Make flavorful Puerto Rican dishes with this vegan cookbook

The "Black Rican Vegan" cookbook contains delicious recipes that combine Puerto Rican and soul food, with a vegan-twist

My Reading with Rachelle Podcast is coming in November! But as I frantically work on that, I still need to eat. So celebrate National Cookbook Month with me as I cook and eat my way through October with dishes from multicultural plant-based cookbooks.

Last month, while reveling in vegan gluttony in Arizona, I bought Black Rican Vegan: Fire Plant-Based Recipes from a Bronx Kitchen by Lyana Blount.

Blount opens the book with her story—of Puerto Rican dishes prepared by her grandfather, such as omelets stuffed with okra and bacalao (salted codfish), bacalaitos (codfish fritters), and chicharrón (fried chicken or pork chunks) with panapan (breadfruit), along with root vegetable-filled dishes; plus soul food dishes her Puerto Rican mother learned to cook for her father, such as smoked neck bones with black-eyed peas and fried catfish with baked mac 'n' cheese and collard greens. Blount learned to cook Puerto Rican and soul food dishes for her family as a young girl.

But as the years went by, Blount noticed that these delicious foods, filled with fats, oils, and butter and heavy on starches and sugars, contributed to her loved ones' struggles with diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Some died.

So, Blount resolved to end the cycle and cook healthier meals for herself, along with her friends and family. In 2016, she decided to go vegan.

It was this paragraph that had me eagerly thumbing through the book's 168 pages and salivating at the recipes:

In 2020, I realized that the vegan food I was eating lacked something. I missed the flavors of love I was used to and did not want to lose the culture and tradition from my childhood meals, so I decided that I would cook nostalgic dishes, such as pasteles (meat-filled tomales), pernil (pork shoulder), and arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), and meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but put my own vegan twist on them.

Because, unlike Blount, I did not grow up with a love of vegetables. So, flavor and creative cooking that makes vegetables enticing, in addition to the dishes that satisfy my nostalgic craving for the foods I've had to give up, are must-haves for me.

Everything begins with Sofrito and Sazón

Since peas are on my Favorite Vegetables list, I was instantly drawn to Delicioso Asopao de Gandules, a soup filled with pigeon peas. The pigeon peas and the handmade green plantain balls, both of which were new to me, intrigued me. The calabaza squash did not. Since squash is on my Vegetables I Hate Most list, I decided to use potatoes, instead.

My first road block was making Sofrito, which Blount describes as "an aromatic blend of vegetables, herbs, and spices used to flavor beans, fish, meats, rice and stews" and "is the foundation that ties everything together and gives the dish its flair and sabor."

She had me at "flair and sabor," despite the fact that I'm not crazy about peppers (of which the recipe required five different varieties) nor cilantro.

Miraculously, as I was pondering where to find ají dulce green peppers, my friend Beth Hoffman of Whippoorwill Creek Farms—which she runs with her husband, John Hogeland, and is my #1 choice for fresh veggies—mentioned she happened to have red ones from their garden.

I was afraid I’d kept the ají dulce peppers too long (notice the dried stems?) before finally making the soup. But my worries were unnecessary.

A pre-cooking taste test revealed a smoky taste unlike other peppers, making me think that this might be the #2 pepper—shishito peppers being #1—that I could love.

Another staple for Blount's recipes is a spice blend called Sazón. Fortunately, I had the eight spices required—which included cumin, coriander, and annatto—on hand.

Delicioso Asopao de Gandules is, indeed, delicisioso

Finally, I was ready to make the soup.

My homemade Sofrito (left) and Sazón (right). The Sofrito was supposed to be green but my red ají dulce peppers made it, well, red.

Chopped onions? Check. Chopped cilantro? Check. Fresh garlic paste? Check. Peeled and cubed potatoes? Check.

Green plantain balls? No.

I peeled the plantains then dug into the far reaches of my cabinet, groping for the cheese grater that, regretfully, no longer grates cheese.

Green plantain balls? Check.

With the prepped veggies, homemade Sofrito and Sazón, and the nine remaining ingredients nearby, the rest was simple, consisting of the usual sautéing of onions and garlic with select ingredients, adding other ingredients to the pot, dropping in the plantain balls, and stirring and simmering.

Though it was a reddish brown instead of the golden color in the photo, the end result was, indeed, a tasty, flavorful soup.

Ta-da! My version of Delicioso Asopao de Gandules. I remembered to take this photo of my last bowl of soup. By this time, I’d eaten all the plantain balls.

My two known mistakes:

• The soup didn’t have as much broth as shown in the photo, possibly because I used short-grain brown rice, instead of the recommended medium-grain rice, and too much of it.

• While the plantain balls did absorb some of the flavor from the soup, they were a bit hard and bland. I'm guessing this was my fault, not Blount’s. Overly concerned about overcooking the other ingredients, I may have undercooked them and then skimped on the seasoning.

I shared my Delicioso Asopao de Gandules with good friends at our recent monthly-ish potluck brunch.

Fortunately, I'll have the opportunity to test my theories since I will definitely be making this one again.

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If you live in Iowa, you, too, can purchase fresh veggies from Whippoorwill Creek Farm, as well as take a class, join a fresh family-style dinner prepared by Beth’s hubby, John Hogeland, in their beautiful barn house, and even spend the night. Visit their website. Also, check out Beth’s column discussing How to change what people eat.

Dana James, founder of Black Iowa News, which is both a print and a digital publication, wrote an informative and inspiration column on the need to vote, Election 2024: ‘We get the government we deserve if we’re not engaged,’ say voting and civil rights experts say. Visit the website to subscribe to the free newsletter, pick up a free copy at various locations, and offer your support by purchasing a paid subscription.

Always on the lookout for new books to read—and they are not always history—I discovered a new book that Macey Shoforth reviewed that I’m adding to my list. Check out Macey’s column, The Ways We Fracture, where she reviews Friendly Fire: A Fractured Memoir by Paul Rousseau.

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