Coconut Cream Truffle butter pumpkin soup

M...eat...less

It always happens that the day I decide to cook soup is a cold and gloomy day. I had potato soup down to make but then I used the potatoes for dinner the day before. My mother had a pumpkin and I found some truffle butter in the refrigerator, a-las a recipe is born.

Maple BBQ cauliflower nuggets

M...eat...less

I guess I’m the last one to truly get on the cauliflower train. This is the first time I have purchased cauliflower since 2015 when I made a gratin and some fried cauliflower and broccoli bites. I absolutely adore this recipe. It is one that many meat eaters would approve of, most probably wouldn’t even know they were eating cauliflower. My mother made a food network version last month and could not stop talking about how good it was. So, I decided to add it to the list.

Pistachio Pesto potato salad

M...eat...less

Many are the ways a potato salad can be made. Like seriously, there are just too many options when it comes to potatoes. After all, I did dedicate a month of recipes to these spuds a few years back. And I can still come up with even more ways to use them. This is a very herby and flavorful potato salad. Anyone who loves chives and pistachios will adore this. And its vegan!

Jamaican Green banana porridge

                                      

M...eat...less

Jamaicans consume a lot of porridge. Peanut, hominy, cornmeal, plantain, rice, oatmeal, cream of wheat, green banana, bulgur, you name it. If a porridge can be made from it, we make it. My favorite ones are hominy, plantain and oatmeal. Today I try my hand at green banana.

Lobster Pot Pie

"Something Smells Fishy"

Another lobster recipe? I know what you must be thinking. So far this month I’ve been on a shell fish run. I have cooked mussels, lobster, shrimp and conch. You must be wondering where is the fish? I had three more lobster tails and I’ve been meaning to make a pot pie for weeks. So, if your not into shell fish look out for the next two posts to finish off March. If you are a lobster lover, then this one is for you.

Sticky Pineapple rosemary drumsticks

My Dinner

I really had no idea what to do for this month of recipes. However I cook dinner 3 to 4 even 5 times a week most weeks. So I figure I will blog whatever I cook for dinner. So this month I am posting whatever I cook for dinner so you can cook it for your dinner too. Now let me just warn you, I am the easy dinner queen. I want full flavor with little effort.

Rotisserie chicken and cheese Hoddeok

Rotisserie revamp!

Store bought rotisserie revamp 7: Rotisserie chicken and cheese hoddeok

This is the last recipe for rotisserie chicken month. Hoddeok is a yeast dough filled with sugar, nuts and cinnamon then pan fried. When fried the sugar and cinnamon melt on the inside leaving you with a sweet gooey filling and crunchy nuts. That’s how its normally done. Today I decided to revamp it and add chicken and cheese to the mix.

BBQ Chicken and green onion loaded potato skins

Rotisserie revamp!

Store bought rotisserie revamp 5 Loaded potato skins

At this point you would imagine everyone in my household is sick and tired of rotisserie chicken. Now is the time when the recipes will masque the chicken instead of putting it front and center. Sometimes you will want to serve the chicken in all its glory. But let’s say you have had a rotisserie chicken in the refrigerator for longer than 5 days and a few breasts are left in the back of the refrigerator in a bit of foil, you might not necessarily want to celebrate that. This is where these amazingly delicious potato skins come in handy.

Shrimp jibarito

'Sammies' 

A few years ago my sister and I were both interns in Manhattan at different city departments. She was with NYC media, and me with the department of city planning.  It was amazing that our offices were within walking distance from each other because that meant daily lunch dates. We had Italian, so much Cuban, food trucks, Chinese, you name it we had it. After a while we realized that this daily lunch thing was wreaking havoc on our pockets so we decided to carry lunch and have it in the park. Before we opted out of the lunch restaurant hopping scene, We had our first Jibarito at a Puerto Rican restaurant named Sazon.

Blue Cheese BLT

'Sammies' 

 Bacon lettuce and tomato aka BLT is the lunchtime sibling to the breakfast classic bacon egg and cheese aka BEC. It’s such an easy go to sandwich that you can have any time of the days and with all sorts of added goodies. Today I decided a nice cheese would be a great way to take the sandwich up a notch.

Spicy mango sweet and sour dogs

Mango is in season! 

This is probably one of the most delicious hotdogs I have ever made. Generally my hot dog grilling consists of sausages, honey, bbq sauce and toppings. Since its mango month I had to attempt to make a delicious mango condiment. This wasn’t exactly the condiment I had planned but it worked out just beautifully all the same.

kale and zucchini macaroni salad

M...eat...less

There are two things in this world that completes a meal; potato salad and or Macaroni salad. Today I am stepping into the world of macaroni salad. This cold and delicious dish, pairs so beautifully with hot food, especially fried chicken. But since this is meatless month let’s not focus on the chicken but on the unique addition of kale and zucchini.

Pumpkin Carrot Soup

“Pumpkin Everythang”

Welcome to the third year of Octobers Pumpkin month. In 2013 you got the very delicious sophisticated and refined pumpkin leek soup, followed by the rich, flavorful and hearty Jamaican pumpkin chicken soup in 2014. Today I have stepped it up a notch. The most delicious vegan soup you will ever have!  I mean layer, after layer of flavor. One of the most delicious creamy style pumpkin soups I have ever made inspired by the most delicious soup I ever had at a whole foods market…did I say delicious enough?

Garden burger

Burger Showdown!

The true test of a good vegetarian burger is to have a meat eater take a bite and not realize there’s no meat in it; this burger has met and passed that challenge. Not only does it fool the eye, it has so many layers of flavors that it also tricks the palette.  

Breakfast Bread Pudding…a.k.a Chocolate bread pudding with pears and sea salt

"Feast of Saint Valentine"

Bread, Chocolate, coffee, pears and eggs, sounds like breakfast right? I thought so too, hence the name of this dish. Bread pudding has got to be one of the top 5 recipes utilizing stale bread.  Not to say bread has to be stale for one to make the dish. However in our household bread pudding gets made when there are 4 or 5 different bags of almost finished breads waiting to be tossed out. A few slices of wheat bread, some hamburger buns, dinner rolls, one or two raisin rolls, maybe some hard dough bread back (what we call the end pieces of bread in Jamaica); we gather all these sandwich rejects and make them into something special.

Greedy Girl Eats: Homemade escovitch fish

"Greedy Girl Eats"

What is Escovitch fish? It’s a well-seasoned fish fried crispy and topped with a spicy pickle sauce. The sauce is full of vinegar, onions, pimento, hot peppers and carrots. This sauce can be made and left to soak for months, even years and still be delicious. The longer it soaks the better the flavor. I have spent the last month at various restaurants in Jamaica, testing their versions. I think I have come up with a home-made version that will rival the best seaside fish joint in Jamaica.

Not your average Churros

Easy Bake!

This post is a lesson in determination. I have always wanted to make churros. From the first time I ever had them at Costco, it was love at first bite. The crunchy sweet cinnamon sticks with that super soft inside. Churros are actually very simple to make and the ingredient list has a grand total of 5 ingredients. All you need is the dough, hot oil and you’re good to go.....I know they are not baked, but they are easy

Vegetable Lasagna

M...eat..less

When we have family dinners we have to ensure that there are at least three items on the table that are vegetarian friendly so my mother can feel that she has had a good meal just like us swine and cow killers. Being a Jamaican Vegetarian, not living in Kingston, leaves your palette very underwhelmed as most restaurants believe that chick peas, ackee and steamed vegetables are all it takes to satisfy vegetarian foodies. This is close to the top of my favorite recipe of this month one that will be on our family table for years to come.

Homemade Fried Chicken

"Greedy Girl Eats"

For me fried chicken is one of the hardest things to make. I feel like restaurants in Jamaica set the bar so high with how amazingly delicious their fried chicken is that the home made ones just seem to fall short. That is why I went on the quest to find the best fried chicken; one that was seasoned, spicy and would remain crispy. I found the best one in Negril and now I'm making my own.

Pumpkin Sausage & Raisin Rice

"Pumpkin Everythang”

So here is part two of the main course, the delicious rice that stuffed my Cornish hens from last Tuesdays post.  It is very simple and delicious. The stock added an amazing rich flavor that the rice soaked right up, coupled with the sweet pumpkin, sage, sausages, raisins and veggies, it went very well stuffed in the citrusy fowl. The reason I separated the dish into two post is because this rice is a side dish all in itself, you can use it to stuff the fowl as well as serve it on the side. When stuffed in the hen the rice gets the ginger and citrus flavor imparted on it, however on its own, the sage, sausage and pumpkin flavor are more prevalent.