Topic “Food”

On any given morning, I will have a smoothie made with fresh fruit for breakfast. That allows me to start the day clean and refreshed. On the other hand, there are some days where I want something different. Something special. This is one of those days.

I had no idea of what to do with the remaining half of an avocado. Previously, I used part of it for eating with chips as a late night snack while watching movies. But I still wanted to do something different. I mean, how many things can you do with an avocado, apart from eating straight or making guacamole?

For her birthday, "V" asked me to bake a cake from scratch. I had to oblige. She is not vegan by any possible definition of the word. Not a vegetarian either. She is a true meat lover. Still, I made two cakes: one regular, and one vegan. This recipe is for the vegan one.

Since I'm leaving in a few days (I'm going to D.C. for the rest of the week), I decided I had to clean my fridge of all the food that might spoil during my absence. Also, a friend of mine challenged me to make something I've never made before, something requiring a special trip to the store, or a squash-based soup.

I told her that, since I'm leaving, I don't want to buy more food that might spoil. I didn't feel like eating squash soup either, so I finally decided to use an ingredient I've never used in cooking before: mangoes!

After much consideration, and plenty of bugging from Vilmali to spend some time together cooking something, we decided to get together to make pasta. From Scratch(tm)!

I bought a bunch of green plantains the other day, as you can see from one of my recent posts. I had only a few options before they started to ripen, so I originally decided to make tostones and freeze them. Then an idea occurred to me.

There was a Ballroom/Salsa Fusion party this last Sunday (December 14, 2008) to which I was invited by the awesomest dancer Laura Geldys. The idea was to meet at her place and have a nice brunch with a bunch of friends. Needless to say, I got there late.

Have I ever mentioned that plantains are to Puerto Ricans what shrimp are to Bubba. Plantain is the fruit of the mountains. You can fry it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's, uh, plantain canoes, plantain creole, plantain chips. Pan fried, deep fried, twice-fried. There's sweet plantain, green plantain, mashed plantain, smashed plantain, plantain soup, plantain stew, plantain with syrup, plantain and veggies, plantain ice cream, plantain sandwich. That's about it.

Part of the Puerto Rican tradition, the parrandas is when a bunch of us get together to eat, sing, and visit people to sing, and eat, at their places. This usually goes all night long and many times the visitees are not even notified. This makes it all the more fun.

It's not guacamole. It's not pico de gallo either. It's both! I had some leftover avocado from the hummucado sandwhich, but it was not enough for making guacamole. I think that the next best thing when you want guacamole, but you don't have it, is pico de gallo.