Kellee Green 7/19/18 Kellee Green 7/19/18

A Cuban Inspired Gastronomic Experience

Hola chicos, bienvenidos al blog. If you're wondering what all that gibberish means, I am simply saying hello and welcome back to the blog. I thought it would only be right to greet you guys in Spanish since we will be talking about Cuban inspired cuisine today. Personally, I have never been to Cuba, but it is high up on my list of upcoming travels. I would love to visit before it becomes commercialized and looses it's old city charm. Now, I may have never been to Cuba, but I have been fortunate enough to experience some good Cuban food in my lifetime. I tell ya, depending on where you go, it's a food experience that shouldn't be missed. The atmosphere is what really makes the experience excellent. Usually there is a mixture of Afro-Cuban jazz, mambo, and salsa playing over a set of speakers while smells of garlic, oregano, coriander, and cumin waft through out and delicious mojitos being served cold. It's a thing to behold!

Sometimes in my house on the weekend, I like to cook up different things and play around in the kitchen and experiment. This past weekend I had some extra time and decided to try my hand at a Cuban inspired dish. I say Cuban inspired because I didn't really follow a strict recipe and I used what ever seasonings that I had in my panty; what ever I thought would be close to what the real deal might be. Thank goodness that I don't have a tough critic. Karina usually eats most things I whip up in the kitchen without any complaints. I'd say she's my biggest fan (insert wink).

For this meal I will be cooking chicken, black beans and rice, and an avocado-tomato salad served with a mango mojito. Guys, I can't seem to get away from mangos this season. After all, the mango trumps all other fruits. There is nothing more pleasing to my taste buds than the sweet nectar of a juicy ripe mango in the summer. So, before I go down the rabbit hole on how excellent I think the mango fruit is, we should get back to real reason why we're all here: The food!

INGREDIENTS

Chicken

1 lb to a 1 lb and half of chicken thighs cut into chunks or split chicken breast
1 and half limes halved
1 large orange
salt
pepper
cumin
oregano
garlic granules/poweder
paprika
adobo

Black Beans

1 can of black beans
2 tbsp of olive oil
several cloves of garlic chopped finely
ground cumin to taste
paprika to taste
adobo

Rice

1 cup of rice (I use Jasmine, it's my preference)
1 and a half cups of water
several cloves of garlic chopped and minced finely
adobo
a bunch of cilantro chopped

Avocado Salad

2 avocado's
2 diced tomato's
1 tsp Himalayan sea salt
1/4 cup cilantro chopped
the juice of half a lime (just a little squeeze)
olive oil (just a drizzle)

Mango Mojito

1 mango cubed
a pinch of sugar
a bunch of mint
cream soda
a white rum of choice
slices of lime
ice

INSTRUCTIONS

Cleanse chicken thoroughly with cold water, rubbing lime and salt all over and rinse. Rinse again and pat chicken dry with a paper towel to remove any extra moisture. Take chicken to a cutting board and dice into chunks if using boneless thighs. If using chicken breast, split the breast by butterflying it with a knife. Get a dish out for the chicken to marinate in. Rub salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, paprika, garlic granules, and adobo all over chicken. Squeeze in the juice from the limes and the orange and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Mix thoroughly making sure that every piece of chicken is covered and coated with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate overnight or for a few hours depending on how much time you have. Usually, the longer, the better. When you're ready to cook add two tablespoons of oil (I used olive oil) to a skillet on medium high heat. Add chicken and cook for 6-7 minutes on each side or until done. Chicken will be a nice brownish color when done.

All the beautiful seasonigs used for the foods that are being cooked.

Marinated chicken all ready for the skillet.

To prepare the rice, add about a tablespoon of oil to a deep pot. Add adobo, cumin, paprika, and minced garlic. Cut heat on high and sauté garlic and seasonings until fragrant. Be careful not burn the garlic. This step should only take about three to five minutes. Cut the flame down on the stove just a tad and add the rice. Stir the rice, coating the rice well in the seasonings and garlic. Add your water and wait for it to come to a rolling boil. After the water comes to a rolling boil, cover the pot with a lid and reduce flame to low. Do not touch or stir the rice during this time. The rice will be done in about 15-20 minutes.

The rice and black beans will cook at the same time and it's kind of a similar method using some of the same ingredients. Get another small pot and add a tablespoon of oil, your minced garlic, adobo, and cumin. The amount of garlic, adobo and cumin used for the beans can be as much or as little as you like. This is all based on taste. Cut the flame on high and sauté the garlic and seasonings until fragrant, still keeping an eye out not burn the garlic during this process. Once the garlic and seasonings have been heated just enough, add the entire can of black beans, juice included. Cut the flame down to medium low and cover with a lid. Check the black beans every so often and give them a good stir to make sure the beans are not sticking to the bottom of the pan. The beans will be done in about 30-35 minutes time.

Can you tell that we love fresh garlic in this house.

The pans  are all set with the minced garlic and seasonings.  Everything is getting sauteed before adding the rice and beans. Very similar cooking steps for both. It's important to heat the seasonings with he garlic so the flavor can pop t… — The pans are all set with the minced garlic and seasonings. Everything is getting sauteed before adding the rice and beans. Very similar cooking steps for both. It's important to heat the seasonings with he garlic so the flavor can pop through in the dish.

Rice on the back burner. Beans on the front burner. Ready for cooking.

While everything is cooking on the stove, now is the time to prepare the avocado-tomato salad. Slice two avocado in half and remove the seeds. Dice the avocado in chunks while it's still in the skin. Scoop out the chunks and throw them into a bowl along with the diced tomatoes and chopped cilantro. Drizzle in some of the juice from the lime and a little olive oil into the bowl and mix together lightly. You don't want to mix too vigorously, just mix it together gently. Add salt to taste.

At this point everything should be coming together quite nicely. the food is just about done. A few minutes before plating your food you'll want to fix your mojitos. Now, I know there are proper ways to fix a mojito, but I am just following a recipe that I have and tweaked a bit to make it my own. Again, just using what I have at the house. Take a tall glass and add a pinch of sugar, a few of the lime slices, and mint. Use a muddle instrument and mush together the sugar, mint, and lime. Get those flavors from those ingredients nice and mixed inside of the glass. Add a few of the mango chunks, some of the ice cubes, a little of the cream soda. Not too much cream soda. It will end up being too sweet if you use too much. Add a few splashes of rum, more lime, mint, and mango and garnish with a fancy lime slice or a piece of mint. You are all set.

I ended up using more mint that what is pictured. Mint shrinks down when you muddle it. Only a tiny pinch of sugar was used because this particular brand of cream soda is really sweet. I also used a lot of lime to offset the sweetness that the mango and cream soda would give it.

Now, the moment we've all been waiting for. Time to plate the food and sit and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Serve the chicken, black beans, and rice on a plate. Garnish the rice with cilantro if you please. Serve the avocado-tomato salad in a bowl. Don't forget to grab your mojito.

I hope you guys enjoyed this food experience just as much I enjoyed sharing it with you guys. Until the next time, take care and see ya soon.

Kellee Green 5/13/18 Kellee Green 5/13/18

Tropical Eats and Drink

Hi there, welcome back. I am so glad that you decided to come on over to the blog today. I will be talking about some of my favorite food and drink that I like to whip up whenever I am feeling, or shall I say, wishing, that I was somewhere tropical catching a cool breeze with a nice drink in my hand. Before we jump right into it I want to tell you that this is a no frills or fuss type of deal. I am just a regular lady whipping up things in her kitchen and sharing it with the world. Have I told y'all that I love to eat? I am foodie to the very core of my being. I love a good bite to eat.

Well, lets get right into it, shall wee.

I prepared three things today. Hawaiian pulled pork sliders, strawberry/mango cheesecake, and a glorious boozy rum punch. With the temps reaching well into the 90's here on Ft. Knox the timing couldn't be better for a nice cold tropical rum punch. This was my first time making the Hawaiian pulled pork sliders so I was a little apprehensive at first but the meat turned out magnificent. With everything that I am preparing today you can use what ever you like to make it yours and more suitable for your palate. I just used what I had in the house at the time.

Hawaiian Pulled Pork Sliders

Pork Shoulder (3-4 lbs)

1 small onion

1 cup of pineapple juice

Pineapple chunks fresh

1/2 cup of water

1/2 cup of brown sugar packed

1 Tbs Salt

1 Tbs Pepper

1 Tbs Garlic

1 Tbs Paprika

1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

*Adobo (a pinch for good measure)

King's Hawaiian Rolls

The measurements of the seasonings are a personal preference so feel free to use more or less of each. I cooked a small pork shoulder so I started with a tablespoon of each of the seasonings. When I cook it's all by the hip. I just go with what I think will be good. A good rule of thumb to go by when cooking is to start light on the seasonings and add more if needed. However, with pork, I am always a little heavy handed with the seasonings because I feel like the pork absorbs it more and it needs more flavor.

For this recipe, I cut my pork shoulder in to small pieces and washed them thoroughly with a little salt, cold water, and apple cider vinegar. I drained the water, rinsed, drained, and rinsed one more time. After my final rinse I pat dried the chunks and placed them into the crock pot bowel. I added all of the seasonings, brown sugar, pineapple chunks, diced onion, and liquids; mixed everything around by hand (I used gloves) to get all of the meat coated evenly and put the lid on. Final step was seting it on low for 8 hours and walking away.

Cleaned pork shoulder ready for the seasonings, liquids, and other tid bits.

All done. If only there was a such thing as smell-o-vision!

After eight hours time has gone by check your meat to make sure it's nice and tender and basically falling apart. Strain all meat from the juice in the crockpot and put it in a container and shred (pull apart) with two forks. It should easily break apart with two forks. If your container or dish is oven proof you can sit the dish in a warm oven to rest while you prep the rolls and the garlic butter drizzle that goes on top.

The garlic butter drizzle is nothing more than a couple of cloves of fresh pressed garlic, parsley flakes, and a stick of butter sautéed lightly over med high heat on the stove.

Cut the entire pack of rolls open but do not separate them piece by piece. They should look like two big pieces of bread that have been sliced width wise across. Kinda like making a sandwich.

Before we go any further, I suggest getting a deep oven safe dish because the sliders will have to go in the oven for for the final step and they need a place for the garlic butter liquid to collect.

After you have cut the Hawaiian rolls, layer on the pulled pork as thick as you'd like. Feel free to top with cheese or any kind of cole slaw or sweet and tangy BBQ sauces that you fancy. I opted for a shredded cheese mixture this time, but next time I will go with nice thick slices of cheddar. After you've put the sandwich together heat up the garlic butter drizzle and pour it evenly all over the top of the Hawaiian rolls and put in an oven set to 350 for about 15 minutes.

Side note*

I have a very temperamental gas oven and it can cook things fairly fast, so you may have to adjust your temp setting and time depending on what type of stove range you have. The point is to heat up the sliders and melt the cheese on the inside. So just eye it and make sure it's not actually cooking and burning. You want it to have a nice and toasty look to it when pulling them out of the oven.

All theres left to do now is to wait until they are cooled down enough to eat ;)

On to the cheesecake. I made this cheesecake the night prior to making the pulled pork sliders due to the time that the cheesecake and fruit topping needed to rest. This particular cheesecake was a labor of love. I made the crust from scratch as well as the topping.

For the cheesecake I used three packages of softend cream cheese, three eggs, one cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of butter, and splash of vanilla for good measure. I mixed the three packages of cream cheese, the butter, and sugar all together until it was smooth and creamy. I separated the egg yolk and egg whites then beat the egg whites until they formed stiff peaks. Slowly, one by one, I added the egg yolks to the mixture while mixing until they were well incorporated and then folded in the stiffened whipped egg whites gently. I hear this is ''supposed" to make for a fluffier texture cake.

Cheesecake batter before I folded in the egg whites.

Now, on to the fun part. For the crust I used an entire package of graham crackers and turned them into tiny crumbs. For this part you can put the graham crackers into a ziplock bag and hammer away at them until they are crumbs, or you can put them in the food processor; but thats no fun if you're trying to let out some pinned up aggression ;)

After the the solid graham crackers are all crumbly, empty the graham cracker crumble into a bowl. Add 1/2 cup of melted butter to the crumbles and about two tablespoons of sugar. Mix all together until nicely combined and dump the mixture into the cheesecake pan of your choice and spread out evenly covering the entire bottom of the pan. I used a pie dish that I have but you can also use a round spring pan. I put the cheese cake into an oven set on 350 for 35 minutes.

Crust set and ready for the cheesecake filling.

While the cheesecake is doing its thing in the oven I prepared the strawberry mango topping. Ya'll, mangos are my jam! As I was peeling and cutting the mango's for the topping I couldn't stop stealing little bits and pieces and eating them. Im surprised any of the mango ended up in the puree at all.

Caught red handed devouring the pit of the cut up mango. Look at the juices running down my hand. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you know that you have a ripe and delicious mango.

The topping is pretty straight forward and simple. I washed of some strawberries (about two hands full) threw them in the Vitamix. Peeled and cut two mango and tossed the bits in with the strawberries. Added about two table spoons of sugar and pulsed until I got the texture I wanted. The Vitamix is a powerhouse blender so I only had to pulse three or four times before it was done.

Mango and strawberry going in the blender.

I set the topping in the fridge overnight so to the sugar could do its thing and make the topping come to life. By the time I was done with the fruit topping the cheese cake was ready to come out of the oven and rest overnight as well. I don't know about you guys, but when ever I bake anything yummy I have the hardest time letting it rest and cool. It's tourture! The entire house smells so good and all you can think about is how delicious everything will taste.

Now that everything has set in the fridge over night and rested, its time to dress this cheesecake and dig in. I spread the topping on leaving the outer edges bare, but you can cover the entire thing if you wish. It's yours to do what ever you fancy with it.

I would just like to say that I am horrible at cutting anything in the shape of a circle. It will always come out a little wonky. I thought I had let the cheesecake sit on the counter for enough time to get the chill off; boy was I wrong. The thing was still pretty hard to cut. Well, lets just say that the crust was being temperamental. The cheesecake part cut beautifully.

It's not always pretty, but it sure is yummy.

Now that the cheesecake and the pork sliders are complete, its time to throw together the rum punch. The recipe for the rum punch is just bunch of random things that I mixed together that put me in the mind of tropical.

I used 1/2 cup Malibu's coconut Rum, 1/2 cup Bacardi Mango Rum, the juice of a whole lemon, one cup of Simply Fruit Punch, 1 cup of Simply Tropical, one cup of sprite. I mixed all of the liquids and threw in some orange slices, pineapple, and strawberries. I added about a cup and half of ice cubes and mixed. You may be thinking, is that all of the alcohol she's using? Keep reading. The secret ingredient (not so secret now) to all of this was about 1/4 cup of Summer Colada Ciroc. The Summer Colada is not a rum but a vodka. It goes completely against the grain of what a rum punch is but the pineapple note takes the flavor of the rum punch to the next level.

And just like that, we have all things tropical. This was so fun to make. It really made me feel like I was experiencing a little bit of the island life.

This is the part where you dig in and let you heart and mind take you somewhere topical.

Well, I hope that you guys have enjoyed this segment on Tropical Eats and Drink. I can't wait until out next food adventure. I am sure it won't be long before I'm either back in my kitchen whipping up something or going to one of my favorite places to eat. Thanks for stopping by today :)