Vinegar and Oil Mashed Potatoes

Vinegar and Oil Mashed Potatoes

It doesn’t look like much but this is my favorite way to eat potatoes.


The Portuguese love their potatoes and my family is no exception. I’m half Portuguese on my father’s side and I grew up eating one of my dad’s favorite dishes to make: salt cod, grelos/broccoli rabe and boiled potatoes with red wine vinegar and olive oil. A common sight on a traditional Portuguese table is an oil and vinegar tray and both condiments are poured on potatoes, fish, cooked vegetables and salads. I was craving some boiled potatoes with vinegar and oil but decided to make it as chunky mashed potatoes instead. What a discovery! This is the best way to eat potatoes in my opinion. I love the tang from vinegar and the flavor of the oil. I can never get traditional mashed potatoes quite right. That balance of cream, butter, salt and pepper is difficult to attain and I always tend to prefer chunks versus a silky smooth mixture.

It took a few tries but I figured out that the best formula for this recipe is a 1:1:1 ratio. 1 boiled russet potato, 1 tablespoon of red white vinegar and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. You can modify this if you like. Less vinegar if you don’t like how tart it is, more olive oil if you want it to be less dry. I like the 1:1:1 formula the best and that’s what I’m using!

Vinegar and Oil Mashed Potatoes
5 Russet Potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch cubes
5 tablespoons of Red Wine Vinegar
5 tablespoons of Olive Oil (I use Extra Light)
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Put the peeled and diced potatoes in a pot of cold water. Enough water so that the potatoes are covered. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Uncover and cook 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are done.

Add potatoes to a strainer. Add the vinegar and oil to the bottom of the pot. Return the strained potatoes to the pot. Add salt and pepper and the stir carefully to incorporate all the ingredients. Serve hot and enjoy!

Vinegar & Oil Mashed Potatoes, Chorizo, Roasted Tomatoes and Asparagus

Arroz con Gandules - Rice with Green Pigeon Peas

The other day I was watching Navidad Utilisima which was the Christmas special for the Spanish-Language television channel Utilisima. In one of the segments, a very charming Puerto Rican  man cooked up some Arroz con Gandules, Rice with Green Pigeon Peas, which is a very traditional Caribbean dish. My mom cooks it but does it very differently. I wanted to learn this version and try it myself. I went on to Utilisima.com to find the recipe but it wasn't there! Good thing I taped the show. I watched the segment again, took notes and tried the dish out. And voila!

Adapted from Utilisima

Arroz con Gandules (Rice with Green Pigeon Peas)

Ingredients:

Pork Broth
1 small package of pork bones
4-1/2 cups of broth
1 whole onion
aromatics (whatever seasonings you want, I used cumin, garlic and oregano)
salt and pepper to taste

Arroz con Gandules

1-1/2 cups of cubed pork loin (I bought a big pork loin and used the rest of the meat for another dish)
1 cup diced all-natural ham (with no nitrates or nitrites!)
1 onion diced
1 green pepper diced
2-3 garlic cloves pressed
2 cans of Goya Gandules (Green Pigeon Peas)
2 cups of uncookeed long grain rice
2 bay leaves
cilantro and chopped plum tomatoes for garnish

Makes 8 servings

To make the Pork Broth, add pork bones, water, onion and aromatics. Cover pot with lid and bring to a bowl. Lower to medium heat and let simmer with the lid partially covering the pot. Cook for about 45 minutes or until broth has some flavor. Season with salt and pepper. Strain and set aside.

Chop up your pork and dice your ham, green pepper and onions.  Season your pork cubes with salt and pepper.

Heat some extra light olive oil in a deep pot until the oil sizzles. Sear the pork cubes.

Add the ham, onion and green peppers to the pork cubes and saute until the onions and green pepper start to break down. Or until the onions begin to be translucent.

Add the pressed garlic, gandules (make sure to rinse them!) and rice.

Cover with 4 cups of the homemade pork broth and add the 2 bay leaves. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary. Stir thoroughly and bring to a boil. If the pork broth is still hot this will happen quickly. 

Bring the heat down to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Check 10 minutes in and stir the rice so all of it gets cooked evenly.  If its too wet for your taste, you can always cook for an extra 5-10 minutes, stirring carefully and occasionally so it dries out a bit.

Top with cilantro and fresh chopped plum tomatoes. Or you can also top with chopped roasted red peppers. The green and red give the dish a great look. This dish is a complete meal!

Buen provecho!

What I've Been Cooking

I've been trying to learn the recipes from my dad's culture (Portuguese) and from my mom's culture (Dominican). I attempted to make my very first Folar de Chaves which is a Chorizo and Prosciutto stuffed Brioche Loaf. It's very traditional to make around Easter and I'd like to get it right by the time the next holiday rolls around. My first try was a bit of a failure. I don't think I gave the yeast enough time to do it's thing in the milk before I added all the dry ingredients. Also the dough was really sticky and I didn't use enough flour so rolling it was very difficult. The dough is stuffed with slices of chorizo and prosciutto. You can also add bacon or pancetta but I chose to omit that. I stuffed the bread with chorizo and prosciutto, I rolled it the best I could and let is rise. I waited an hour and it NEVER ROSE! Ugh. After all that work, I baked it anyway. It was very thick and not light and airy like the bread I know. We ate it anyways.

While that bread was baking in the oven, I tried another Portuguese recipe: Chocolate Mousse. The Portuguese KNOW how to make chocolate mousse. They are experts and Portuguese Chocolate Mousse is like heaven in your mouth. My try tasted good but came out pretty terrible texture-wise.

To make this chocolate mousse you need to melt dark chocolate in a water bath, mix it with a yolk and coffee or rum, separately beat 2 egg whites until peaks form and whip cream until softer peaks form and mix everything together carefully. I did all of that but had some trouble with the egg whites. I over-beat them and they didn't form into peaks so I had to start over. I added the chocolate to the egg yolk and went to incorporate the egg white and cream. I didn't have a big enough bowl to add the chocolate so I dumped it into the bowl with the cream because that bowl was bigger. BIG MISTAKE! The chocolate cooled too quickly and formed chunks of chocolate. The mousse was dry not smooth and with chewy chunks of chocolate. Also, I forgot to add liquid coffee so I tried adding some instant coffee granules at the very last minute. Too little too late. Oh well. I'll master this eventually.

Then it was on to my mother's famous Dominican pink bean recipe!

My mom taught me all the steps in making her beans and boy with there a lot of steps. I took about 2 pages worth of notes and I'm more confused than ever. It's a 3 hour process and involves several pots and a pressure cooker. My mom makes them in big batches. In this batch she used 6 pounds of beans. Yes 6! She uses a lot of chicken bouillon and I'm hoping to be able to duplicate her recipe just using table salt and some other seasoning to replace the bouillon. These beans are so tasty! The sauce is what makes it.

I was feeling very adventurous over the break and was sick of sweet brunches so I decided to make Smitten Kitchen's Potato Pancakes. Ever since I heard about them on NPR I have been dying to make them. When you don't have a shredding attachment on your food processor, these are a BITCH to make. Holy crap. I shredded two large potatoes and two small onions and it took me forever to do by hand. When I was done, the shredded potatoes started to turn red which led me to believe that I might have shredded some skin and got blood all over them. Lucky for me this was not the case.

These were tasty but only while hot. I had to bring a hot potato pancake over to Carlos in bed to lure him out of the bedroom otherwise we were going to eat these cold! I'm not sure if these are worth it unless I had an easier way to shred the potatoes and onions.

What have you been cooking?

Holiday Recap

For the holidays I really wanted some Egg Nog and Hot Chocolate but I came across two issues. First of all, everyone and their mother keeps referring to Egg Nog as drinkable pancake batter. This has disgusted me and I wish people would stop! So when I was at Whole Foods, I found this SO Delicious Coconut Milk Dairy Free Egg Nog. I thought I'd give it a try. It was pretty good, a lot lighter in texture and flavor than regular Egg Nog and it was pretty taste with a bit of rum.

My second problem was finding a Hot Chocolate mix that did not have High Fructose Corn Syrup. Forget finding that at your local grocery store! I looked at every Hot Chocolate mix at Market Basket and all of them had HFCS or some sort of Corn Syrup solids. Ugh. The tin in the picture above was from Whole Foods and the ingredients were: Sugar, Dutch Cocoa and Vanilla. That's it! Perfect, right? It cost $7.99! And it's only 6 oz worth of hot chocolate mix. I hope it cures cancer too because that price is outrageous.

I had Christmas lunch over at my parents house. Our Christmas lunch is always very unusual and this year was no exception. We had octopus, a potato-carrot-beet salad, green salad, avocado, hard-boiled eggs, broiled asparagus, my mom's rice and fruit salad.

The main focus of our meal is Octopus made by my dad. He has a very special way of cooking it that I still haven't learned quite yet but I did watch him make it this time and learned a few tips.

Including this one! In order to not over cook the octopus and to keep it tender, my dad puts a large baking potato on top of the octopus. He covers it with water (I forget how much) and cooks it. Once you can easily pierce the potato with a knife, the octopus is cooked.

My dad dresses it in olive oil and vinegar and onions. This year I think he just forgot to do it. He's turning 85 in January so his mind isn't always sharp but I am so very grateful to have another Christmas with him. 

When my mom moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1979, the first two things she bought at the grocery store here were Asparagus and Strawberries. They are not common in her country and only the really wealthy ate them. She never did learn how to cook asparagus so I taught her my method. I snap the bottom fibrous part, lay them on a foiled baking sheet, drizzle them with olive oil, move them around so they are coated and then I broil them in the oven for 8-10 minutes until they start to brown and wrinkle. Then I shake some sea salt over them. This really is the best way to eat asparagus. Don't ever boil asparagus!

 I hope you all had a great holiday!

How to Make Tostones

Tostones are pieces of plantain that have been fried, smashed and fried again. Tostones are very commonly found in Carribean, Central American and South American cuisine and are especially popular in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic where my mother is from. To make these double fried plantains you'll need a Tostonera which is a wooden paddle with a flap and an indent in the center. 

You can find these online for very inexpensive. If you live in Eastern Massachusetts, a lot of Market Baskets carry them and place them near the plantains (the Burlington, MA Market Basket is where I got mine). If you don't want to invest in a Tostonera, just use two flat surfaces like a cutting board and the back of a small skillet to flatten the plantains.

How to Make Tostones

Cook these Tostones in batches of 2, 4 or 6. You'll fry 2 plantains at a time so it makes sense to make them in even numbers. Six will give you quite a lot!

Add 36 oz of canola or vegetable oil to a wide pot and heat. In the meantime, prepare the plantains.

First make sure you bought a plantain and not a really green banana. Plantains are have a very tough peel and a starchy smell to them. Or ask your grocer for help. Also buy plantains that are green like the one above and not ones that have ripened. Those are yellow/brown and are too sweet for Tostones but delicious for other recipes.

Cut off the top and bottom of the plantain at an angle. Discard those pieces.

The peel of a green plantain is very tough to remove. It's not at all like a banana. My trick to getting the peel off is to cut open a slit lengthwise down one side.

And then down the other.

Get your thumb underneath the peel and start coaxing it away from the plantain. Discard peel.

Cut each plantain into six even slices at a diagonal. Above there are twelve pieces from two whole plantains.

When the oil is hot, add the chunks of plantains. I do this 2 plantains at a time. You can check to see if the oil is hot enough by testing it out with one piece of plantain and see if bubbles immediately for around it. If they don't, remove the piece of plantain and test a little later.

Cook the plantain for 2-3 minutes with the oil over medium heat. If you are brave, cook for 1-2 minutes over higher heat. Once the plantain starts to become golden brown, it's time to smash!

This process has to be quick so make sure you set up everything before hand. Get some paper towels down and put the tostonera on top. Make sure you have tongs handy too. Add the plantain to the tostonera.

Close the lid and SMASH!

This is what the end result looks like. Scrape off the smashed plantain with your tongs. Be careful not to break the plantain. Then add it back to the oil. Do this to all of the plantain pieces.

Fry for a couple more minutes.

Until they are crispy and golden.

Place them hot tostones on a plate with paper towel and salt them when they are hot. Continue with the other plantains if you are making more. You can add a paper towel over one layer of tostones to add the next batch so they all stay on one plate. Serve hot!

Tostones are great with

1) Ketchup or a Remoulade

2) Tuna (I know this sounds gross but it's really good)

3) Avocado slices or Guacamole

4) served alongside Rice, Salad and Steak or Sautéed Fish.

Buen Provecho!

To Make Tostones You'll Need

36 oz of vegetable or canola oil

a wide pot

a tostonera

2, 4 or 6 plantains

a pair of tongs

paper towels

plate

Steps

1) Heat up 36 oz of oil in a wide pot over medium heat

2) Cut plantain top and bottom at an angle, discard

3) Cut a slit in the peel lengthwise on both sides

4) Coax peel away from plantain with your thumb, discard

5) Cut each plantain into 6 even slices and at a diagonal

6) Test oil with one plantain, if it sizzles it's ready

7) Fry two plantains at a time or 12 slices at a time

8) Fry 2-3 minutes or until it starts to get golden

9) Smash in tostonera and scrape off. Return to pot

10) Repeat with all of the plantain chunks

11) Fry smashed plantains until crispy and golden brown

12) Place tostones on top of plate which has been covered with paper towel

13) Salt while hot

14) Serve while hot

Dinner with Mad Men ~ Iceberg Wedge Salad with Steak

I remember on an episode of Mad Men, John Slatterly's character Roger Sterling is sitting at a booth in a restaurant, downing drinks with Don Draper and a prospective client. Sterling is trying to keep the prospective client seated so he and Draper can have some extra time to woo him into their advertising firm. The client doesn't want to say but Sterling insists and orders them all Iceberg Wedge Salads with blue cheese dressing and topped with bacon.

I did some research on the history of this particular salad and while Iceberg lettuce was very popular since the 1920s, this salad didn't appear until the 1950s and was popular through the 1960s. Iceberg lettuce was your standard lettuce. Nowadays, we use a variety of lettuces but at that time Iceberg was the default. So instead of just your average chopped salad with Iceberg, you can dress up a wedge in a fancy way by topping it with blue cheese dressing and bacon. I like to add chopped tomatoes and either scallions or chives too.

For dinner, I decided to pair the Iceberg Wedge Salad with a nice juicy Steak to round it out as a full meal.

Fun fact: Back in the day, people would put steaks on black eyes or bruises to reduce swelling. But did you know that they would also use frozen heads of iceberg lettuce as cold packs for injuries?

For the dressing, I made a point to choose Ken's Steakhouse Blue Cheese Dressing. Why Ken's Steakhouse? The original Ken's Steakhouse restaurant is situated on Worcester Road (Route 9) in Framingham, MA. I grew up in Natick which is the next town over. There is a stretch of that road that runs from Natick and into Framingham that used to be called the Golden Mile. When Ken's Steakhouse started in 1941 it was actually called the Starvation Mile. It became the Golden Mile when that area was built up with lots of fabulous places like the Jordan Marsh dome, Cinema 1+2, the original Shopper's World mall, Howard Johnson's, Monticello Inn and of course Ken's Steakhouse. If Don Draper drove down that Golden Mile, he'd see something that was the equivalent of the Las Vegas Strip. A lot of those places no longer exist but Ken's Steakhouse still stands strong supported by loyal diners and their separate condiment business.

And this after all is Thoughtful Eating. I put a lot of thought behind every dish I make!

Iceberg Wedge Salad

1 head of Iceberg, cut into 4 wedges and cored
Ken's Steakhouse Light Blue Cheese Dressing
4 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 plum tomato, seeded and chopped
3 stalks of green onion, sliced

This makes 4 individual salads. Lay the wedge on it's side not on it's back. Otherwise it will rock and roll and make a huge mess of dinner.

To core the wedge, just cut off the bottom core part with a knife. The wedge should still hold together but be careful in case it starts to unravel. Top with blue cheese dressing, crumbled bacon, chopped tomato and sliced green onion. Serve with a petite New York style sirloin steak cooked medium or medium well. Enjoy with a dirty martini, if so desired.

Mom's Special Plate

I cannot count how many times my mother made this special plate for me. It's her own creation. I like to think of it as my Mom's version of Salad Nicoise. Replace the potatoes with rice, the olives with beets and the tomatoes with avocado and voila! It's pretty similar however this is more of a plate than a salad. This plate is always the same. Hard-boiled eggs, cooked green beans, white rice, tuna with pickled red onions, sliced beets and fresh avocado. It's always very filling and delicious. Something about the combination makes it a perfect dinner. However, it does NOT make for good leftovers. This is a one-shot meal. But definitely worth the effort.

Ingredients:

5 or 6 eggs

a bunch of green beans

1 avocado

fresh lemon juice

2 cups of uncooked rice

2 small cans of tuna packed in olive oil

1/4 of a red onion, minced

red wine vinegar

1 can of sliced beets (I like the Goya one)

This makes enough for two hungry people! Or 3 people with average appetites.

Add the minced red onion to a small bowl. Fill the small bowl with red wine vinegar until it just barely covers the onions. Set aside to marinate.

Cook the rice Raquelle style. In this case, 2 cups of uncooked rice is cooked with 3 cups of boiling water.

While the rice is cooking, cook the eggs to hard-boiled (everyone has their method, I cover them in water in a large pot, bring water to a boil and cook for 10 minutes). Peel the eggs and slice in half. Set aside.

Steam the green beans whole for about 10 minutes.

Half the avocado with a knife, scoop out the halves with a spoon, remove the pit, slice and spritz with lemon juice to prevent from going brown.

Drain the can of sliced beets. Set aside.

Drain the minced red onion from the vinegar. Mix with the tuna.

Pile up a plate of rice, green beans, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, beets and avocado. Enjoy!

Egg Salad Sandwich, kicked up a notch

For Easter lunch, I made us a simple meal consisting of Egg Salad Sandwiches, Baby Carrots and some Spanish olives. Eggs, Carrots, Easter, get it? The Egg Salad sandwich I make is not what you'd normally find. I make it the way my mom does. I use big chunks of chopped hard-boiled egg, mix it with some mayo, pickled minced red onion, chopped Spanish olives and tuna. It's really the best! Carlos didn't want to have tuna mixed in with the egg and I'm sure most of you wouldn't either. It really makes it more substantial and flavorful but it's fine without. I added a bit of dijon mustard for an extra kick, and to reduce some of the mayo, and voila! Egg Salad Sandwich, kicked up a notch.

Ingredients:

7 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1-1/2 tsps of Dijon mustard

2 tbsps of Light Mayo

1/4 cup of minced red onion, pickled for 5 minutes in red wine vinegar and drained

1/4 cup of chopped Spanish olives (green olives, pitted and stuffed with pimentos)

6 whole wheat Thomas English Muffins, split & toasted

This makes 6 sandwiches.

Mix everything together in a bowl and portion out on English Muffins. That's it! Easy right? The hardest part is peeling those darn hard-boiled eggs. I put them in cool water and I peel them under the water. This helps me more so that if I peeled them dry. But do whatever works for you. 

You can pickle the red onion in the red wine vinegar for a little more time. Pickling removes some of that sharp raw taste that red onions have and makes them more palatable. Plus the vinegar gives them a nice kick.

Serve with a side of baby carrots and some extra olives.

Last-Minute Easter Cupcakes

Aren't they darling? My Last-Minute Easter Cupcake recipe that I came up with at the last minute! Banana-Strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting (mud), green coconut (grass) and Easter Peanut M&Ms (eggs). Lovely! And they taste delicious too. My recipe was originally posted on my Thoughtful Eats column at the Woburn Patch. But I thought I'd share the recipe here too.

Ingredients

1-1/4 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/3 cup of sugar
1 ripe banana, chopped
1 egg
1/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of light oil (canola or extra light olive oil)
seedless strawberry jelly
chocolate frosting
shredded coconut
green food coloring
candy coated chocolates that look like Easter eggs (such as Easter peanut M&Ms)
pastel colored cupcake liners


This recipe makes 9 cupcakes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder and sugar. Stir to mix. In a small bowl, add your chopped banana and take a handheld mixer and blend the banana chunks until smooth. Don't worry if there are a few little chunks in there.

To the banana mixture, add your egg, milk and oil. Stir until combined. Add the wet ingredients and stir into the dry until well incorporated.

In a muffin tin, add 9 cupcake liners. Spoon some batter into the bottom of each cupcake liners. You'll want the bottom to be covered. Make sure you use equal amounts in each cupcake liner. Take another spoon and scoop a small amount of strawberry jelly and add to the center of each cupcake liner on top of the batter. Take the rest of the batter and spoon equal amounts of it over the top of the jelly making sure it's covered.

Put the muffin tin in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one cupcake comes out clean. Let cool. (Do not attempt to frost these cupcakes while they are hot).

While the cupcakes are cooling, scoop about a cup of shredded coconut and dump into a bowl. Add 3 drops of green food coloring and stir very well with a spoon until all the coconut is green. Don't use more than 3 drops!

Now it's time for the fun part! It's time to decorate. Take a butter knife and spread some mud (chocolate frosting) over the top of each cupcake. Then take 2 or 3 eggs (candy-coated chocolate) and place them on top of the frosting. Then sprinkle some grass (green colored coconut flakes) over the top. It's important to put the candy on before the coconut so it can stick to the frosting and hold. Otherwise they will fall off.

Have a Happy Easter!

Mom's Rice Salad

Your comfort food is nice and all, but mine is better. My Dominican mama made this rice salad, and a potato equivalent, a few times each year and it would always be a special treat. Sure you can eat it cold, but it's so much better luke warm or at room temperature. I always preferred the rice to the potato because I felt I got better access to all the ingredients. This salad is fun to look at too because all the ingredients mixed into the rice look sort of like confetti! Chances are you won't find this salad anywhere else. This truly unique. So please don't tell my mom I'm sharing this recipe with you!

Ingredients:

2 cups of uncooked rice
3 cups of hot water
salt to taste

1/2 cup of canned tuna
1 green pepper finely diced
1/4 red onion finely diced
3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1/4 cup of roughly chopped olives, capers and red pimentos
4 tablespoons of mayo
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the rice Raquelle-style. Set aside.

Soak the diced red onion in the red wine vinegar while you prepare the other ingredients. Let is marinate for about 5 minutes or so and drain.

Add the tuna, green pepper, olives, capers, red pimentos and red onions to the rice and mix. Season with salt and pepper. Slowly incorporate the mayo tablespoon by tablespoon until it's to the consistency that you like. I go light on the mayo but you can always add more.

Eat at room temperature. It's hearty enough to eat alone with maybe a light dessert to follow. It reheats well just make sure to only nuke it for up to 30 seconds and not to cook it because of the mayo. You can eat this cold too!

Mom's Rice Salad

Arepa ~ Dominican Corn Meal & Coconut Cake

I've been trying to make more of the traditional dishes and desserts from my mother's country the Dominican Republic. I grew up eating both Arina de Maiz (Corn Meal pudding) and Arepa (Corn Meal & Coconut Cake). Both are essentially the same recipe with the latter having the addition of coconut milk and the added step of baking it in the oven. When I made this recently, I was very tempted to just eat the whole pot as hot pudding but after several spoonfuls I decided to go through with making this into a proper Arepa.

Arepa is difficult to describe. Different ways I could describe it include: congealed sweet corn pudding; a really moist coconut/corn cake; bread-pudding like corn meal cake; a slice of heaven. Don't confuse this Arepa with the traditional arepas of Mexico and South America. Those are savory flat cornbreads that look a bit like English muffins. Dominican Arepa is a dessert!

The recipe for this comes from the wonderful website Dominican Cooking.

Ingredients & Materials:

Butter for greasing
Cake pan

2 cups of corn flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1-1/2 cups of sugar
4 whole cinammon sticks
1/4 cup of raisins
3 cups of evaporated milk (2 -12.5 oz cans)
1 cup of coconut milk
3 cups of water

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Add dry ingredients and wet ingredients to a big pot and stir thoroughly. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring constantly so the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom, or worse BURN!

When it comes to a boil, turn down the heat and stir until the mixture is gloopy and thick. It should coat your spoon and have the consistency of cream of wheat or thick pudding. Turn off the heat and remove the cinammon sticks.

Butter your baking dish/cake pan.

Add mixture to the pan and smooth the surface with a spoon. Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes until the top is brown and a knife or toothpick comes out clean.

Let it rest for a few hours so the cake sets. Cut into wedges and serve. You can make your own caramel sauce to drizzle over the top if so desired. Enjoy!

Yellow Cornmeal