KarmaFree Cooking

Double Mustard Roasted Potatoes

These are an updated version of my Mustard Roasted Potatoes… double the magic, double the fun with two times the mustard. Dijon and Grain Mustard are my absolute favorite mustards and they make a zesty potato, worthy of celebrating the Moms in your life.

Great with a Tofu Scramble filled with tomatoes, peppers, onions and grape tomatoes. Super colorful, super tasty and great vegetable-based protein too.

DOUBLE MUSTARD ROASTED POTATOES

2lbs red-skinned potatoes, cut in fourths

3 tbs Dijon mustard

3 tbs whole grain mustard

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tbs Italian Seasonings

Salt and Freshly Cracked Black Pepper to taste

2 tbs Olive Oil and a little more to grease the baking sheet

Pre-heat oven to 425F.
In a large bowl, mix together the mustards, garlic, Italian Seasonings, olive oil, salt and pepper.

3. Add the cut-up potatoes to the bowl and toss to coat the potatoes well with the mustard mixture.

4. Transfer the potatoes to an oiled baking dish, making sure the potatoes are in one single layer.

5. Roast for 40-45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked thru, tender on the inside and crispy and golden on the outside.

Tags: #karmaclass, #karmafree, dijon, food, grain mustard, mustard, potato, red potato, seasonings, vegetarian

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Categories breakfast, KarmaFree Cooking Classes, side dishes

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Happy Mother’s Day to Mother Earth

11 May

Tags: #karmafree, celebration, congratulations, food, happy, Mother Earth, mother's day, nature, vegetarian

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Categories MY EDITORIAL, Veggie Bites of Wisdom

Joined forces with Hispanic blog Madres Conectadas supporting a more natural and vegetarian diet across Latin America

9 May

When I started KarmaFree Cooking, my mission was always to communicate the benefits of the vegetarian diet to anyone who was willing to listen. Knowing full well that my Latin peers were not very open to the idea, I’ve always known it’s important to teach by example rather than by preaching.

Kids nowadays come with a different set of hardwiring… very frequently I hear moms say their kids have made the decision to stop eating meat and to become vegetarians – for whichever reason, because they love pets and they can fathom eating a pet of theirs, because they dislike the flavor or texture or because they simply bring a higher level of consciousness – they pose a real conundrum to their mothers, who sometimes are not equipped to answer or integrate their kids wishes into the family food dynamic.

Foto Gianny

Here is where my new friend Gianny Liranzo and Madres Conectadas come into play… I met Gianny recently at a blogger conference in Miami. Her energy and passion to connect and to be an educative agent for mothers across Latin America was truly contagious. Gianny created the blog and web portal Madres Conectadas to provide practical, useful and realistic answers and support to all Spanish-speaking moms. She wants to promote positive upbringing, strengthening of values and integral growth for all member of the family. Madres Conectadas is based out of the Dominican Republic and provides support online for Spanish-speaking moms across Latin America and in-person for moms located there.

We are so proud and happy to announce that Madres Conectadas will be sharing weekly KarmaFree Cooking recipes in their website and via their social networks. Together we want to share with all
how easy and delicious it is to follow a more healthful and vegetarian diet. It’ll be an excellent collaborative project.

You can connect with Madres Conectadas in all social networks: They’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even on YouTube, where they share videos of those pow-wows they organize in the Dominican Republic. And who knows… if all this goes well and maybe you guys ask for it, maybe I can join one of those pow-wows and make it all about the vegetarian cooking. Sounds cool, huh??

We’ll also share some of Madres Conectadas content thru our social media platforms, so make sure you all follow us on FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram y en Pinterest.

I really want to thank Gianny for trusting me and KarmaFree Cooking and appreciating how our message and recipes can be of value to all moms in the Madres Conectadas universe.

Tags: #karmafree, blog, collaboration, connection, Dominican Republic, eat healthy, education, family, food, Gianny Liranzo, healthy, Hispanic, kids, Latin America, madres conectadas, moms, mothers, partnership, recipes, spanish, Vegan, vegetarian, weekly

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Categories MY EDITORIAL

Sweet Plantain Canoes filled with Creamed Spinach

8 May

It’s incredible when you have the opportunity to live outside your native country, how you turn more patriotic than the flag.

I developed this recipe as part of a special post for my friend Marixsa’s blog, Mamá Boricua en Brooklyn. She’s sharing a series of articles celebrating the Puerto Rican Parade in NYC under the moniker Abrazos Boricuas. She was gracious to invite me to share a bit of my experience living and experiencing the Puerto Rican Day Parade for the first time, 20 years ago!!! Can you believe it?!?!

If you want to read more about my story and the pride I feel about flaunting my “mancha de plátano”, please visit Mamá Boricua en Brooklyn. And to her readers who are visiting KarmaFree Cooking for the first time, we welcome you with open arms. Here I share many vegetarian recipes recipes that express my love for my beautiful Island, Puerto Rico. This is one of them… enjoy!

SWEET PLANTAIN CANOES FILLED WITH CREAMED SPINACH

4 sweet ripe plantains

1 bag of fresh baby spinach

1 medium onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, smashed

4 oz of cream cheese

A splash of half & half or milk

A pinch of nutmeg

2 tbs of pine nuts

1 cup of grated mozzarella cheese

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Bake the plantains in their own skin… cut a Little bit of the ends and you make a shallow slit on the inside of the plantain from one end to the other. Place in a baking sheet covered with parchment paper side to side and bake in a 350F for about 30 minutes.
While the plantains cook, we prepare the filling… In a large skillet over medium heat, add a drizzle of olive oil, the onions and garlic clove. Sweat slowly for the onions to cook and the garlic to infuse its flavor, without browning.
When the onions are cooked and translucent, remove the Garlic clove and add the spinach in batches to the skillet. It might seem like too much, but the spinach will wilt down a lot. Cover the skillet for a few minutes to help the wilting process. Mix the spinach and the onions well to help the spinach wilt and for the flavors to meld together.
Add the cream cheese in pieces to make it easier to melt with the spinach. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. You’ll end up with a creamy spinach mixture. If you feel the mixture is tight, add a splash of milk or half and half.
When the plantains are cooked, take them out of their blackened skins and place in a baking dish all 4 plantains together side by side or in individual lasagna dishes or even shallow ramekins might work well too.
Place the plantains with the natural curve to the top. If you made the slit to the skin previously, now make the slit slightly deeper to fill the plantain on the inside. Place ¼ of the spinach mixture over each plantain. Sprinkle the pine nuts over the plantains evenly and cover them all with the grated mozzarella cheese.
Return the plantains to the oven for a few minutes at 350F to melt and brown the cheese a bit.

Enjoy these plantain canoes with a nice salad and rice with corn on the side.

Tags: #karmafree, #nprdp#, Brooklyn, cheese, cream, cream cheese, food, mamá boricua en brooklyn, parade, pine nuts, plantain, Puerto Rico, spinach, sweet plantain, vegetarian

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Categories main courses, Puerto Rican delicacies

Tofu Scramble

7 May

This was one of the main dishes we created for our 3rd KarmaFree Cooking class recently. We were super excited because we got picked up by the local newspaper El Nuevo Día and we received tons of calls from people interested. We hosted 7 students who are not vegetarian, but are very interested in following a more natural and meat-free diet. I was thrilled!!

Angie is the expert among us making tofu scramble… but I made sure the ingredients were colorful, vibrant and easy to find in any supermarket.

TOFU SCRAMBLE

1 package of extra-firm tofu

1 vegetable bouillon cube with seas salt and herbs

½ red onion, chopped

1 orange bell pepper, chopped

1 package of fresh baby spinach

2 cups of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

Olive oil

Butter or Dairy-free alternative like Earth Balance

Freshly Cracked Black Pepper

½ tsp turmeric

In a large skillet over medium high heat, add the olive oil, a pat of butter and add the onions and peppers to soften. Add the bouillon cube too and dissolve it in the mixture.
Drain the tofu as much as you can. In a bowl, pat it with a few paper towels. Mash the tofu and add to the onions and peppers in the skillet. Miox it well so the tofu starts infusing itself with the flavors in the skillet.
Season with black pepper and turmeric. Mix well.
Add the tomatoes and spinach to the mixture. Mix it all well and cover for a few minutes so the spinach wilts .
Uncover and raise the heat a bit so the liquid that most probably accumulated at the bottom can evaporate a bit.

Tofu Scramble with tomatoes, onions, peppers and fresh baby spinach.