it’s simple and delicious.
If you have never had sofrito, you must. Call it a Latin condiment, or call it a marinade, sofrito is basically a mixture of fresh vegetables that is used as a base in many Latin American dishes. I make sofrito from time to time, especially when I am making arroz con gandules (Puerto Rican Rice). A recent get together yielded a feast of the Puerto Rican rice, chimichangas, and some fresh pico de gallo, and the great thing is that I had about three cups of this sofrito left.

Simple ingredients yielding huge flavors. I have been putting it in everything this week, and I will tell you that if you are warming it up on some of your rice for a quick lunch, or some beans, that your coworkers will turn their heads and say “Wow, that smells good”. It does. Sofrito should become the new condiment. It is that good, and simple to make.
Ingredients:
Toss everything into a food processor and chop down into a nice sauce. You can use sofrito in most anything, trust me, this is a real winner!
You might have recently read my post on the canadian bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich as possibly being one of my favorite meals at breakfast. The one that trumps that breakfast is fried fish and eggs. While growing up in Indiana, and even moving to Wisconsin, we spent a lot of time at my grandparents home in Monticello, Indiana. This is where it all began.

Monticello was a nice little town, and as kids, it was a perfect place to be. My grandparents lived in a small community located on one of waterways that led into Lake Freeman. It was just the best place to visit. One of our routines was to wake up at the crack of dawn, grab our fishing poles, and go fishing for at least two to three hours. My grandparents had their own pier, and just short of the end of the pier was a large stump in the water. This was a hot spot that simply attracted large pan fish such as bluegill, sunfish, and crappie. In my opinion, the best eating fish out there. As we would catch them, and lots of them, either my dad or grandpa would come down to check on us, and the catch, and begin cleaning them. Once cleaned, we would take them back to the house and have them for breakfast.
There is something to be said about this breakfast. It is light, but hearty, and just has the best texture, and is one that I could eat every weekend. It brings back great childhood memories, and is one I just shared with my kids this past weekend.
Ingredients:
Add the salt and pepper to the ziploc bag, and add in the flour. Seal and shake. Next take a few fish fillets and add them to the bag, lightly, and I mean lightly coating. We are not looking for a thick coating on the fish, but something extremely light. You could use light cornmeal if you wanted to as well.
Heat your oil in your fry pan on medium heat, and when it comes to temperature, drop in your fish. Fry only for a couple of minutes on each side, as they will not take long to cook due to the size of the fillets. Remove and let excess oil drain on some paper towel. Sprinkle a bit of salt on each fillet. Repeat.
Cook your eggs to your liking, and plate with the fish fillets, some fresh fruit, and some toasted bread.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank a new friend, Bill “the fisherman”, who was so kind to bring two very large bags for fish fillets to the house. The breakfast and memories could not have been possible without that delivery of fish.
That’s a great idea, i’m going to try that.
There does not go a day in the workweek when my coworkers and I do not talk about food. It usually happens around 9:30 every morning, and we talk every thing food. Whether it be from what we ate the night before, what we want to eat, or what we read on our RSS feeds, we are always talking food, which is a bit unusual seeing there are five guys in the open suite. So not long ago, a couple of us were talking about smoking food over the weekend, and as we typically do, we have a lot of leftovers, of which we bring into the office. As we talked about what we do with the leftovers, my coworker Ryan had mentioned that he makes bbq spaghetti.

BBQ spaghetti? One I have never had bbq spaghetti, and two, it sounded really good. So, I thought I would give it a try. After all, I recently had great leftovers from making Hawaiian style kalua pig, and I thought what a better way to use that pork leftover on this idea of bbq spaghetti. Let’s get started on this simple, and delicious recipe.
Ingredients:
That is it. Three simple ingredients, yielding huge flavors. Begin by cooking your pasta, until al dente. During this time, warm your bbq sauce on the stove in a saucepan. Add your pork to the sauce to warm it through as well.
Once your pasta is cooked, drain it, and it to a large bowl. Pour in your sauce, mix well, and serve. I served mine with some pickle spears to really make it feel like a down home bbq bowl. Enjoy.
What a great idea!I’ll keep this in mind when we have some pulled pork leftovers.Im seriously thinking about making your kalua pig…yum!

September 2nd, 2010 at 9:45 am
Looks tasty, what do I use it in besides the gandules? Is it used in place of salsa? Or is it like a pesto?
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I love this post! I am Puerto Rican and we basically put sofrito in everything. One thing we do a little different is we add achiote to add some color, if making beans or sauces. I also have a suggestion when making big batches of sofrito: sofrito freezes great and for months! I make sofrito for me and my mom and put it in the freezer. When it is starting to freeze use an ice cream scoop to make balls and freeze it like that. It is the perfect amount for most of the dishes we make. Or you can also use an ice tray and make cubes.
September 2nd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Ok you have convinced me…I’m sold. SO a whole head of garlic?