Puerto Rican Cooking 101

This is your first lesson in Puerto Rican cooking. People are always asking how to make rice and beans and stuff, so I'll just write a post here to refer to in the future. You can make the rice in a rice cooker--just add salt and oil to the cooking water. Also, I find it's best if you don't open the rice cooker when it immediately finishes. Leave it for about 5-10 more minutes to let the moisture evaporate some more. In my family, we like our rice more dry and fluffy than moist and gooey. So onto the beans:


Puerto Rican Style Beans 
1 can pink beans not drained or a similar amount of dried beans that have been soaked (This recipe is also great with chickpeas, like in the above picture!!)
1 Tbsp Recaito (recipe below) or more to taste
4 oz tomato sauce
1 packet sazon*
1 small potato, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
handful of pimento-stuffed green olives (optional)
pinch of oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute the recaito with the tomato sauce for about 3 minutes. Add beans, potatoes, olives, oregano, salt and pepper and enough water to cover the beans. Simmer over low heat until the potatoes are tender. Stir occasionally, and add water if needed to keep the liquid level above the beans

* Sazon is found in most supermarkets, with the spanish foods. It's usued mostly for color but it has other spices too (one caveat: it also has MSG). Annato/achoite can also be used, but that's even harder to find. The other spices in the packet are salt, garlic, cumin, and coriander. So I think it would work if you use those spices and add saffron. Honestly, you could just leave it out all together. It's not THAT crucial.


Now onto the recaito. This is what the finished product will look like.

Okay so Goya sells jarred recaito, but it's easy enough to make, so why not make your own? We usually make a huuuuge batch of this stuff so we can keep a big jar in the fridge and just scoop a bit out every time we cook (it's the flavor base for most Puerto Rican foods). I scaled the ingredients down a bit, but it still makes a lot, so just pack it into a jar and use it little by little. Now, in this recipe, you'll see a couple of new, unfamiliar ingredients. Culantro is sometimes called recao or long coriander. It can be found in Latino supermarkets and maybe Carribean/Asian supermarkets too. If you can't find it, add some more cilantro.
The other ingredient that you've likely never encountered is ajicitos. They're small and sweet and flavorful. They can be found at Latino supermarkets, but you can leave them out if you can't find them. No worries; there aren't even a lot in the recipe. 

The long leafy stuff in the left front is culantro. The small squat peppers are the ajicitos. I'm sure you're familiar with garlic, cilantro, onions and bell peppers.

Recaito (yield: about 3 cups)
3/4 cup garlic
1 large bell pepper (any color, or a mix)
2 yellow onions
1 cup cilantro
1/3 cup culantro
1/4 cup ajicitos


Toss everything into a food processor. Whir it around until everything is all minced together.

Brownies!

Making brownies is awesome. It's like making cake, but without the fuss of having to make frosting. And you can usually mix everything together in one bowl. Plus, you get the joy of scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula--the bowl instantly transforms from really dirty to nearly clean. Or you can just lick it all off. Either way is a total win. This is a recipe that I have altered a bit. I don't remember the original source. Vegweb maybe?

Brownies
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease a 9x13 pan and line with parchment paper. Mix everything together in a big bowl. Pour batter into pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Vegan Cookies!

I've been neglecting my blog lately, but I've been busy. I was slaving away trying to finish my Halloween costume (I may make a little tutorial about it since I couldn't find much when I was wondering how to make it) while studying for some tests at the same time.
In the meantime, I learned that Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar was released early! I ran to my nearest bookstore and snatched it up. I was so excited to make something; it was so hard to decide! I finally settled on Rocky Road cookies:

The only thing I did differently was substitute chopped vegan marshmallows (Dandies) for the white chocolate chips, because I haven't the slightest idea where/if they sell them on Long Island. They were absolutely wonderful. The marshmallows don't hold up as well as the white chocolate chips; they melted and made the cookies a little deformed. But really, who cares what they look like? They were DELICIOUS! I brought them  with me to a movie-watching event and they went like hotcakes.
The texture was absolutely perfect. I never liked the ice cream flavor because the crunchy almonds and chewy marshmallows were so different from the soft, smooth ice cream. In a cookie, the textures go great together. You get the crunchy/chewy thing from the cookie itself, so it bridges the gap between the textures of the almonds and marshmallows. Bliss.
Isn't it so pretty?!

VeganMofo: Vegan at weddings

::sigh:: Going out to eat is hard enough. Weddings are even harder.Yesterday, a friend of mine from middle school got married. I was prepared for the worst, but it actually wasn't that bad, comparatively. I didn't think to take pictures until the dinner portion, so some of the best stuff from the cocktail hour is missing. They had bread, pasta (which I was able to get plain), sun dried tomatoes with spinach in garlic oil, some eggplant-y stew-y thing, marinated mushrooms, marinated artichoke hearts, and plenty of raw fruits and veggies. I mixed it all together and made a really yummy pasta salad.

(Apologies for the bad pictures. The lighting was awful.)

Later, we went into the other room for the main portion of the reception and this was on everyone's plate. It's a salad, with grilled veggies and fresh mozzarella. I gave another friend my mozzarella and she gave me her mushroom. Grilled portabella mushrooms are fantastic, but the rest was just okay to me. It wasn't spectacularly seasoned or anything.

The second course was pasta, but it wasn't vegan. After that, they gave everyone Italian ices. Mine was lemon flavored and quite enjoyable. I wasn't expecting to have anything dessert-y, so it was a pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, they took the orders for the main course. There was a vegetarian option (a vegetable lasagna), but of course no vegan option. My friend had told them ahead of time that there would be a vegan, but the waiter looked at me like I had seven heads. I explained that I needed something with no cheese or meat or dairy, etc. and he offered grilled vegetables. Fine.

As expected, the vegetables in question were almost exactly the same as the uninspiring vegetables in the first course but the mushroom was traded for asparagus and there were strips of roasted red pepper strips instead of tomato. Overall: blah. Now don't get me wrong. Grilled vegetables are great....when they are prepared correctly. At my sister's wedding last year, they made me the best grilled vegetables I have ever had. Ever.

What makes it worse is the fact that grilled vegetables are the standard go-to vegetarian option so I end up eating them all the time. Why is that the only thing omnis can think of? It's not even easy. It's actually really hard to make good grilled vegetables. They'd be much better off with a pasta dish like the one I made in the cocktail hour. The dish they gave me was so boring. The vegetables were poorly cooked so they were rubbery in some parts and oily in others. The only exception was the asparagus. It was perfectly cooked and well seasoned. And where did my mushrooms go? Mushrooms are the best. That was a serious fail for them.

And of course, it wouldn't be a wedding if I didn't have to answer a million questions about veganism. It was the usual questions: Why are you vegan? How long have you been vegan? Isn't it hard? and the standard statements: I could never; I like cheese too much. I could never give up seafood. etc. I know these questions are fueled by curiosity and, for the most part, genuine interest. Still, it's annoying because I have to be careful not to sound judgmental and not to insult the grand omnivorous diet and not get defensive and not sound too fanatical, etc. But the girl I was talking to seemed very nice and genuinely interested, so I didn't mind too much.

Ah weddings. But the point that really matters is that I had tons of fun at the wedding and it really was a lot of fun and beautiful and completely spectacular. Congrats to the happy couple!

VeganMofo: Tempeh Stir Fry

I make a lot of 10 minute meals. I just don't have much time in the kitchen because I live with six other people, so my mom or sister is usually using the stove around dinner time. By the time they finish, I'm starving and I just want something as quick as possible. Hence, my quick and easy tempeh stir fry. First cut up some tempeh, and simmer it in a tiny bit of water until the water boils off. Then add some oil and the peppers and onions (or whatever you have on hand--bok choy, broccoli, etc) and pour some of Trader Joe's Island Soyaki teriyaki sauce over the top with a splash extra of soy sauce. Stir fry until the veggies are softened.