Ingredients:

3 lbs of potatoes
1 tbsp of adobo seasoning
1 tbsp of garlic powder
2-3 tbsp of unsalted butter
2-3 tbsp of sour cream
2-3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Peel, wash and chop the potatoes in half and then quarters. Boil or steam them adding the adobo to the water. Cook for 20 minutes or until they’re soft and tender. Drain them and let them rest for 5-10 minutes and then add them to a large bowl. Add the olive oil and start mashing. Once they start gaining some color from the oil add the butter and continue mashing, slowly add in the garlic powder while mixing the ingredients and last but not least, add the sour cream. Taste the potatoes and add more butter or sour cream to reach the right taste and creamy consistency. If you don’t want them to be so thick and creamy, add a splash of milk. Sprinkle some parsley flakes or fresh cilantro for some color. And there you go, delicious creamy home style mashed potatoes, goes great with barbecue, pork chops, steak, steamed vegetables, etc.

Sure, it’s easy to buy a can of soup, add water, heat it up, and presto! But there a few things you should know about canned soup; first of all they usually contain a high amount of sodium, a moderate amount of preservatives, and anything that’s been canned long enough starts to absorb the coating and metals inside the can. The few times I buy ready made soups I at least make sure they are low in sodium but once you learn how to make a simple stew, you’ll find that it’s better to make your own.

Ingredients

potatoes or yams, peeled or unpeeled, chopped
carrots, chopped
pumpkin, chopped
mushrooms, sliced
spinach leaves, chopped
1 large onion of any color, chopped
1 can of tomato sauce
2-4 tablespoons of sofrito
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
garlic powder
onion powder
curry powder
adobo

You can make a soup out of anything you have, in this recipe we’ll be using the tomato sauce to create the base for your soup.

In a large pot, boil some water, about 2-4 cups depending on how much of your vegetables you’re adding. Add the potatoes and let them cook for 10 minutes, then add the carrots and pumpkin, continue to cook for 2-3 minutes, and then add the tomato sauce and seasons, taste test until you’re satisfied with the flavor. Cover it with the lid. I sometimes use soy sauce instead of adobo.

Sautée the onions in a skillet with the butter and sofrito, once they start caramelizing, add the mushrooms and spinach. When they’re fully cooked, add them to the pot where the soup is cooking.

If you feel you need to add more water to make it more soupy try using canned vegetables and pour it with the water, add 2 tablespoons of butter, and season to your taste. I like to use small amounts of white vinegar, Dijon mustard to add flavour and thicken the soup, and vegetable or tomato juice if I have any. Keep the pot uncovered if you think you added too much liquid.

The soup will be ready when the potatoes and vegetables are tender and all the ingredients are well blended. Taste test and if you’re satisfied with the texture and flavour, you’re done.

The key to making good food is using quality ingredients. Here’s a great example, when you make a simple salad, instead of using iceberg lettuce try using romaine instead. The greener the leaf the better, if you can use baby spinach that’s even more nutritious. Organic tomatoes are tastier than regular tomatoes, if you really want to be gourmet try Campari tomatoes, those are the best for salads, they have great taste. If you want something cheap and simple cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes sprinkled with white vinegar and extra virgin olive oil are a good combination.

My simple salad:

tomatoes
lettuce or fresh spinach
parmesan cheese
white distilled vinegar (or any vinegar, balsamic is a good choice)
extra virgin olive oil
garlic powder

Wash the leaves and tomatoes, depending on the size of the tomato, cut them in quarters or halves. Sprinkle vinegar and olive oil, toss the salad, garnish with parmesan cheese and garlic powder, plate in a small bowl. And there you have a simple and yummy salad that’s great before dinner.

One of the easiest things to make is pasta. There are so many ways to make a delicious pasta dish. I always like to have some sort of pasta available when I don’t know what to make for dinner. My favourites are rottini, farfalle, and angel hair.

Garlic Alfredo Angel Hair with breaded chicken breast

Doesn’t that recipe title sound fancy? But it’s so easy to make!

100% all natural chicken breast patties or chicken nuggets, tenders
angel hair pasta (or any pasta)
quality garlic alfredo sauce (I use Bertolli’s ’cause Ragu’s is pretty tasteless)
dried parsley
garlic powder

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. I bought an organic garlic and parsley angel hair pasta made with Jerusalem artichoke flour the other day that was just delicious, I boiled it in water and some leftover asparagus water from a bottle I opened the day before.

Place the breaded chicken (patties, nuggets, tenders) in a toaster oven and cook until well done. Once pasta is cooked drain the water but not completely. Do not turn off the stove yet, add half of the alfredo sauce to the pasta and stir to warm it.

Plate the pasta, add some more sauce on top of it and garnish with the parsley and garlic powder. Cut the chicken into pieces and place them on top.

If you use this recipe, let me know how it turned out (twitter: @iniara).

Arroz congrí is rice with black beans. I use parboiled long grain rice, canned black beans, tomato sauce, sofrito, olive oil, and bell peppers (optional). See my sofrito recipe if needed. Remember that when cooking rice mixed with other ingredients, you lessen the amount of water usually used when cooking plain rice. See this post for regular parboiled rice/water proportions.

In a pot, add 1 tbsp. of oil and sofrito. Let the sofrito brown and add half a can (4 oz) of tomato sauce and half of a chopped red and/or green bell pepper. Season with salt if you want, I generally don’t since canned beans have enough sodium.

Depending on how much rice you’re cooking, you need to adjust the amount of water. Add the can of beans (water and all) and the rice (1-2 cups), stir and lower heat. Add water until it’s about 1 inch covering the rice (usually 1-2 cups of water). If more than 3 cups of rice (8-10 servings) use double the amount of the other ingredients (oil, sofrito, beans etc.) and roughly 1 cup of water per cup of rice.

Let cook for 20 minutes or until the water evaporates and taste, if undercooked add more water.

Arroz Congrí tastes really good with stewed beef or sunny side up eggs.

Multipurpose concentrated garlic

30-50 peeled garlic cloves
white distilled vinegar

This is prepared the same way as sofrito. Add the peeled garlic cloves to the blender or food processor with a few tablespoons of vinegar. The vinegar is to allow an even blend. Don’t use too much liquid, you want a concentrated batch.

Once you have an even blend, pour mixture in a container and refrigerate. Any recipe that requires sofrito you can add a tablespoon of concentrated garlic for more flavour.

This concentrate is great…

for ant and mosquito bites, apply on bite after washing skin.
with butter and parsley to make garlic bread.
in home made pasta sauce.
for a cough remedy, mix a teaspoon of the garlic with honey and add boiling water, drink as tea.
in an omelette and much more.