Archive for October, 2008

Tostones are twice-fried plantain slices.  Plantains are related to a banana, but they are not sweet until they are very over ripe.  They are a Puerto Rican staple and can be prepared many ways.  This is one of my favorites.  My mother-in-law taught me how to make them.  This is a savory recipe.

Step 1
Slice three green plantains.
Plantains don’t peel as easily as bananas; they like to hold on to their skin.  You have to score the skin down the side of the plantain and pry it loose with your fingers.  It helps to slice the top and bottom edges off first.

Step 2

Slice the plantains at a diagonal in about half inch slices.  This gives them plenty of surface area to fry and keeps them from being too thick.

Step 3
Fry the plantains in hot oil.  I don’t have an oil thermometer…I use the wooden spoon trick.  Place the tip of a wooden spoon in the hot oil, if you see bubbles, it’s hot enough. I know that’s not very scientific.  If you have a thermometer, I suggest heating the oil to 300 degrees F.  Fry the plantains for a few minutes until they are lightly brown and barely crispy.  Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Repeat with all slices.

Turn the oil up to 375 F to prep for the second frying.

Step 4
Place the plantain piece inside a folded brown bag and press down firmly.  The plantain should flatten and increase in size. You can also use a mallet to flatten the plantain, but that’s not as much fun.

Once all the plantains are flattened, fry them a second time for 3-4 minutes, flipping occasionally. They will be very crispy and golden brown. Remove from the oil, drain on paper towels and salt to your liking.

Step 5
Serve the tostones with a dipping sauce made of ketchup, Tabasco, and lemon juice or mayonnaise, Tabasco, lemon juice and a squeeze of ketchup.

Tonight we went to dinner at Morton’s The Steakhouse to celebrate our 8th anniversary (which technically is Tuesday the 28th).  Dinner was, as usual, delicious.  It’s always such a treat to have a nice, leisurely dinner.  At a dining table.  That takes longer than 15 minutes to eat.  Usually we eat downstairs on the couch, quickly so I can get wrapped in my couch cocoon (aka my down comforter) for nightly tv watching.  Normally, we’re big on photographing our food so we can remember it later or share the experience, but I’ve always felt weird about taking photos in nice restaurants.  So I don’t have any photos of the food to share tonight, but you can find pics here.

The General Manager took our photo and framed it for us…another nice touch.

Here’s a picture from our wedding in October 2000

and this one, which was taken in December 1997

Sorry about the dusty photos, but my scanner has some problems.

I also started working on the recipe index, and I’m hoping to get my recipes and how-to photos up shortly.  I am going to start small, so be patient.  The first one I’m posting is for tostones, which are twice-fried plantains.  YUM!  Jose’s done a lot of work on the back end of this page for me, so we have him to thank for it looking great. 

Oh, and since I said I would be talking about exercise in this blog and I haven’t yet…I did walk on the treadmill this afternoon for 30 minutes…I did about 1.5 miles.  I hated every minute of it, but it wasn’t as terrible as I remembered.  My PLAN is to walk every morning at 5am (and still go to the gym 4 evenings a week for more cardio — bike or swimming).  We’ll see, tho I did manage to do it regularly for the 6 weeks before we left for Italy.

lots to do still tonight.

ciao,
Chris

I’m sure you’re wondering what the heck that means, right?  Sadly, I have no answer that will make sense to you.  It’s just a phrase that we use a lot to describe something very wacky, cool, interesting…to us.  (We also think one day it will make a fantastic band name for someone.)  I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s much better than option number two, Flesh Wonton, which only a select few will truly understand. (right Jason and Chris A.?)

This blog originally started as our travel blog for our trip to Italy in March, but I feel the need to join the blogging nation so I’m branching out.  (ok truthfully, I just like to talk) I hope to make regular posts about all sorts of things, exercise, food, entertainment, and things that make me happy (Facebook, ice cream, napping just to name a few), things that make me think and basically as the “About” says, things that are all about me.

It is my blog after all.

Feel free to make comments, but the rule of thumb is “be kind or be anonymous” I’m the proud owner (for the next five years anyway) of www.onwardcyclops.com.  If anyone wants an @onwardcyclops.com email address, let me know.

ciao,
Chris

Hi peeps. Six months later, I’ve finally gotten around to posting the links to our Italy videos. Is anyone still checking in? Hello? Bueller…..Bueller? The link is to our flickr page; you can see each city and it will tell if there is a video posted there. Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpulgar/collections/72157606460326281/

Anyway, I decided it was time to actually resurrect the blog since we are starting to plan for our B.S.T. (Big Summer Trip) Not sure where…we were thinking Germany, but Jose wants to revisit Prague (which I’d rather do in the winter…crazy I know, but I’ve already sweated all over Prague. not sure I want to do it again.)

We are thinking about maybe 3+ weeks in Europe this summer. Our thinking is that it will be easier to do all the traveling now, than pay for airfare again in two years or so. Of course, I have the time in the summer to devote to a long trip while Jose is limited by vacation days.

So far, our options include: renting an apartment in Germany for a few weeks and using it as a home base and renting a car (scary) or using trains to travel to different countries. Or a cruise (either ocean or rivers). Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. [From the 10 people or so who actually read this blog]

ok that’s it for now.
C