Pastel Imposible - Pumpkin Brownie and Cheese Flan

Here is a great dessert recipe for you to try.

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Grease a bundt pan with cooking spray

Caramel

• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of water

Heat the sugar and water mixture in a small frying pan or a sauce pan without disturbing until the sugar begins to brown.  When it begins to brown, shake the pan around just a little to ensure that the browning is even.  When the mixture becomes golden, pour it into the bundt pan and set it aside.

Flan

• 1 12 oz can of evaporated milk
• 1 can of condensed milk
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 8 oz package of cream cheese

Blend all of the ingredients in a blender and pour into the bundt pan.  

Brownie (Brownie recipe came from cooks.com)

• 1 15 oz can of pure pumpkin
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix all of the brownie ingredients well and pour halfway into the bundt pan.  You can reserve the remainder of the mix for brownies.

At this point the bundt pan should contain the following 3 separate layers: 1) the caramel, the flan mixture, and the brownie mixture.  DO NOT stir these ingredients up. 

In a larger pan, prepare a water bath with about 2 inches of water.  Place the bundt pan into the water bath and let this mixture bake for about 3 - 4 hours.  

Make sure the cake is done by poking a toothpick in it.  If it comes out clean, it's done.

Allow the cake/flan to chill, before you attempt to unmold at room temperature.  This is definitely a winner.

Vanilla Rum Balls

The following recipe is a spin-off from a recipe given to me by my former colleague Sharon Ponchak. Although I tweaked the recipe to make it my own, I don't think I deserve full credit for this one. If memory serves me right, I believe this recipe was handed down to Sharon by her Nana.

Here's what you need:

• 2 1/2 cups nilla wafers
• 1 cup or 1 8oz package of slivered almonds
• 1 six ounce package of white chocolate morsels (chips)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons lite corn syrup
• 1/3 cup of your favorite rum. (Baccardi light is recommended)
• Powdered sugar (for dusting off the rum balls)

First, crush the vanilla wafers with a rolling pin and reserve in a large bowl. Then, in a food processor or blender, break up your slivered almonds into tiny chunks. If it crushes up a little, that's okay, just do not grind it into powder. Next, melt the vanilla morsels in a double boiler. Once the morsels are melted, stir in the sugar, corn syrup, the rum and the almonds and combine with your crushed vanilla wafers and mix well.
Take a small portion of the mixture and roll in into a ball shape in the palm of your hand. In a cookie sheet, or flat pan, pour enough powdered sugar to cover the bottom of the pan and place each finished rum ball in the pan. Once all of the rum balls are made and placed in the pan, roll the balls in the powdered sugar until they look like little snow balls. Once they are done, place them in an air-tight container and refrigerate for about an hour.
Enjoy!

Pasteles de Yuca

Friends,

For virtually every Puerto-Rican family, holiday food always consists of pasteles. However, for those of you who are familiar with pasteles, you know that a lot of work goes into the preparation of this holiday meal. While pasteles are typically made with plantains, squash, yautia, and green bananas, an easier and less cumbersome recipe consists of making the pasteles out of yuca. What is more, there is no grating required.

Here is my take on pasteles de yuca.
1 Package of pork shoulder chops
1 Boullion cube
Adobo to taste
4 sprigs of Cilantro (about)
2 Garlic cloves
2 medium sweet peppers (ajies) - these are small sweet peppers found where the cilantro is.
Dried oregano to taste
1 Olives
2 1.5 oz packs of raisens
1 small can of garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon of tomato paste or 1 small can of tomato sauce
1 package of frozen grated yuca (found in the freezer section with other Spanish frozen foods)
1/2 of a medium sized acorn squash
3 medium sized potatoes
1/3 cup of achiote (annato seeds)
1 roll of Pasteles paper
1 roll of string for tying pasteles

Start by emptying your yuca mixture into a large bowl then peal your potatoes and put your squash and potatoes to boil together. You can actually leave the skin on the squash and remove it after it boils and cools off. When the potatoes and squash are boiled, place them in a bowl (not the yuca bowl) and mash. After they are well mashed, place them in the yuca bowl. Next, take the pork shoulder chops off the bone and reserve the bone. Once all of the meat is removed from the bones, boil the bones with the boullion cube. While that is boiling, take your meat and cut up into small pieces and season with adobo. In a mortar, place your cilantro, pealed garlic cloves, and two sweet peppers, season with a little oregano and pound away until your mixture forms a green paste. Season the meat with this grean paste. Put a little corn oil in a frying pan. enough to circle the bottom of the pan. Once the oil gets hot, place your seasoned meat in the pan and add your olives, raisens, and garbanzo beans. Cover your pan with a lid until the meat begins to brown. Once the meat begins to brown, add a tablespoon of tomato paste or a small can of tomato sauce. Cover and allow to cook. If meat begins to dry, add a little water to loosen up.

After your meat is cooked heat up about a half cup of corn oil and add the achiote. Allow the achiote to heat until your oil turns a bright orange. Do not let this burn.

Open your paper keeping all of the sheets together so that your mixtures do not seep through. Season your yuca mix with adobo and the pork stock that you prepared with the pork bones. Add a little bit of the achiote mixture and a little bit of your meat juices and mix well.

On a pasteles sheet, place a little bit (a little less than a tablespoon) onto the middle of your pasteles paper. The middle of your paper should have an orange blotch on it. In that orange blotch, place a large ricespoon serving of the yuca mixture, and in the middle of that, place a little of the meat mixture. Then take your paper and begin to wrap your pasteles. Have both ends of your paper meet, make a long thin fold, then fold over. You should have a long crease along the middle of your pastel. Fold over your two ends and set aside. Prepare another pastel, and when you have two of them ready, tie them together with your string like a gift package. Ill try to get a picture posted so you can see what this is supposed to look like. Those of you who are familiar with pasteles should not have a problem, but those of you who are not familiar with pasteles are not likely to know what I'm talking about.

After your pasteles are wrapped and tied, you can put them to boil in a pot of water. Be sure to add some salt to the water, and let the pasteles boil for about 1 hour. This recipe should render a little over a dozen pasteles. You can freeze the pasteles you don't plan to immediately eat and boil them when you're ready.

For me, this is Christmas. If you wish to make traditional pasteles, then instead of using yuca, take out your graters and grate 6 green plantains, 4 green bananas and 3 yautias in addition to the potatoes and squash instructions I stated above. All other instruction remain the same. The yuca pasteles are just as tasty and much less work.

Buen provecho!

Sancocho de Habichuelas / Bean stew

Well friends, fall is here and winter will soon be upon us. Without a doubt, the cold weather draws my appetite toward comfort food. One comfort food that warms the insides is a sancocho de habichuelas. This recipe was initially given to me by a dear friend named Elba. Though I can no longer remember Elba's last name, I promise you that this sancocho will be a memorable one. Throughout the years, I have worked at making this sancocho my own. Here's what you'll need:

• One small bag of roman beans
• 3 Chicken boullions
• One medium onion
• One pepper (preferably yellow, orange, or red)
• Three large cloves of garlic
• Adobo
• Five sweet peppers (ajies dulce)
• Dried oregano
• Corn Oil
• 1 tbs Tomato paste
• A bunch of Cilantro with stems (be generous with this)
• 4 sweet plantains (yellow, sweet but not over ripe)
• 2 green plantains
• 1 large wedge of squash (calabaza/auyama)
• A small pack of loose pork ribs (not a rack)
• One tbs sugar

Preparation:

• The evening you make the sancocho, put the beans in water
• The next day, drain the beans and fill a small-medium stock pot with water, but not to the top. Leave enough room for the remaining ingredients.
• Add a little corn oil (about 2 tbs), chicken boullions, beans, onions, pepper, adobo and a tablespoon of tomato paste
• In a mortar, place your garlic cloves and sweet peppers (ajies) and sprinkle with dried oregano and pound with the pestil unil a paste develops. Put half of this mixture in your pot of beans and reserve the other half for the ribs.
• Place your ribs into a bowl and season with adobo from the mortar mixture
• In a pan, fill with a little corn oil. Just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar in the pan and allow to caramelize. Once the sugar turns dark brown (it'll seem like it's burning), place your seasoned ribs in the pan and cover immediately. The ribs will sizzle, but when the sizzling simmers down, give the ribs a turn so that they absorb the caramelized coating.
• Clean your cilantro, and tie a string around it and place in pot of beans
• Once beans are soft and the ribs are cooked, place ribs inside the pot of beans. Reserve some of the left over sauce from the ribs pan.
• Cut your sweet plantains in thick round slices and place in your bean pot
• Cut your squash in squares and place in the bean pot
• Finely grate your green plantains and mix the grated plantains in the rib sauce and form round dumplings and place the dumplings into the bean pot.

Cook until the squash, plantains, and dumplings are done. The stew should be very thick by this time.

I know this sounds like a lot, but it's really uncomplicated, relative to other sancochos. I higly recommend this one. It's actually my favorite sancocho.

Enjoy.

Fried Chicken

Folks,

One of my favorite comfort foods is fried chicken. Here is my version of slamming fried chicken.

First, you have the option of retaining the skin or taking it off. I personally remove the skin. However, please note that if you wish to keep the skin then you have to make sure you clean it well by burning off any left over feathers and squeezing out any black heads and removing excess fat under the skin. Otherwise, just take off the skin and the excess fat. I personally opt for removing the skin and excess fat altogether. It's actually easier to clean this way and there is no compromise in flavor.

Anyway, this recipe is actually pretty easy. Here's what you'll need:

• About 1 cup of vegetable oil
• About 6 chicken parts (ideally any combination of legs, thighs, and breasts)
• Lawry's seasoned salt
• Black pepper
• Paprika
• 1 cup of all purpose flour
• 1 packet of Sazón with azafran

• Put vegetable oil in frying pan under medium heat. Make sure the frying pan is large enough to fit your 6 pieces of chicken comfortably, but not too large.
• Season chicken with seasoned salt, black pepper and paprika. In a separate bowl mix flour with Sazón.
• Coat chicken with flour and Sazón mixture. You can do this by placing the chicken into the mixture, covering the top of the bowl with a plate and shaking it until it is evenly coated.
• Once chicken is coated, sprinkle a tidbit of flour into vegetable oil. If it fizzles, then the oil is hot, which means you can start frying your chicken
• Allow chicken to fry well on one side before turning it. The chicken should be well fried on all sides and be a deep golden brown when it's done.

You can even apply this recipe to chicken wings. In fact, this recipe will definitely render SLAMMING wings.

Crab Cakes

Friends,

Here is a simple crab cake recipe I think you'll enjoy.

Here's what you'll need:

• About 1 pound of lump crab meat
• 1 diced medium onion
• About 1/3 cup of diced red pepper
• Black pepper to taste
• Celery seed to taste
• Cayenne pepper to taste
• Paprika to taste
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard
• 1 cup of mayonnaise
• The juice of 1 lime
• 5-6 slices of white bread with the edges trimmed

Combine your crab meat, diced onion, diced red pepper, black pepper, celery seed, cayenne pepper, paprika, sugar, mustard, mayonnaise and lime juice in a bowl. Next take your white bread and tear it up into small pieces forming crumbs. This can also be done by putting the bread in a food processor or blender. Add your bread crumbs to the remainder of the ingredients in your bowl and mix well. Finally you can begin forming your crab cakes.

One way to go about shaping your crab cakes is to take a 1\3 sized measuring cup and pack the crab cake mixture inside of it then release the mixture so that it takes the shape of the cup. You can also spray the bottom of the cup with cooking spray to prevent the mixture from sticking.

You can fry your crab cakes in vegetable or canola oil. Allow your crab cakes to fry well on one side before flipping it over.

When you're done frying the crab cakes, place them on a paper towel and allow any excess grease to drain off.

Bread Pudding (Pudín)

One of my favorite desserts is bread pudding. While there are probably hundreds of bread pudding recipes, my hope is that you will not hesitate to try this one. It is usually a hit at family gatherings, and my hope is that it will be a hit with you as well. Enjoy!

• Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

Caramel

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water

Bread Pudding

• One 20 oz loaf of sliced white bread
• Two 12 oz cans of evaporated milk
• One 15 oz can of coconut cream
• One 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/3 cup of dark rum
• Two 1.5 oz boxes of raisens
• Powdered cinnamon to taste

Caramel:

Begin by making the caramel. Pour the sugar and water into a sauce pan and cook under medium heat (undisturbed) until the mixture turns into a golden caramel and pour into a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Bread Pudding:

Begin by breaking up the bread slices as finely as you can then mix all of the remaining ingredients sprinkling your mixture with cinnamon.

Pour your pudding mixture into your caramelized pan. Then prepare a waterbath by taking another larger pan and pouring approximately 2 inches of water into it and place that pan into the oven first. Take the pan containing the pudding mixture and place that pan into the larger one in the oven and allow to bake for about 45 minutes or until you can stick a tookpick into it and it comes out clean.

When you remove the bread pudding from the oven, cut up into squares.