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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Caribbean Caprese Salad

16 Aug

To be honest… I was not going to blog about this. This was just the salad I had for lunch yesterday.

This was the order of events…

I am proud to say, I am friends in FaceBook with Top Chef Master Suvir Saran. We have friends in common and once I confused him with someone else because his face was familiar to me. Hello!!!! The mutual friend made me come to my senses and instead of him taking offense with my confussion, he friended me.  And we’ve been “FaceBook Friends” ever since.

Suvir shared a picture of a delectable Caprese Salad yesterday in his page and I was inspired to have a Caprese Salad for lunch too. I had some avocado I do not want to go to waste and I added some to my salad. That’s it… that’s how this dish came to be.

Photo Courtesy of Chef Suvir Saran

Today, I shared my pic in Facebook, emulating Suvir’s move and there are so many Likes and compliments that I was urged to share here with you all. People want to learn to make this salad… so, here’s the non-recipe:

 

CARIBBEAN CAPRESE SALAD

Romaine Lettuce – 3 leaves, cut thinly into strips
About 10 GrapeTomatoes, halved
3 slices of Fresh Mozzarella – ripped into smaller pieces
2 wedges of avocado, cut small
Olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar – the best aged one you can find
Salt and Pepper to taste
  1. Just assemble the veggies in a plate.
  2. Drizzle olive oil, balsamic vinegar over the veggies. Sprinkle with salt and pepper over salad.
  3. Toss to combine as you eat it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. This was fresh, filling yet left me space to eat some mashed potatoes with broccoli. I know the combination sounds weird, but that’s my lunch menu for you.

Thanks Adela for encouraging me to share this… please, now PIN AWAY!!!! 😉

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Veggie Bites of Wisdom #11

14 Aug

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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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Frozen Vianda

9 Aug

I mentioned you on my Yuca Alcapurrias post that if you did not have the equipment, muscle or simply, like me, you’re too lazy to grind yuca all by yourself… you can certainly use frozen ground masa already available at supermarkets.

I visited the supermarket the other day with camera on hand to show you the different kinds of masas available for you already…

You see, on the left,  you have masa for alcapurrias and/or pasteles… you also have ground yautía by itself which would be delicious for these yautía fritters Mili and I used to make at the Center. You also have masa made from green banana, great to make little dumplings and boil into a soup.

In this other photo, you can see the ground yuca in the center… flanked by yautía and green banana. These are just made from another company.

These are available in all major supermarkets in Puerto Rico… but I have also seen these in supermarkets in Miami.

If you rather make boiled yuca to eat with Cuban mojo, there’s also convenient yuca cut into pieces ready to boil. This is the kind I usually buy when I need to get my Cuban fix at home. At the Yoga Center we peel yucas. At home, I just boil the frozen stuff!!!!

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