Maria's Gourmet Delights

29/12/2024

The holidays can take a toll on you when you have a house full. Try making a simple spread of cheeses, cold cuts, & deserts. Simple, tasty & elegant, that way you can relax before cooking for New Years Eve!

29/12/2024

Is there anything more fun than being Cuban on New Year's Eve? We are sooo BUSY at the stroke of midnight getting rid of the old year and welcoming the New Year. Oh, the Cubanity!
Prospero Año Nuevo, Happy New Years, here are some of the eight crazy things we must do.

8 Crazy Cuban New Year’s Eve Traditions
On the stroke of midnight on December 31st, my American friends raise their glasses and proclaim, “Happy New Year!” They take a sip, kiss their loved ones, sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and call it good.

Cubans? Not so much. Our superstitions…um… I mean, traditions, are a little more…um…colorful.

First, you need SUPPLIES.

Grapes.
Sidra – a dry, non-sparkling Spanish apple cider. (No, not champagne.)
A bucket filled with water. Ideally it will be dirty water. More on that later.
A few dollars in an envelope.
A suitcase (but only if you want to travel in the new year).
An effigy. (I warned you it was going to get crazy.)
Then you need to do a few things in PREPARATION.

Count out 12 grapes for each guest.
Pour sidra for each person. Not champagne, mind you. Sidra.
Sweep and mop your entire house and save the dirty water in a bucket. (I know. Trust me.)
Create an effigy of the past year which you will be burning at midnight.
There’s a method to all of this madness. Try to keep up.

1) The Grapes

At precisely midnight, you will eat all 12 grapes, representing each of the 12 months of the new year, making a wish with each one. Pace yourself. You can do it.

2) The Sidra

Quickly wash the grapes down with the sidra. Fine. Use champagne if you must. Or even Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. But do it! This has to be accomplished in the first minute of the new year. No pressure.

3) The Bucket of Water

You clean your entire house. You now take the bucket of dirty water from moping the floors– which represents all the bad juju from the past year – and throw it out into the street in a grand and dramatic of gesture of being DONE with all the bad stuff.

Yes. Cubans everywhere will be hauling buckets of water and tossing them out into their streets to welcome the new year. But first, of course, the old has to go.

4) The Money

Take the dollars that you have in the envelope and put them into your mailbox. Because doing this will obviously attract prosperity in the new year. Obviously.

5) The Suitcase

Take the suitcase and walk around the block with it. This is done only if you want to travel in the coming year. If you can’t go all the way around the block. (AROUND THE BLOCK??) Okay. At least drag the suitcase outside. Come on! You’ve got this!

6) Burn the Effigy of the Past Year in the Street

I understand that your non-Cuban neighbors may be a bit alarmed by the flames, but it’s worth that momentary discomfort to be completely rid of The Awful from the last year.

7) Kiss Your Loved Ones

Kiss and hug the ones you love best and rest in the knowledge that you’ve done your part to ring in the new year in great Cuban style and are therefore, pretty much guaranteed a FABULOUS New Year.

😎 Dance

You did it!

You have done everything absolutely right. You obediently ate your grapes and made your wishes. You drank your sidra (or champagne or Martinelli’s) and toasted the new year. You threw the water with the bad juju out in the street. Out with the old!

You’re already attracting money and you took your suitcase for a warm-up around the block for all the traveling you’re going to be doing this year. The old year with all of it’s drama and sadness is still out there, burning. You have kissed and hugged those that you love best.

The coming year is going to be awesome and it’s time to celebrate!

Prospero Año Nuevo, my friends!

Do you know what will make this new year awesome? Having my Cuban Food Poster in your kitchen. What a fun way to celebrate your Cubanity!

27/12/2024

We have delicious goodies for your New Years Celebration, come Saturday December 28th to Coastal Alabama Farmers & Fishermen’s Market, located in 20733 Mifflin Rd, Co Rd 20 in Foley. Visit my stand, Maria’s Gourmet Delights, for some savory empanadas and authentic Cuban sandwiches & pastries. The Cubans are super large, @$12, the empanadas, are great at anytime of the day and they come in three flavors; Beef, Chicken & Chorizo, at 2 for $6 or $30 doz, guava pastries, $5 box. This week I will have Cuban Black beans for $8 a qt. Try our guava & guava & cheese pastries, @ $5 a box. Our Rumballs are to die for at $5 a box. Lastly, a must, our delicious chimichurri sauce at $7 a bottle. The pastries are great for snacks, dinner, or to impress your friends during the holidays. We take debit and credit cards. I always have plenty of free samples for you to taste! Thank you for supporting local businesses. The farmers market is open from 9:00 am till 2:00 pm follow us on facebook for some delicious recipes. https://www.coastalalabamamarket.com/home

27/12/2024

If you have lots of leftovers from this holiday season, here is a creative way to reuse leftover meat that your family will rave about. My husband who is from Venezuela absolutely cannot resist an arepa. An arepa is a sandwich made with Harina Pan that is found in all grocery stores. I like to add Parmesan cheese & butter to the mixture for a special kick!

Arepas are a Pre Columbia’s dish whose origins are from Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. Archaeologist found many of the instruments used, during this period, to make arepas.

The Caribs and Cumanagoto tribes in what is today Venezuela, used to cook a local crop of white corn, in order to soften its natural hardness. Once cooked, they will smash it until it become a soft dough and then make small patties that will ultimately be cooked again over a fire pit.

The word Arepa comes from the voice ‘ erepa, ’ that means maize for these tribes. Due to its artisanal and rather complex process, it remained as an exotic delicacy reserved to the few who loved the art of its making by itself. It was not until 1960, when an industrial method of cooking the corn was developed, including smashing and dehydrating it in form of flour, that the eating of the arepa spreaded all around the country. Arepas are eaten daily for breakfast, lunch or dinner by almost every inhabitant in the country, equally among all social classes.

Arepas were for decades a delicacy enjoyed almost exclusively by the people of Venezuela. Travelers that have visited the country for tourism or work reason miss so much an arepa filled with cheese, chicken, beef, pork or the almost infinite flavors you can put in. In the recent years, harsh conditions in Venezuela have forced many to migrate for better opportunities, bringing with them the arepas and its fillings recipes, and offering the world the opportunity to enjoy the food.

Ingredients
2 cups of Harina Pan

2 teaspoons salt

1 stick of melted butter

2 cups of Parmesan cheese

2 1/2 cups (590g) lukewarm water

Stir water, butter, and salt together in a medium bowl; gradually at the Harina Pan and the Parmesan cheese. Mix with your fingers until the mixture forms a soft, moist, malleable dough.

Form dough into eight 2-inch diameter balls; pat each ball to flatten into a 3/8-inch-thick arepa patty.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat; fry arepas in batches until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer cooked arepas to a paper towel-lined plate to drain until cool enough to handle.

Slice halfway through each arepa horizontally with a thin serrated knife to form a pita-like pocket.

24/12/2024

Wishing you a very Merry & Blessed Christmas

22/12/2024

22/12/2024

In a Cuban household celebrating Christmas Eve is a family festivity. You start preparing 3 days before with the arrival of the Pig, who is placed in the bath tub full of ice. To the pig you inject mojo. Then you place the pig in a huge trash bag, put it back in the bathtub and let it marinate for 24 hours. Make sure you have plenary of ice to keep the pig cold. The following day you roast , I’m lucky that I had a bag of Cuban Charcoal. As it is cooking the family is engaged in making cookies for Santa........From my home to yours Feliz Navidad

17/12/2024

During Christmas as a child I remember making “Merenguitos” in Cuba and placing some in a small plate under the Christmas tree for Santa. The origins of this dessert are probably to be traced back to 18th-century Switzerland, when the Italian pastry chef Gasparini prepared it to win the heart of princess Maria, who was betrothed to King Louis.

French meringue is made with raw whites and sugar. Swiss meringue is made when eggs and sugar are cooked together before being whipped to cool (this type or meringue is the most dense and more stable than French meringue). Italian meringue is made with a hot sugar syrup being added to whipped egg whites.

Here is an easy recipe you can try.

3 egg whites

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

¾ cup white sugar

Directions

In large bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with electric mixer until foamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until mixture forms stiff peaks.

Place a a cookie sheet and bake for several hours at 200 degrees.

16/12/2024

There is nothing better during cold wheat her than a nice stew. Here is my version of Moroccan Beef Stew, it is so good and easy to make! A simple short cut is to add all the ingredients in a crock port at low and let it cook during the day and serve over a bed of white rice.

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 3/4 pounds beef tenderloin, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
3 large potatoes cubed
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup halved pitted Kalamata olives
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
1 can of sweet corn
1 cup of peas
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon lemon peel.
1 teaspoon of turmeric
Salt & pepper to taste.
Place all the ingredients in the crock pot at low heat in the morning before leaving for work. When you return dinner is ready and your family will sing praises.

15/12/2024

Every home chef needs some staple dishes that he or she can whip up in no time: crowd pleasing dishes that are good at any time of year and use simple, easy-to-find ingredients. Chicken cacciatore is definitely one of those dishes! It is a rustic dish that is found throughout Italy. Recipes vary depending on the region and the ingredients available. One of the things I love about this dish: it is incredibly forgiving, and there is a lot of room to “play” with the ingredients and personalize it for your own home.

Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian, and it is hunters who first ate this dish. In fact, it is thought that the first Chicken Caccaiatore was not made with chicken at all, but with rabbit or other wild game sometime during the Renaissance period, so between the 14th and 16th centuries. Chicken Cacciatore’s simple but delicious recipe was likely developed to satisfy the appetites of hunters who may have been on the track of a larger animal or herd of animals for several days, and who needed a tasty, filling stew that could easily be cooked outdoors to keep them going. The spices used, such as parsley and oregano, would have also been readily available to humble hunters. An interesting fact is that contrary to popular belief, Chicken Cacciatore did not originally contain tomatoes or tomato sauce, as tomatoes were brought to Italy from the New World later than it would have been made for the first time.

Heat oil in large skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken, onion, bell pepper, garlic salt and pepper; cook and stir 5 to 7 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and one teaspoon of sugar. I like to add some Marsala wine...

Serve over cooked pasta and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese, if desired.

13/12/2024

We Cubans love anything sweet and no matter how much we eat we always have room for desert. This is my versions of the most decadent desert that represents my memories and love for my homeland. You can buy a pie shell at the grocery, to it I add a can of sweet coconut with its syrup, them i pour a jar of guava marmalade and lastly I add cream cheese. Cover the pie with the additional shell and bake in the oven at 350 until golden. When you bite into it its like tasting heaven. To give that special touch add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and serve warm!

10/12/2024

Mom has good and bad days but she loves to dress up and has taken over my closet!!!

10/12/2024

Platillo Moros y Cristianos (or simply moros, moro, congri, or arroz moro) is a famous Cuban dish served at virtually every Cuban restaurant. It is the Cuban version of rice and beans, a dish found throughout the Caribbean, the US Southern States, and in Brazil.

The aroma that fills your kitchen while cooking this Cuban rice dish will make you want to pump up the salsa music and grab a mojito! Rice and black beans cook together in this flavorful dish, which gives the rice it's black color.
Congri, known also as Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) is a popular celebration which is held in different cities along the Spanish coast. This festival acts out a part of Spanish history reliving the battles between the Arabs and the Christians that took place centuries ago.

Black beans served on top of or next to white rice is most commonly called Moros y Cristianos, a reference to the medieval battle between Islamic Moors and Christian Spaniards on the Iberian Peninsula. When rice and beans are mixed with sautéed aromatic vegetables and sometimes bits of pork, the result is called congrí.
Cuban cuisine has been influenced by Spanish, French, African, Arabic, Chinese, and Portuguese cultures. Traditional Cuban cooking is primarily peasant cuisine that had little concern with measurements, order and timing. A majority of the dishes are sautéed or slow-cooked over a low flame. Most Cuban cooking relies on a few basic spices, such as garlic, cumin, oregano, and bay laurel leaves. Many dishes use a sofrito as their basis. Sofrito, used as the basis for seasoning in many dishes, consists of onion, green pepper, garlic, oregano, and ground pepper quick-fried in olive oil. The sofrito is what gives certain foods their distinctive flavor. It is used when cooking black beans, stews, various meat dishes, and tomato-based sauces.

Ingredients send grocery list
1 pound dried black beans
6 cups water
1 bay leaf
2 large green bell peppers, diced
2 large Spanish onions, diced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 package of chopped bacon
4 cups parboiled long-grain white rice
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon adobo all-purpose seasoning
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt, to taste

Directions
Pick through one pound of dried black beans. Throw away all pebbles that may have made their way into the bag; they’ll be white or gray in color and likely smaller than the beans. Rinse the beans in a strainer under running water, running your hand through them to ensure all beans get washed.

To soak the beans: Add the beans to a medium-size pot filled with the water (there should be about 1 inch of extra water covering the beans) and bring to a boil. Cover and turn off the flame. Let them soak overnight.
The next day, bring the pot back up to a boil. Then turn the heat down to medium. Add the bay leaf and cover the pot.

Meanwhile, in a large stock pot set over medium heat, sauté the bell peppers, onions, and garlic cloves in the olive oil. Once they start to soften and become translucent, add the bacon.

When the bacon is a bit browned, add in the uncooked rice and stir thoroughly. (Be sure to add the rice before the vegetables are totally browned.)
When the uncooked rice is fully coated in the oil and combined with the other ingredients, add the cumin and adobo. Stir to combine, then turn off the heat and let the mixture sit until the beans are ready to be added to the pot.

Once the beans are chewable but not mushy, about 60 to 90 minutes, turn off the heat. Let them sit, covered, in their broth for about 3 to 5 minutes.

Once the beans have partially cooled, remove the bay leaf. Then, drain the beans, taking care to reserve 4 to 6 cups of the boiling liquid (aka bean broth). Add that broth to the larger stock pot with the rice. Turn the heat back on to high, and stir thoroughly. Note: The amount of broth can vary; if there are less than 6 cups of broth, substitute the remainder with water to keep the ratio of 1 ½ cups of liquid to each cup of rice.
Promptly stir the beans into the rice so they don’t dry without the broth. Stir until the mixture reaches a light boil. Cover, bring the heat down as low as possible, and let simmer.

After roughly 20 minutes, uncover the beans and rice. Stir with a long fork, doing your best not to break the beans. Be sure to reach the bottom of the pot with the fork so the rice doesn’t stick and burn.

After stirring, cover the pot again for about 5 minutes and let cook on low heat. At that point, the rice has likely soaked up most of the broth, so the congrí should be rather dry. If you prefer your rice and beans on the wetter side, cover the pot for 2 to 3 minutes instead.

Turn off the heat, and add the cilantro and salt to taste. Give it one final stir before serving warm.

09/12/2024

I love the Christmas season, truly my favorite time of the year! My son-in-law, David Clark, shared this recipe , simple, economical, tasty, and a great gift idea .
White chocolate hay stacks.
You melt a bag of 16 oz white chocolate, add to it a bag of chow main noodle and several handfuls of salty peanuts. Mix well , scoop spoonful and place in parchment paper. Let it set for about an hour. They are so good!!! Have your kids make some for Santas Reindeers!

07/12/2024

Nothing represents Christmas better than turrón. This candy nougat has it’s roots in Spain but you’ll find turrones on every Cuban Christmas dinner table without fail.

Turrón comes in various flavors but the two most popular are turrón de alicante and turrón de jijona.

Turrones are a must in my home, I found them at World Market or you can order them in Amazon. Try something new this Christmas.

06/12/2024

As you celebrate the Christmas Season come Saturday December 7, to Coastal Alabama Farmers & Fishermen’s Market, located in 20733 Mifflin Rd, Co Rd 20 in Foley. Visit my stand, Maria’s Gourmet Delights, for some delicious empanadas and authentic Cuban sandwiches & pastries. The Cubans are super large, @$12, the empanadas, are great at anytime of the day and they come in three flavors; Beef, Chicken & Chorizo, at 2 for $6 or $30 doz, guava pastries, $5 box. This week I will have Cuban Black beans for $8 a qt. Try our guava & guava & cheese pastries, @ $5 a box. Our Rumballs are to die for at $5 a box. Lastly, a must, our delicious chimichurri sauce at $7 a bottle. The pastries are great for snacks, dinner, or to impress your friends during the holidays. We take debit and credit cards. I always have plenty of free samples for you to taste! Thank you for supporting local businesses. The farmers market is open from 9:00 am till 2:00 pm follow us on facebook for some delicious recipes. https://www.coastalalabamamarket.com/home

05/12/2024

Christmas is a special time for me as I ponder on childhood memories of my beloved homeland, Cuba. One of the most important traditions that Cubans took to a whole new level, the Lechon Asado, the Cuban roasted pig. The centerpiece of a Cuban Christmas dinner.

The Cuban roast pork, lechon asado, is marinaded in a savory, garlicky, mojo sauce and we marinate the pig overnight and then we roasted in the Caja China or Chinese Box, until it tenderly falls apart. Once it is ready the children decorate the pig’s head, before it is served. It is a joyous occasion.

It is our tradition to shared with our friends, neighbors, and family the traditional Cuban Christmas Dinner and for a moment I could see myself as a young child placing the cigar in the pig’s mouth. Feliz Navidad from our home to yours!

02/12/2024

I love the Christmas Season and what better way to get your family involved in baking and decorating, Gingerbread cookies for Santa! This can be a little messy, so I recommend setting a table outside so the kids can be creative! Here is a recipe you may want to try.

3 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
6 table spoon unsalted butter3/4 dark sugar
1 large egg
½ cup molasses
2 teaspoon vanilla
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves until well blended.
In a large bowl beat butter, brown sugar, and egg on medium speed until well blended.
Add molasses, vanilla, and lemon zest and continue to mix until well blended.
Gradually stir in dry ingredients until blended and smooth.
Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic and let stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours or up to 8 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 deg. Prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper.
(Dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, but in this case it should be refrigerated. Return to room temp before using.) Preheat oven to 375°.
Grease or line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Place 1 portion of the dough on a lightly floured surface.
Sprinkle flour over dough and rolling pin.
Roll dough to a scant 1/4-inch thick.
Use additional flour to avoid sticking.
Cut out cookies with desired cutter-- the ginger bread man is our favorite of course.
Space cookies 1 1/2-inches apart.
Bake 1 sheet at a time for 7-10 minutes (the lower time will give you softer cookies-- very good!).