Thursday, November 08, 2007

Tostones: Quick & Delicious

A place we go to for lunch near work makes these, and I wanted to try making 'em at home. Ridiculously easy:

Buy some plantains. Green or very slightly yellow. Cut a slit down the side of the whole thing to make them easy to peel. Chop into 1" chunks, and peel each. Heat up about 1/2" of oil (we used peanut) to ~350 degrees. Put chopped plantain chunks into oil, so the oil comes halfway-ish up the side of the pieces. Flip 'em over when lightly browned to do the other side. When all browned, take the pieces out of the oil and drain.

Smash each piece (gently, I suppose) with the bottom of a pan 'till ~1/4" thick. Some recipes say to toss into cold salted water, but I didn't do that. Start simmering some olive oil with a couple cloves of smashed and minced garlic over low heat, and let this go until you're done frying the plantains.

Get the oil back up to "hot" (350-375), and fry each of the discs (I did 2 at a time) until crisp at the edges. Couple minutes each. Drain on paper towels, salt while hot. Drizzle the garlic oil and garlic over the thing, and eat while hot, crispy, sweet, chewy, and garlicky.

Relatively quick, probably nothing even remotely like healthy, but totally delicious.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

What I've been cooking/eating

Lunches have mostly been salads with smoked salmon, smoked duck breast, or prosciutto.

Wed 10/31: Geta & Fentons with Lindsi
Thu 11/01: fondue at home.
Fri 11/02: dinner at Alex & Christina's, a delicious vegan dinner of an African stew, quinoa, spaghetti squash, and an apple crumble & coconut sorbet.
Sat 11/03: Lunch: New Korean restaurant, Sura, with Seppo. It was ok. I had mool-naeng-myun. Good broth! Dinner: homemade falafel and all the fixings on whole wheat pita.
Sun 11/04: Lunch: Merritt Bakery with Seppo & Klay. I had a chef salad and chicken & rice soup. Dinner: salad with smoked duck breast.
Mon 11/05: Sloppy joes, made with ground turkey and white beans, and oven fried sweet potato wedges. I need to make more sweet potato wedges. So damn good.
Tue 11/06: Shabu shabu with A&B and J.

Tonight will be a beef & vegetable stew, quinoa, roasted butternut squash, and whatever Seppo is going to do with the plantains. :)