I must tell you that my daughter and I have a bit of an obsession with these oatmeal and nut breakfast muffins. It’s never too early to teach kids to love good, healthy food, and to instill in them the love for cooking. With some assistance (with the oven part) my 7-year old was capable
I loved this chickpea and zucchini blossom salad. Few of these are ingredients traditionally used in traditional Dominican cuisine, but you know what I love the most about it? I grew almost everything that went into it. Yep, I did. Nothing tastes as good as freshly-picked vegetables that you grow yourself. I have been obsessed
I am not sure what changes as one grows older. Slowly our taste in foods change, and things that we would have considered “gross” or that we didn’t like as kids slowly become acceptable foods, enjoyable even. I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t love pasta, or one who enjoys eggplants. Likewise, I
We all have talents. Big talents, and minor ones. One of my minor talents is the ability to remember what foods my friends and relatives don’t like or are allergic to, once they have been my guests. As minor talents go, this comes in pretty handy if you don’t want to end your dinners with
This smoked salmon and avocado mayo canape it’s a lot like our family. I know that a great deal of our readers belong to bicultural or multicultural families. And anyone of them could tell you that this is not always an easy life, but it’s never boring. A successful multicultural family almost certainly require people
Wanna hear what I did this weekend? I worked 16 hours a day for 3 days, I squeezed the work of a week in those hours. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but trust me, I loved it. If you do what you love for a living, you’ll be on vacation all your
For today I had a rich dish that included a cup of butter in its preparation. There was a change of plans. The night I was supposed to go in the kitchen to make this dish I woke up at 3AM with a dull pain in my stomach. Don’t worry, nothing more serious than an
I have long had this idea on my mind of writing a post about the process of writing a post for our blog: “How the sausage is made”, metaphorically speaking. From the outside it may seem like a simple process, but it is not. From concept to publishing it may be a few days, it may
Ever since this site was started I have been posting vegetarian and vegan recipes, including a pretty decent vegan version of our sancocho (which was lost in the moving process but I am planning to revisit it). There is a reason for this recipe for avocado vegan mayo being here: For more of half my
I love soups. There is something comforting, soothing, heart-warming in a bowl of warm soup. Frankly, few foods have this effect on me. When I am sad, down, when life seems to be going in the wrong direction, I drown my sorrows in a bowl of soup. When I don’t feel well, when my body resents
I mentioned this dish to somebody a long time ago, I finally got around to writing a recipe. Not a strange occurrence with me: I am the Queen of Procrastination. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about this delicious dish, half salad, half cold dish, and one of my go-to foods when I
Not long ago I got two emails from readers asking if I could give them ideas on how to cook brown rice. About a week later we hear the alarming news that government agencies were warning consumers in the US that rice might be contaminated with arsenic. Shortly thereafter another warning: brown rice was even
A couple decades ago, during the years of my ill-spent youth, I could have never thought I would one day call myself a mother first and above all. The idea that parenthood could define a person seemed foreign to me. Oh, how times change! And many a childless person will roll their eyes at me,
In an introduction to Dominican party food for our book, Jill Wyatt wrote: “Just as a child’s birthday cannot be appropriately celebrated without a sugary fruit punch in which banana slices are set adrift, it appeared that mourners could not properly grieve, nor could merrymakers effectively make themselves so, without some alimentary offering”. Jill has a talent for capturing the
I love avocados. It’s in my blood. I am not saying there isn’t one out there, but I have yet to meet a Dominican that does not love them. And while everyones oohs and aahs over the smooth goodness of Mexican guacamole (I am partial to it myself), the way we Dominicans eat the fruit
There are days when getting out of bed does not seem like the best use of our time. Wednesday was one of such days. We inaugurated the day with a raging tropical rain and strong winds. It didn’t take long until one of the shades in our terrace was ripped off its tracks. Things could only get
Have you ever thought what the exact definition of “salad” is? Salads are the most versatile of foods. Practically any cold (?) dish with a raw ingredient seem to qualify for the title. It is this flexibility that makes it the best part of meals for me. Or, like in this case, it makes it
In my head paleta de batata (sweet potato popsicles) and summer are indelebly connected. When I was a kid I spent many a summer in the Santo Domingo neighborhood of San Carlos, where one of my aunts lived. Back then it was the kind of old-fashioned middle class neighborhood you see in movies depicting the
Summer, summer, summer! It’s everywhere. It’s “summer this”, and “summer that”. Girls in bikinis, over-tanned idiots and kids playing with garden hoses. Will the cliches never end? But I’m going to let you in on a little dirty secret: summer is my least favorite part of the year. If you don’t understand why I just don’t feel
My husband and I spent our first years together, more than a decade and a half ago, wandering the country. For me sometimes revisiting places I had been to, for him learning what this land of ours has to offer: From pristine white sand beaches to the highest mountains in the region, from tropical deserts to
First of all, what sort of vegetarian are you? What the airlines describe as ‘lacto’? ‘Lacto-ovo’? These curious categories have long been obsolete everywhere except airline ticketing codes. They mean vegetarians who eat dairy products and vegetarians who eat dairy products and eggs. Are you a fishetarian? That means a vegetarian who eats seafood (my definition).
Quick, summer is coming soon! It’s barely May and round here the heat gives us little respite these days. Luckily it has been raining heavily for the last two days, which brings the heat and humidity down a few notches to more bearable levels. Cool enough to eat soup without melting into a puddle of sweat, and
Coming from a coastal town in an area defined as “Tropical Desert Forest” my first visit to Constanza in my early teens came as a real shock. Geographically and climate-wise you would have a hard time finding two places so different and still located on the same small island. To my 13 (or 12?, can’t
Before mango season is over I wanted to bring you this recipe for mango and shrimp salad. Every Dominican has an opinion on which is the best mango cultivar: banilejos, puyitas, injertos, etc. Truth is if you have never tried a ripe mango in our country you have missed much in your life. I find
I have a confession to make: I’m terribly out of tune with the seasons and other natural cycles. It’s actually a bit embarrassing. I used to show up at my corner fruit vendor when I lived in Santo Domingo and ask for mangos when it wasn’t mango season, or avocados when the trees were still
Just as we do at home, we aim to keep the food in our blog balanced. This seems intentional, and to a certain point it is, but I’ve also noticed that over time I’ve unconsciously been avoiding repeating too many recipes of the same category. After posting a few rice, meat and other type of
This past week one half of our family gathered at a local resort as we do almost every year. It is a time for relaxation, catching up, and on the practical side of things getting everybody together under the same roof, so to speak. We hope some day we’ll have a home large enough to
Years ago I shared with our readers the story of how I went from carnivorous to vegan some time during my early 20s. Many a sun has set and risen from that time, and my dietary preferences have changed too. I have gone from carnivorous to vegan, from there I lapsed into vegetarianism, and today I call
The good thing about this season’s celebrations is that it spares no segment of our country. At least everyone celebrates New Year’s Eve with a feast fitting their budget. But let’s not forget those with alimentary restrictions, be them because of religious, ethical or health reasons. A good thing about our moving our sites to
Every nation has its rules about what goes and what doesn’t when it comes to gastronomy. Coffee here as we know is drunk sweeter than sweet. Those of us who decline any sugar at all are considered eccentric at best. In the same way as Italians who react with horror at ignorant foreigners who flout
Ginger is used in Dominican cooking in desserts and the ever-welcome ginger tea. It is not a traditional part of our savory cuisine. I’ve set out to change that. OK, that would be a bit too ambitious. But in the meantime let me share with you the many ways in which we use ginger at
It happened in the summer of 1993. It wasn’t a difficult decision. It was always uncomfortable around the table in the company’s cafeteria. I had already developed a reputation for being picky, people had suspicions. The real challenge came when we were sitting for our Christmas dinner, as my mom cut me a piece of
It is said, not completely groundlessly, that New York City is the second biggest Dominican city. When it comes to our sites, we have more readers in New York than in any other city in the world. Watching Hurricane Irene head for New York filled us with the same sense of dread as the news
Aunt Clara's Kitchen is a collection of traditional Dominican and Dominican-inspired recipes, home ideas, crafts, and the chronicles of Aunt Clara and Aunt Ilana's adventures.
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