Wednesday, October 31, 2012
10:18 AM
ACORN SQUASH,
BUTTERNUT SQUASH,
CALABAZA,
CARIBBEAN COOKING,
GARLIC,
GLUTEN FREE,
HALLOWEEN,
ONIONS,
PRESSURE COOKER,
PUMPKIN,
SIDE DISHES,
SQUASH,
WINTER SQUASH
I've been thinking about my first Halloween. Our family arrived in the US at the end of July in the late 60's. My father's family helped us find a place to live, work, schools, etc. They taught us about this wondrous country and new culture. A couple of months later, we started hearing about Halloween. Our cousins explained that children dressed up in costumes, then went door to door and people gave them candy!
Wow, I loved dressing up in costumes. During our last few years in Cuba, Mamina had let us use her pretty loungerie to play princesses. She knew we would be leaving everything behind when permission to leave the country finally came, so why not let the children have some fun with her pretty things. We did have fun and destroyed her gowns, climbing, running and having sword fights.
So here we were in this new country I was still unsure about, and I find out there is a holiday for dressing up and pretending! Plus the candy. In Cuba we couldn't even buy candy, because there wasn't any to buy, and my cousins tell me that in the US the neighbors are going to give us candy just for dressing up and asking for it!!!!
And so at 13 years old I got to go trick or treating for the first and last time....unless you count taking the children trick or treating.
Halloween has me thinking about pumpkins. Pumpkin in Spanish is Calabaza, but the calabaza I knew in Cuba is nothing like a pumpkin. Well, it is shaped like a pumpkin, but it is a green spotted squash with yellow-orange flesh. I searched all over for a picture of the kind of calabazas we ate in Cuba but couldn't find a good one. This is the closest I found on the web: Calabaza Squash. It's also called West Indian Pumpkin. You can buy it in Latin markets, usually already cut in pieces, because it's hard to cut. Papillo was always searching for the right variety of seeds to grow a proper calabaza in Utah, but was not successful.
My mother often cooked calabaza, because my father loved it. She cut the calabaza in large pieces and cooked it in her pressure cooker, with a little water. It was soft in 5 minutes. While it cooked she sauted onions and garlic in olive oil. Sometimes just garlic. Then she'd take the calabaza out of the pressure cooker, pour garlic and oil over it, sprinkle with salt and scoop right off the peel to eat.
I can't find any real calabaza where I live, but I prepared some butternut squash in a similar way to how my mother cooked calabaza and it was delicious! Acorn squash (or any other hard winter squash) also works.
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| Butternut Squash |
CALABAZA COCIDA - Winter Squash
½ of a calabaza squash, or butternut squash
3 garlic cloves
1 onion
3-4 Tablespoons olive oil or butter
Salt to taste
Wash squash. Cut into a few pieces, remove seeds. You can peel it at this point, but it is easier after it's cooked. Put the squash pieces in a pan with about 1 inch of water, cover and steam for 10-15 minutes, until tender. Just five minutes in a pressure cooker, let the pressure disipate completely before opening it. Peel the squash and cut it into smaller pieces
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| Pieces of butternut squash |
Or leave it in large pieces
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| Acorn squash pieces |
While the squash is cooking, slice onions and sauté them in butter or olive oil, on medium heat, until translucent
Mince or smash the garlic
Add to the sautéing onions and cook 1-2 minutes longer, the smell will be wonderful and permeate your whole house.
Spread this on top of the squash and sprinkle with salt generously.
This is good for you and yummy. Enjoy!
"Calabaza, calabaza, cada uno pa' su casa"- a saying which basically means it's time to go home. Thanks for the reminder, Rosa!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
4:39 PM
BEANS,
CUBA,
CUBAN FOOD,
DRY BEANS,
FRIJOLES BLANCOS,
GLUTEN FREE,
LEGUMES,
ONIONS,
PAPILLO,
PEPPERS,
PRESSURE COOKER,
SOFRITO,
SOUPS,
TUINUCU,
WHITE BEAN SOUP
As I have mentioned before, my father loved soup more than any other food. To him a meal was not complete if it didn't include soup. So my mother made wonderful soups nearly every day of their life together. This one is a favorite of my son, Aaron, and nephew, Dano, who requested I post it.
This week I'll tell you a little about my father. He was known by his family and friends as Aldito, charming, cheerful, creative, a great dancer and life of every party (and as a young man he never missed a party!), the man who could figure out how to fix anything, the friend who would help you when ever you needed assistance. As I thought about this, I realized with joy that my sons are like him in many ways!
Aldito grew up in the small town of Tuinucú, which is located in the belly region of the crocodile shaped island of Cuba. He was very bright and loved to learn, however, in contrast to Mamina (story here), the young Aldito did not like school. He was a headstrong child, who did not like rules or structure. He told us that because of this, he was often physically punished, mostly by his teachers. He would hide to keep from having to go to school, sometimes in a tree. Being found brought on another beating. "It was just the way things were done in those days", he explained. I hope humankind has evolved beyond this, I know my father did.
He wanted to protect his daughters from that kind of maltreatment, so he made a rule for himself that he would never spank us, and never did! He would often remind us, "no man should ever lay a hand on you, except in a kind and loving way".
Almost as amazing is what my sister, Nina, remembers. Our very loud and boisterous father would become unusually calm and soft spoken when he needed to address any serious misbehaving on her part. She knew immediately this meant he was serious about something she should recognize as unacceptable.
Above all he was my Papillo. A wonderful father who was always there for me and who not only supported me in all my dreams, but was even willing to explore them with me.
My father is no longer on this Earth, I can't see his "1000 watt smile" (as my friend Rosa Hernandez described it), but I can still feel it!
Gracias Papillo!
FRIJOLES BLANCOS-White bean soup
1 lb bag (2 cups) dry white beans (also called Navy beans)
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 carrots
A soup bone, or a piece of ham
1 Tablespoon salt
Sofrito:
2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 green bell pepper
1 medium onion
4-5 garlic cloves
chorizo (this is a Spanish sausage, not spicy)
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
Rinse beans and then cover with water and soak overnight. Next day pour out soaking water and add fresh water so it is about 2-3 inches above the beans, add potatoes, carrots and meat. If using a pressure cooker, cook 20-25 minutes after pressure is reached. Otherwise use a heavy pan, set it at the back of the stove, covered, and cook on medium heat for about 2 hours. Add more water as needed. You can also cook them on high in a slow cooker for 7-8 hours. Add the tablespoon of salt after the beans are soft.
Sofrito:
Chop up pepper, onion, garlic. Sauté in olive oil. When onions are getting translucent, add chorizo and tomato sauce and cook a few minutes longer, then add sofrito to beans. Stir and cook, covered, on low, for about 15 more minutes. It will thicken a bit and all the flavors will blend. Adjust salt if necessary.
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| A very hearty and comforting soup! |
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
3:19 PM
CUBA,
FLAVORFUL,
GARLIC,
GLUTEN FREE,
MISC,
MISC.,
OLIVE OIL,
ONIONS,
PEPPERS,
SOFRITO,
SOUPS
A great many of the delicious foods that came out of Mamina’s kitchen began with a sofrito. It is the seasoning base for many Cuban dishes. Sofrito is sauted onions, peppers, garlic and sometimes tomatoes.
I love to eat sofrito on crackers, sprinkled with a little salt. I remember as a child, I would be busy playing and in the back of my mind, I would be paying attention to when the smell of the sofrito reached its crescendo. I became quite adept at getting to the kitchen at that crucial moment when the flavors peaked. Too often, though, I would be unwilling to interrupt my games and by the time I got to the kitchen, I had missed it by just a few seconds, such disappointment. The sofrito was gone into the soup! What a waste, I thought at the time.
After my parents came to live with us, my mother loved to make her delicious food for my children. This got her started using a small food processor for making sofrito. She chopped things quite finely because at least one of my sons would not eat anything that had onions in it, if he could recognize them, and it is not Cuban food without onions. I like the texture of onions so I don’t chop so finely, and since I’m not his grandmother I don’t have to cater to that finicky son.
Sometimes in her later years Mamina would separate a little bit of sofrito on a plate for me. By the time I got to it the sofrito would be cold and not quite as yummy as when you get it out of the frying pan during that brief moment of extraordinary flavor. However, I knew she had thought of me, and I felt loved.
To make a basic sofrito, sautée onions, garlic and green peppers in olive oil. The gentle heat persuades them to release their amazing flavors, and when you mix the sofrito into the soup, rice, chicken, etc. the result is a flavor you can’t accomplish with dry spices. Some ingredients increase, decrease or disappear altogether, depending on what the sofrito is meant to flavor, (I will note this when necessary) but this is the basic recipe:
Olive oil to generously coat frying pan
1 onion
1/2 to 1 green bell pepper
3-5 garlic cloves
1 8 oz can of tomato sauce
(You can use fresh tomatoes, but she rarely did.)
Chop the onion, pepper and garlic large or fine, depending on your family’s preference. Sauté vegetables gently in the olive oil over medium heat. When the onions are translucent, add tomato sauce and cook the ingredients on low for a couple of more minutes to blend the flavors. At this point, you can add other things to the sofrito. For example, if you are making sofrito to use in Fricasé, you would add the chicken and potatoes to the sofrito. Otherwise, you can add the sofrito to something else, like beans that have been cooked until soft.
I also love sofrito because it is such a nice simple recipe that can be repeated or modified to bring great results. Just a few steps, a simple thing really, and it makes everything better.
I was trying to think of an acronym to help my children remember what goes into a sofrito. My daughter in law Tara came up with GO GO (garlic, olive oil, green peppers, onions). I guess that could work, since we came to the US in the late 60’s, when there was “go go dancing”, “go go boots” etc, but here is another idea. Just think of OPTIMISM and GRATITUDE, doubled. Two things that always make things better are OPTIMISM and GRATITUDE, especially if you add a little tomato sauce!
1 lb bag (2 cups) dry white beans (also called Navy beans)
