardened from being in the fridge. Allow cooking for a couple of minutes and turn the stove off and leave it there for the residual heat to finish heating the rice, making it fluffy again.

You’re done… now this is the perfect accompaniment to your favorite main course. I personally like to have it AS THE main course with a drizzle of ketchup on top and a salad on the side. Some sweet plantains or even some tostones – plantain or breadfruit – would work well with this too.

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Roasted Onions and Tomatoes

27 Apr

I love to visit markets whenever I travel to new places. Hey, let’s get real… I like to visit markets EVERY TIME I travel, regardless if it’s my first time or I’ve been there many times over.

I was fascinated with the Coronel Oviedo market in Paraguay. It’s not that large in size, but they had a lot of things I’ve never seen before. My mom had been there twice before so she was showing me around, almost like a local. I was first fascinated by the amounts of plum tomatoes and mini onions. I can’t believe that I was so enthralled with them and I managed not to take a single picture of them… HOW COULD THAT BEEN!?!?!?!?

One Thursday we decided to cook for the whole yoga group. Thursdays is the day when all the initiated yoguis get together to listen to our Guru speak… so we decided it was the best day to thank them for all their hospitality by cooking them a “Puerto Rican” feast. Puerto Rican is in quotes because we threw in some Dominican and other non-denominational goodies in there for good measure.

I did not know what to cook and my mind gravitated towards those delicious-looking tomatoes and onions I had been seeing the whole week. The dish started somewhere else and finished here… hope you like it as much as our friends in Paraguay did.

ROASTED ONIONS AND TOMATOES

10 little onions, cut in half – or you could use 5 medium ones and quarter them
10 medium tomatoes, quartered
1 large green bell peppers, cut into large squares
1 large red bell peppers, cut into large squares
4 Garlic Cloves, smashed
2 tbs Garlic and herb Seasonings
2 tbs Salt
½ bunch fresh parsley, chopped
½ bunch fresh oregano, chopped
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil to coat everything
Drizzle of Balsamic Vinegar
  1. In a baking dish or roasting pan, place all the ingredients as you’re cutting them up. Drizzle the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and using your hands make sure all the ingredients are well coated with the oil and seasonings.

2.  Roast in a 450F oven for about 30 minutes. Check the oven through the window. I turn them a bit if I feel some parts are getting too crisp or burned.

3. The smell will let you know when it’s done. There is supposed to be some charred pieces of onion and tomato. It’s part of the character of the dish.

 

We served this as a side dish. And it was delicious as such. But in my opinion, after tasting this improvised dish originally… I would have served this over pasta with some crumbles of goat cheese and a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese. To me that would have made this vegetable combo into a real winner.

Try it your favorite way and tell me all about it!!!!

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