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Home/Tag: Chef Monti

#EasyRecipe: Peanut Butter Cookies

  I've been making this recipe since I was a pre-teen. I  sold them at a trailer park playground so I could score the things I thought I needed to survive, like George Michael's album Faith. Hahaha! I wrote this recipe's origin story for Bon Appetit and it was just published. You can check it out here. Made with just four ingredients, you can whip these peanut butter cookies up in a few minutes. I recommend that you rest the dough for an hour to solidify the oil in the peanut butter and help control spread as they bake. The white sugar helps create a deeper caramel color [...]

2021-09-22T16:47:49+00:00By |#EasyRecipe, Desserts|0 Comments
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Lemon Blueberry Quesito

This easy-to-make lemon blueberry quesito ( Puerto Rico's version of the danish) is one of my favorite summer dessert recipes. OK, if I'm keeping it 100, I make it all year. But it's super awesome during the summer when I get a little crazy buying a ton of berries at the farmer's market. You can have this baby in the oven in under ten minutes and on your table in under thirty. When you choose fresh blueberries at the market, go for plump ones, dent-free, and a deep blue. Skip blueberries that have any red patches on them, as this shows they were picked before their time. Blueberries do [...]

2021-07-24T18:03:31+00:00By |breakfast, brunch, Desserts, Fruits & Veggies|2 Comments
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Two-Ingredient Pie Dough

Nothing says summer’s here quite like a homemade fruit pie. Tangy blackberries, tart cherries, and luscious peaches are all in season and make incredibly easy fillings. It’s always a good idea to have some dough tucked away for a quick fruit pie. It’s a wonderful addition to a brunch or impromptu get-together. Drop it on the table and watch it get gobbled up. #Trust. If you’re intimidated by making your own dough, don’t be. It’s not as tricky a process as some would have you believe. My recipe calls for just two ingredients and a touch of water. The key step is to make sure all the ingredients are [...]

2021-07-04T19:03:20+00:00By |breakfast, brunch, Desserts|0 Comments
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Easy Recipe: Peach Galette

Peach season is in full swing, my friends! This easy-to-make peach galette is my favorite way to showcase this succulent summer fruit. A galette is a rustic, free-form pie baked on a sheet pan, not in a pie pan. You can use store-bought pie dough, puff pastry, or use my simple two-ingredient pie dough recipe to get this luscious dessert on the table in under an hour.  The most important step is to make sure you taste your peaches before you add them to the dough. Not all peaches are overflowing with flavor. If they're lacking in the taste department, add a touch of honey, a few drops of [...]

2021-07-04T19:09:44+00:00By |breakfast, brunch, Desserts, Fruits & Veggies|2 Comments
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Easy Recipe: Spinach Pancetta Quiche

Don’t you love a slice of cold quiche on a hot day? This recipe is so perfect for a summer cool-down. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s SO YUM. In case you’ve never had it, a quiche is a savory custard with a pie crust or, as my son puts it: scrambled egg pie. From the outside looking in, quiche seems like a sophisticated recipe, but it isn’t. It really is just a scrambled egg pie. What I love the most is that just like your favorite omelet, you can add in any bits and pieces of food that are left in the fridge to make something new and [...]

2021-07-03T19:07:36+00:00By |Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Chorizo Frittata

Frittatas are like your favorite pair of jeans, no matter what time of the day it is, they're always just right.  They're so easy to put together with anything you've got in your fridge, really. This recipe is one of my favorites. The porky hit of paprika from the Spanish chorizo paired with the gooey nuttiness of the manchego and the creamy tang of the buttermilk is irresistible. Of course, you can't just throw everything together. You've got to brown the chorizo and potatoes and coax the flavor out of your onions and garlic, but that doesn't take long and the reward is well worth the effort. I use [...]

2021-05-25T16:20:31+00:00By |#IslandFlavor, breakfast, brunch, Recipes|0 Comments
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Island Ratatouille Pie

Spring is here and nothing quite puts the season on the plate like a batch of ratatouille.  If you've never had it, it's a vegetable dish usually made with onions, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. The veggies are sauteed or roasted with a little oil until they've softened and released their juices. Ratatouille can be served hot or cold or in a Disney movie prepped by the cutest team of rodents ever. Traditionally, ratatouille is accompanied by a few slices of crusty bread to sop up its savory sauce. I wrapped my ratatouille with a pie crust and dressed it with an herbaceous lemon ricotta to create a one-pot dish [...]

2018-04-19T16:00:28+00:00By |#IslandFlavor, Appetizers, Dinner, Fruits & Veggies, Recipes, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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#IslandFlavor: Empanadas Stuffed with Picadillo

Empanadillas work triple duty on my little island. They're served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner as an appetizer, main course, and even as a dessert. They are our version of the hot pocket (we freeze them for the future!), usually fried (though they can be baked BUT WHY WOULD YOU?!?!?), totally portable and mouth-wateringly DELICIOUS. Empanadillas are a pastry that can be stuffed with cheese, fruits, veggies, and every protein under the sun. But if you're going old school, the big daddy of all empanadillas is the one stuffed with picadillo. It's a sort of ground beef hash, stewed in a tomato-sauce-based sofrito with olives and raisins. You'll find [...]

2021-05-18T16:39:49+00:00By |Uncategorized|0 Comments
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#IslandFlavor: The Freakin’ Rican Burger

Everyone has a favorite burger recipe and the Freakin' Rican is mine. I developed the recipe when I competed on Gordon Ramsay's MasterChef because it’s Puerto Rico in one juicy bite. The patty is made from 50% short rib, 25% sirloin and %25 pork shoulder, all coarsely ground. I season the patty with sazón, a Puerto Rican spice blend and then layer it with a chunky sofrito (flavorful tomato based sauce) and slices of creamy meunster cheese. Then come the smashed ripe plantains and strips of crispy thick cut bacon. I top those with tomato, onion, and arugula and sandwich all of it on a potato bun toasted with garlic [...]

2017-12-19T00:37:22+00:00By |#IslandFlavor, Proteins, Recipes, Uncategorized|2 Comments
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#IslandFlavor: Limbers (Frozen Fruit Pops)

It doesn't matter where you are in Puerto Rico- your block, your school, or in a downtown plaza- someone will always be selling frozen fruit juice pops called limbers. My Abuela Alicia lived in a tenement building in Rio Piedras and had a neighbor that would sell them out of her apartment. My brother and I would hand her fifty cents through a gap in her wrought iron door and in return we would get two little dixie cups filled to the top with frozen sweetened coconut milk. It was the tastiest way to stay cool in a world with no air conditioning. These frosty, refreshing treats are named [...]

2021-07-24T22:42:10+00:00By |#IslandFlavor, Desserts, Fruits & Veggies, Recipes, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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