Produce Presents!

A friend of mine works at Tropical Foods in Roxbury, which is basically a wholesale specialty store for mainly Latin and African foods. The other day he brought me presents from there, including:

A Yuca

Some Plantains,

and Pizza Wine (legit that's the name... apparently wine that goes well with pizza)!

I had never tried yucca before, but I have been curious to give it a try, so when it happens to be delivered to my kitchen I had no further excuses! I knew Elizabeth had tried it before and blogged about it, with a poor review, however, through talking to fans of yuca it but perhaps the prep was the problem. According to J. you have to cook it with lots of butter, salt, pepper and garlic (which is the Cuban way of cooking the plant)--- which clearly is not the way we nutrition people think to cook a veggie! But i figured for my first yuca experience I might as well go all out.



So: I peel, cut and boiled the root for about 20 minutes. Then I mixed in some Smart Balance Light (which I am not a huge fan of, but it happened to be in my refrigerator.), some salt, pepper and garlic.


The result = Nomnomnom! Delicious. It was very similar to a potato, though it had a slightly more starchy texture. I was afraid I hadn't cooked it long enough because it had areas that were more white and powdery looking than others, but it all tasted good and was tender. I think I went a little heavy on the garlic, but that could easily be adjusted.

Along with my yuca, I baked up some frozen broccoli and mixed peppers, along with some extra firm tofu. I drizzled balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper on them. I will have to thank Jessica for the idea of baked broccoli with balsamic vinegar.



Overall a phenomenal, easy to make meal.