Supermeow!

Since my father’s got my camera and my cell phone battery is dead (and the charger is at work), I had to use the camera on my iMac to get this picture of my super-fragrant, super-delicious lunch.

My mother recently discovered Daisy Martinez’s cooking program on PBS. She’d fallen in love with Daisy’s food and started cooking the hell out of her recipes. When I go visit my parents, the visit may involve trying out vinagre, rice with pigeon peas, pink beans with ham, or tostones as shown. The food was all tasty enough that it inspired me to give her recipes a try.

Since Friday evening, I’ve made a total of four Daisy recipes: sofrito, yellow rice (which also included the process of making my own achiote oil, but that was easy enough that a five-year-old could do it), and today’s tostones with mojito.

The sofrito was first. I was a little bummed out that I couldn’t find a source of ajices dulces, mysterious peppers that look like habaneros but are supposed to be sweet. Something I’d read elsewhere suggested adding a red pepper or a cubanelle in its place, so I added an extra cubanelle to the recipe. Also, I needed a larger-than-11-cup food processor bowl because liquid got all over the place. I was worried that my bowl had a crack in it, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. I was also bummed that I didn’t get my hands on culantro, which I’d seen at Russo’s in Watertown several times in the past. Not on Friday afternoon, though. No problem: just added more cilantro. I am always eager to try out mysterious new ingredients, but perhaps next time. I otherwise stuck to the recipe and ended up with like a gallon of green sofrito… way more than I needed for the yellow rice. Ooops…

The yellow rice was more green than yellow (and I also think I used some pretty old rice because it took forever to absorb liquid), but incredibly flavorful and delicious. That was a hit. I was planning to make the tostones and mojito on Friday night, but got kinda tired out. We had the rice with rotisserie chicken and it was fantastic.

Moving on to today, the first thing that I made was the mojito, not to be confused with the Cuban cocktail of the same name. It is a tasty condiment of garlic, onion, white vinegar, olive oil, and the juices of citrus fruit. I also added the optional cilantro. After it was done, I couldn’t resist dunking slices of pita bread into the bowl. It is amazing. It’s incredibly strong because I added about 12 cloves of raw garlic (my mouth burns a little), but the taste is worth the burn.

Tostones, or “twice-fried plantains,” are made with ripe green plantains that are a pain in the ass to peel. I’ve made them before, but I think I’ve been using plantains more on the ripe side. Either that or I’ve gotten muscle atrophy since the last time I made these. I totally get why reeds under the fingernails was used (is still used?) as a method of torture. While trying to peel the plantains, I got some skin fibers jammed underneath my thumbnails. Yeouch! That hurts like nuts. Cooking them was simple: heat oil. Put in plantain slices. Take out. Drain and cool. Smash with knife. Fry again. Eat with delicious mojito and wonder what swill the other poor slobs are eating today.