Sensational Sides: Du Riz a Sauce Pois (Rice with Bean Sauce)

Red Kidney Bean Soup

Ingredients

1 14 ounce pkg dry jumbo lima beans*
water
1/2 yellow medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 pack Sazon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter

Directions

1.  Fill a pot with the dry beans and water until the pot is is filled 3/4 of the way.

2.  Boil the beans on med-high heat until they are practically falling apart, about 2 hours. Replace water as necessary during the boiling process because it will evaporate during cooking.

3.  Transfer the beans and some of the cooking broth into a food processor.  Set the cooking broth aside in the pot.

4.  Add the onion, garlic...

5.  Add Sazon, cloves, allspice, and salt in the food processor over the beans...

6.   Blend until a smooth puree is formed.

7.  Transfer the puree back into the pot with the cooking broth. Add an additional 2 cups of water. Heat on med-high and bring the puree to a boil. **

8.  Reduce heat to low, add butter, and let simmer for at least 15 minutes or until heated through.

9.  Serve over white rice, with boiled plantain, or in a bowl with crusty french bread! ENJOY!
NOTE:

*You can also use red kidney beans, lentils, green peas, green lima beans, black beans, cannellini beans, great northern beans, or the 10 or 15 bean combinations sold for soup! This is a VERY versatile dish.

**For added flavor, add some smoked meat to the pot such as smoked turkey neck or wing, smoked pork neck, or sliced smoked sausage/kielbasa.

White Lima Bean Soup

Sensational Sides: Rice and Beans - Haitian Style

Ingredients

1/4 yellow onion, rough chopped
2 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
4 tablespoons of olive oil, divided
1 can of red beans (dark or light), rinsed and drained
2-1/2 cans of water
1/2 can of coconut milk
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
2 packs Sazon
2 good squirts of ketchup
3 cups of yellow rice

Directions

In a food processor, pulse together the onion and garlic until it becomes a puree, and set aside.  In a stock pot, heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Pour the puree into the pot and sautee until the onions are translucent, about 3 minutes.  Add the beans and continue to saute for an additional minute.

Add the water and coconut milk. Then add and stir in all of the remaining ingredients except the rice. Allow the liquid to come to a boil, then taste.  Make sure the liquid is flavorful because whatever flavor your liquid has will be absorbed into the rice.  Adjust seasoning as necessary.  When the liquid is seasoned to your liking, then add the yellow rice and remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Cook rice uncovered on med-high until the liquid is mostly evaporated and absorbed. Then lower the heat to med-low.  Stir the rice only once because the rice closest to the heat is cooking quicker than the top.  Cover the pot, and continue to cook until the rice is tender.

 

Stews and Soup du Jour: Haitian Chaka Soup

Ingredients

12 ounce bag dried cut corn
12 ounce bag dried red beans
12 ounce bag dried chickpeas
2 pounds smoked turkey neck or smoked pork
1 yellow onion, rough chopped
4 cloves or garlic
1 stalk celery
2 14.5 ounce cans coconut milk
2 packs frozen cooked squash
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder
onion powder
2 packs sazon seasoning
1 big bunch of parsley


Directions

1.  Boil beans, corn, and chickpeas in unsalted water, in three separate stock pots (because each require a different amount of time to fully cook), for about 2 hours until tender.  Add additional water to the stock pot as necessary to prevent the corn and beans from burning.

2.  If you're using pork, clean all of the excess fat off of the  Braise the meat in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes, or until the meat is tender.

3.  Rough chop the onion, garlic, and celery.  Transfer to a blender and pulse until pureed.  Set aside.

4.  When the corn, beans, and chick peas are fully cooked combine all (including the cooking liquid) in one large 12-quart stock pot. 

5.  When the meat is tender remove from its liquid and transfer into the stock pot. Pour the liquid into a fat separator. If you don't own one, then pour the liquid into a container, passing through a strainer and catching all of the excess skin and fat.  Pour this strained liquid into the stock pot.

6.  Add the coconut milk and frozen squash to the pot. The squash quickly will defrost during cooking.  After the squash melts add additional water until the soup reaches almost to the rim of the pot.  The contents of the pot should not overflow when lid is placed on the pot.

7.  Carefully stir in the vegetable puree, all of the seasoning, and a tied bunch of parsley to the stock pot.

8.  Let everything simmer on medium heat until all of the spices have penetrated into the soup, about 30 minutes.  You can turn the heat down to low and simmer for and additional 1 hour and REALLY let the flavor of the soup develop.

9.  Serve hot with butter french bread. ENJOY!

My Newet Love Affair...

I'm a proud Haitian American and I've traveled the Caribbean quite a bit tasting and enjoying the cuisine, experiencing the culture, and getting my business butt kicked running a cargo business my partners and I foolishly embarked on. Caribbean cuisine is a beautiful kaleidoscope of many many flavors. The indigenous vegetation, blended with culture and flavors dragged in due to the African slave trade and East Indian indentured servitude, sprinkled with the flavors of the of the European occupying forces, and topped off with the immigrant cultures from the middle east and the orient all results in some of the best food I've ever tasted in my life!

Sadly though, I now have a crazy phobia of cooking Caribbean food and serving it to folks not legally required to like me!  Slowly but surely I'm learning all the dishes I grew up eating like du riz a sauce pois (white rice with bean soup), du riz a pois (rice and beans), griot (fried pork), and banan peze (fried plantain), just to name a few.  My uncle married into a Trinidadian family and I've been lucky enough to still be able to enjoy in America so many dishes that I loved eating while living in Trinidad (while screwin' around with that stupid boat).  Shark and Bake, roti, channa and potato, curry chicken, doubles, curry mango, stuffed baked. YUMMMMM!!!! Thanks to my Trinidadian family my Caribbean cooking skills are expanding past Haiti and south into Trinidad. 

But you do know what I love about my blog? Aside from the fact that it's forcing me to exercise my eyes and hands, getting me to write again and exercise my creative writing muscle, but it's also forcing me to cook again.  I have had some serious physical therapy sessions just from chopping vegetables! I sweat like I'm in a sauna.  Thankfully, someone is ALWAYS by my side making sure I don't pass out or chop off my fingers. My double could be quite dangerous at times...After an afternoon of cooking pots, pans, and dishes remain to be cleaned...by some well fed soul...luckily, my family takes pity on me, and let's me prop my feet up while they wash. Thank God for handy helpers! 

But through cooking I've discovered a passion laying dormant within me.  I've always loved food and flavors and all that good stuff.  Who doesn't like a good meal?  I've also never been afraid to get in the kitchen and whip up something for a crowd...but not until now, after my stroke, through my rehabilitation process, my crawling my way back to being "normal" have I actually felt moved...finally happy doing something...anything. Is this making any sense?  I feel almost a sense of urgency to memorialize all of those recipes I loved from my mother's kitchen, I feel it's my duty to get past my phobia and force some folks to taste my Caribbean food to make sure it's right, not just good.  I feel a special urgency to do it now...

So I'm doing it now...but I'm also doing all those things I also have done well in the past and get rave reviews about just to make sure my ego is sufficiently stroked in between cooking disasters. :-) So today's dish of the day is a pseudo-Italian offering, Spinach and Turkey Penne Pasta! ENJOY!