This is a simple side dish that I like to serve with stews, roasts, tray bakes, or grilled meats. Recently, I made it with the previously posted Chicken Fricassee. If I have a winter squash like butternut, calabaza, or acorn, I like to use that instead of the potatoes. Over rice, this is perfectly hearty enough as a vegetarian meal. Black … [Read more…]
Chicken Fricassee
Chicken Fricassee, Puerto Rican or Cuban style, is one of my favorite chicken stews. I like it with rice, red or black beans, and salad. If I have unripe plantains, I also love tostones to complete the meal. You don’t have to allow the extra time to marinate, but I prefer the flavor of the chicken when I have time for that step. When I am making … [Read more…]
Mini Potato Zaatar Egg Muffins
My son is not a big breakfast eater on school days, because it is simply too early for him to get a lot of food in. I do think it is important to try to get some good protein into him before school, so I made these Mini Egg Muffins, which are actually not muffins at all. They are frittatas baked in mini muffin pans. This makes it easy to reheat … [Read more…]
Layered Pita Eggplant Salad with Yogurt Dressing
As promised, here is the salad recipe from the previously mentioned small dinner party. This is a lovely salad where the whole is quite a lot more than the sum of it’s parts. It brings together the fresh crunchy lettuce, onions, and cucumbers, the warm fried eggplant and potatoes, the crispy bread, and the nutty chickpeas. It is very … [Read more…]
Black Bean Soup
This is a simple black bean soup that we had for lunch, perfect for a cold, end-of-December day. It gets some color from the addition of potatoes, butternut squash, and carrots to the black beans. We served it with some cooked rice on top. Colorful Black Bean Soup 1 onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, chopped 2 bay leaves 1 tablespoon … [Read more…]
Curried Ground Beef with Peas and Potatoes
Peas and Potatoes (Basella wa Batata) is a commonly made dish in the Levant area. Some people make this as a tomato based stew, and some as a sort of a curry stew. My family typically made it as a curry, but I love it both ways. Tonight, however, I made it close to how I always had it growing up, as a curried stew served with yogurt and … [Read more…]
Tray Baked Herb Chicken and Potatoes
This is a very easy weeknight dish, though we happened to have it on the weekend this time 🙂 . You place all your desired ingredients in a baking tray, and let it do it’s thing on it’s own while you do everything else you have to do. There are many variations on tray bakes, but they are a staple of any working parent’s repertoire. This was … [Read more…]
Cruzan Potato Stuffing
So, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I didn’t hurry to post my T-giving posts, since it is already over anyway. However, as Christmas is on the horizon, this will be fitting for then. One of the must-haves in my family’s Thanksgiving dinner menu (or any time we make turkey, which is several times a year – we LOVE it and look for any occasion to … [Read more…]
Lamb Curry with Potatoes and Spinach
Last weekend, a good friend of mine posted some pictures of her trip to the British Virgin Islands, while I was braving frigid weather in the Mid-Atlantic region. So, naturally, I needed some Caribbean food to warm me up. This is a take on the traditional Trinidadian “Curry Goat”. I did not have any goat meat handy, but I had about a pound of … [Read more…]