Tag Archives: cooking

KarmaFree Cooking 1st Cooking Class Recap

28 Jan

You asked for it… and we heard you.

Last December we held our first KarmaFree Cooking class at the Centro Cultural Yoga Devanand kitchens.  A delicious vegetarian Puerto Rican Xmas menu designed to help the students discover and taste for themselves that traditional Xmas fare can be made vegetarian without losing any authenticity.

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The menu included:

Rosemary Almonds

Can be enjoyed as an Appetizer or Salad Topper or even as a homemade gift.  It’s a true KarmaFree Cooking favorite.

rosemary-almonds

Raw Yuca Pastelón – all the flavors of a traditional pastel in an easier to make format

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Brown Rice and Pigeon Peas – a classic of Puerto Rican cuisine

Arroz con Gandules

Yautía Fritters – the flavors of  alcapurrias, but without the filling

Frituras Yautia 3

A not so typical Salad – including some non-traditional salad ingredients and a delicious Parsley Garlic Dressing

A New Salad

My version of Tembleque – the quick, easy and vegan dessert we all love

Tembleque My Way

We had a lovely time during our cooking class.  To be honest, this is the first time I have taught an official class.  I have shared my recipes with my friends many, many times, but never in a class setting.  I hope the students who participated enjoyed it as much as I did.

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I would like to thank everyone who attended.  Some were personal friends, some are friends I have gotten to know thru the blog, others have been KarmaFree Cooking fans for a while…  I kinda felt like a celebrity when they told me that.  Your support and interest gets me going.  And it was real nice to have Adriana from Great Food 360 with us and specially to have her take the most awesome pics ever.  I need to ask Santa for a new camera STAT.

But I also want to send a special shout-out to my friend Angie… she was my co-instructor in this class and she ROCKED!!!  She’s my friend, but she was also one of my first vegetarian cooking teachers.  She was the “owner” of the Brown Rice and Pigeon Peas and Raw Yuca Pastelón Recipes.  We always talk recipes and it was a delight to have her on the team.

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Also, a special thanks to my mom… she was the official picker-upper and was in charge of doing the dishes, helping us keep the space clean for the students to cook.  Goes to show you the value of having someone helping you keeping things tidy in the kitchen.

Please visit the links of the recipes in the class above… and stay tuned for our next class coming up on February 1st 

Do you know where canola oil comes from?

20 May

When you drive across many parts of China you’ll see fields covered with little yellow flowers. Super pretty… you see them in almost every little patch of empty land available. Also, in India you see very similar landscapes… amongst the dry patches of lands there’s also fields covered with these pretty yellow flowers.

Most people believe they’re wildflowers… but in reality, they’re cultivated, not wild at all.  It’s the rapeseed plant. Not a very pretty name, but it’s the same plant where they get canola oil from.

Canola Oil Collage

The seeds look like very large mustard seeds… maybe because they’re related. But canola got its name because Canadians bred a new type of rapeseed plant that would yield oil lower in a component that was deemed toxic for humans.

So if you travel and see fields of pretty yellow flowers like these… be the smart one and tell everyone these are the plants where canola oil comes from.

 

KarmaFree Cooking on the Radio…

31 Oct

If you want to listen to my melodious voice…  I’ll be interviewed by Nicole Taylor in her Radio show HOT GREASE today @ 3:30PM Eastern Time. You can listen to us LIVE on www.heritageradionetwork.com.

We’ll be chatting about Halloween in Puerto Rico, Vegetarian Candy and many other interesting topics.  Hope you guys tune in and enjoy it.

 

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