Caribbean Veggies Your Way

 After a summer of tomatoes and squash it's time to think outside the back yard. There are a wealth of Caribbean veggies  that can be made into interesting and comofrting recipes. It's time to expand your culinary horizons.

One of th e most popular and ubiquitous in all grocery stores nowadays is the cassava. It's a tuber that can stand in for a potato.It has the same starchiness but the flavor is sweeter and nuttier than a spud.It does have t be peeled and boiled because raw it contains lethal high levels of cyanide. You could also soak them for several hours in cold water to also dissipate the poison. After boiling or soaking and peeling try  roasting them. They're cut and tossed in a blend of olive oil, cumin, garlic, coriander  and onion powder. Cassava or yuca can also be made into tasty fries. Use an air fryer to cook them for  fiften minutes at four hundred degrees Farenheit.Unlike potaotes, though, cassava can also be turned into cakes too. It's called pone and is highly popular in Guyana.There a mix of spices like black pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with shredded boiled cassava and coconut along with butter and evaporated milk. Brown sugar gives the cake its' earthy mellow sweetness. You may be tired of zucchini right now so it's time to try chayote squas. It tastes somewhat like the squash. It can be roasted or sauteed. Use a mix of butter and olive oil to saute it and spic it up with shallots and garlic.

Everyone thinks New Orleans and Southern cooking when they hear okra but the veggie is also big in Caribbean cooking.It's usually paired with that other Caribbean staple the fiery scotch bonnet pepper. If you;re cooking with th e last , remember this is the hottest capiscum on earth. Use it sparingly. Try both in a stew also zinged up with ginger and garlic. Add some temperate yellow onions and tomatoes to balance it out. It would be good over a bed of rice. Saltfish or baccala  - dried and salted cod can be added to this to make it more substantial.Caribbean, and especially Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisine would be nothing without plantanos or plantains. It is a cousin of a banana and technically a fruit but you can fry it up like a veggie. Peel them, and thn slice them any way you want , whether in coins or lengthwise , spray with oil and tthen air fry for eight minutes at four hundred degrees Farenheit. Flip them after four minutes. Serve with jerk chicken for a tasty supper. Another great side is pigeon peas, a Trinidadian staple. serve them in a stew or over rice. They cna be spiced up with scotch bonnet , all spice and ginger.

Add some Caibbean flavor to your cooking.Use veggies that the islanders use for a different spin on dinner. It's a fun way to celebrate the bold flavors of the tropics.

A Sweet Hanukkah Treat Churros

This is the season for  sweet, tasty treats. Hanukkah is one of the holidays that give the reason to make and indulge in homemade goodies. One, churros, is hitting the holiday tables, sharing the spotlight with latkes and suganiyots - jelly doughnuts. Is it an unusual choice? Not really if you know history.

The recipe was featured in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Joan Nathan, know for her Jewish cookbooks and documentaries about Jewish cooking  wrote about this crunchy and sweet choice. The idea is not as crazy as it sounds. Many Sephardic Jews , the ones from Spain, brought the recipe with them to the various outposts of the Spanish Empire. They were made in the Caribbean , mostly in Cuba and found their way to tables in Columbia and Costa Rica.  Ms. Nathan uses Genie Milgron's recipe for them, which includes anise for flavoring It is taken from Ms. Milgron's cookbook Recipes Of My 15 Grandmothers: Unique Recipes And Stories From The Times of The Crypto-Jews During The Spanish Inquisition. Ms. MIlgron was born and raised a Catholic in Cuba but traced her family's origins to pre-Inquisitions Jews in 1405.  Her ancestors  were raised  as crypto-Jews, practicing Jewish customs and traditions while converting to Catholicism. Some of the recipes are the original but churros are the Spanish influence.

Ms.Nathan tried the recipe several times, making the churros with a friend who dream of owning a churro truck. The first attempt was like a choux paste with eggs and butter whipped together into the dough. Don't use this. Opt for the simpler one which is just two cups of all purpose flour mixed with one and a half cups of Pernod or similar anise liqueur. There's also a cup of granulated sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon, the traditional flavoring for churros. If you think the cup and a half of Pernod is too much for any treat, the liqueur is boiled down with one and a half cups of water and a teaspoon of kosher salt. It's removed from the heat and cooled so the flour can be added to it.Blend with a wooden spoon until the batter resembles wet cement and is well blended. To get that ridged look, the dough is placed inside a pastry tube fitted with a large French star tip. The dough is then piped into six to eight inch length pieces and fried in canola oil. The oil should be heated to 350 degrees Farenheit. Fry them for six minutes or until golden brown. Ms. Nathan supplies a  homemade strawberry sauce made with frozen strawberries , brown sugar and vanilla. You could use dark chocolate or dulce de leche for a richer dipping sauce. Caramel also works too.

Churros are a fun and different Hanukkah treat. They're an easy make and fry, perfect for using the symbolic oil to create a fried and crunchy sweet. Try them for a new twist on a traditional holiday.

Native Influences

Ask anyone what is American food and they'll say hot dogs, hamburgers and, of course  French fries. Except they're not. The first two are as German as schnitzel, the last as Belgian as mussels and a frosty mug of Stella Artois. What is American food? Squash and popcorn. They are as American as the First Peoples.

The indigenous tribes have contributed much to the American diet - namely healthy good for you food . We also have them to thank for helping  our struggling colonists at the Plymouth Plantation. The Wampanoag Tribe taught them how to plant The Three Sisters  - corn - squash - and beans which sustained the English during the harsh Massachusetts winters. They also taught the colonists how to work and till the area's rocky soil. Another food that came into the diet is maple syrup. The indigenous showed how to tap the trees and collects the sap used for everything from syrup to candy.Its' sugar was crucial in sweetening  cakes along with tea and coffee. The Lenni Lennape, a division of the Delaware Indians, showed colonists the local clam,oyster and eel beds in the Raritan Bay area , just outside of New York City. They also harvested the wild strawberries, blueberries and blackberries that grow throughout the state. These were in heavy rotation in many an early New York or New Jersey's housewife's pantry, being used for jams and pie fillings.

The indigenous are also responsible for introducing corn pone and hominy grits to the American diet. The Roanoke and Neusick tribes, along with many from Southeastern Native American ones developed the process of nixtamalization - in which corn is soaked and cooked in lime water or some other alkaline solution to remove the hulls.. This helped in creating the Southern staples hominy and cornbread. The mash was also important in creating whiskey too. The West Coast tribes brought salmon to settlers' diets along with native deer, duck and rabbit. The Caribbean indigenous tribes also contributed a lot to the way we modern nativists eat. Thanks to them we have barbecue , first known as barbacoa. The Taino tribe of the various islands that include Cuba and Puerto Rico gave us the method of roasting various meats such as goat and sheep over open air fires. The fiery and delicious pepperpot stew is also one of their contributions to our cuisine as is the ever popular jerk. Another gift is Mama Juana , from the Dominican Republic branch of the Tainos.It's a wild  punch with the kick of rum and red wine mixed with different tree barks and herbs.

Today we should celebrate all the contributions of the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere. They have been vital in creating new countries and new cultures. They have been responsible for our dietary success for five centuries now. It's time we honor them properly.