Holiday Cooking

Well, as usual the Holiday’s arrived faster than what I could bake. My goal to bake something everyday just did not happen. With house showings and trying to keep the place spotless, I had to give up baking on most days. Some Holiday treats did not make it to Photography either LOL!!!!

One of the things I did enjoy making was  Puerto Rican Pasteles. I have fond memories of making these with my Grandma and Mom every year since I was a kid. They always gave me what I thought was the hard part of grating those darn plantains to a pulp. The excuse was I had small fingers and could hold them to the end. HAHAHA! They sure fooled me. I embarked on this journey yesterday all by my lonesome, and yes the hard part is still the grating IMO. However, the meat and sofrito take a lot of prep time too.

So I divided my kitchen into three different stations. One for the vegetable prep, one for the meat prep, and my breakfast table taped in a bass pro plastic bag for the wrapping and tying of the pasteles.

I’m glad I had the experience of prepping these with my Grandma, because no recipe will do justice to how these are done. She had the attitude of a little bit of that and a little bit of this, and never wrote her recipe down. Though I took notes the last time we made them before her passing.hehehe…I did follow a bit of Daisy Martinez recipe, for the “masa” and the “sofrito” and adjusted as necessary until I got to that familiar flavor. Here are some pictures of the process: