Puerto Rican Cooking 102

Follow up to Puerto Rican Cooking 101
More Puerto Rican food! Today we have Tofu Guisado, modeled after Pollo Guisado (stewed chicken). It's REALLY good. No, really. I made the recipe for half a package of tofu, but you can double it if you want to make the whole thing (warning: if you make the whole thing, you may want to eat the whole thing).

Tofu Guisado
1/2 block of tofu, pressed well and cubed
2 Tbsp. recaito (see the bottom of this post)
3 Tbsp. tomato sauce
2-3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1- 1 1/2 c. water
1/4-1/2 tsp. Goya adobo seasoning
black pepper to taste

For the tofu marinade:
1 tsp. veggie chicken broth powder (I use the recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan)
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. vinegar (I used white)
1 Tbsp. water

Combine the ingredients for the marinade and toss with the tofu to coat. It should be just enough for a light coat. Let sit for a few minutes while your oven (I used my toaster oven) preheats to 375 degrees. Bake on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray until golden brown and dry.

Meanwhile, combine the recaito and tomato sauce in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Simmer for a few minutes. Add potatoes and 1 cup of the water. Add a shake or two of the Goya Adobo seasoning and some black pepper. Simmer on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are soft, adding more water if necessary (when the potatoes are nice and soft, the smaller pieces will break apart as you stir and make the sauce a little thicker--an added bonus). Add the tofu and let it sit for a little while to let the flavors combine.
Serve over white rice for optimum deliciousness.

Vegan Twinkies

This past week was the week of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. I went to both the NYC bake sale at Moo Shoes and the Long Island bake sale in Wantagh. I made twinkies for both. My inspiration came from the recipe at Vegan Lunch Box. I made a couple of changes. First, I wanted a yellower cake to get that real contrast between the cake and the filling. Second, I didn't have (nor did I want to search for) barley malt powder.

So, for the cake part, I used the recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Look for the Really Golden Cupcakes under Variations after the regular vanilla cupcakes. If you want that twinkie shape, you have to go out and find a cream canoe baking pan. You can find it in some specialty baking stores or buy online (Long Islanders: I got mine at The Chocolate Duck in Farmingdale). If not, go ahead and bake them as cupcakes. I won't tell anyone. The twinkies take less time to bake thank cupcakes; it should be about 16 minutes.

Twinkie filling:

1/4 cup vegan margarine (I use Earth Balance)

1/3 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

1/4 cup soy milk powder

1 - 2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup ricemellow fluff

Beat together the margarine and shorting until light and fluffy. Mix in soy milk powder. Add powdered sugar, a little at a time, until it becomes fluffy and creamy, just a little softer than a buttercream frosting would be. Fold in the vanilla and ricemellow fluff. 

Use a pastry bag to inject frosting in three spots along the flat side. It's hard to tell how much to put, but I just fill them until I feel them plump up in my hand and almost explode.

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?!