A Delicious Look at Cuban Food

The Internet is a great resource for food lovers. You can find everything from recipes to home delivery of gourmet meals. International foods are a real treat that you can explore and enjoy.

In this article, we will explore Cuban food and offer you an easy recipe. There is a wonderful variety of Cuban food available such as coffee, fruits & jellies, rice dishes, sauces, spices, teas, meats, seafood, desserts, cookies & crackers.

Explore the tastes of light and dark coffee and cappuccino; Caf้ Bustelo, Caf้ Pilon, Caf้ El Pico and several others.

Mango and Guava are used for a variety of fruit dishes and jellies such as Conchita Guava Shells, La Cubanita Mango Cream and La Fe Guava Paste.

Rice dishes are very popular, including those produced by Goya; Paella Dinner, Rice & Black Beans, Rice & Pigeon Peas and tasteful Yellow Rice.

Several sauces and spices add variety to the meals. Brands include Badia, Batey, Conchita and Goya. There is a little bit of everything to add additional flavor to your meals.

Teas are a favorite in the Cuban food line; several varieties from Chamomile to Mango are available.

Even meats can be purchased, Goya Chorizos (sausages), Pamplona Mussels in Brine, Pamplona Octopus in Oil and Sauce.

For dessert, there is Goya Flan, Majarete and Tembleque . Enjoy a variety of Gilda and La Estrella crackers and cookies with a cup of your favorite coffee or tea.

Declare an International Food night and include the Cuban dish below.

Spanish Sausage and Peppers

1 Goya Chorizo Sausage

Olive Oil

1 Pepper (Your choice of sweet, red, cayenne, chili, etc.)

Sherry vinegar

Fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Chop sausage into bite size chunks. Put olive oil into a frying pan and fry sausage on high heat. Let the fat from the sausage come out into the oil. Cut the pepper into bite size squares. Turn the sausage and add the pepper to the pan. Add a splash of vinegar and the parsley and then mix everything. Skewer pieces of sausage and pepper with toothpicks and put onto a warm plate and serve.

About The Author

This article was written for the Cuban Food Guy at http://www.cubanfoodguy.com, enjoy a delightful variety of Cuban foods ready to deliver to your door. Author: Merrie Schonbach http://merriesintent.com

Saving Money on Canning Jars

Canning season is fast approaching, so I thought I'd share some of the ways in which I save money on canning jars.

1. Garage Sales - I live in a rural area, so I often run into jars at garage sales. These can usualy be had very cheaply. Just last weekend I bought over 4 boxes of jars for $20. These boxes contained well over 60 jars (mostly jelly jars which is what we really needed), rings & lids (brand new still in boxes). Plus the boxes also contained 4 antique canning jars with zinc lids, which I collect, so I was really excited to see!

2. Family & Friends - Check with family and friends who use to can to see if they still have jars they're no longer using. I got quite a few this way from my Mom (plus a lot of other canning stuff), when I first started canning. I'd also post a notice at church or ask around church to see if anyone had any to offer. Most of the time you can get these jars for free or very little cost.

3. Freecycle - Post a notice on your local Freecycle group. I got a lot of jars this way for free...all I had to do was go pick them up. Because of gas prices, I took in consideration how many jars a person was offering and how far I had to drive to get them. If they were pretty close, I'd go get whatever they had to offer, but if they were farther away, I'd just go get larger quanities.

4. Recycle Jars - I often reuse mayonnaise jars and other commercial jars that my rings & lids fit on. I only use them in water bath canning, as I'm afraid they will shatter in the pressure canner. My Mom has done this for years and it works really well. This is how I get a lot of my jelly sized jars and also my hot sauce jars.

5. Thrift Stores & Flea Markets - I occasionally can find canning jars at our local thrift stores & flea market. They cost a little more generally than all the above ways, but are still cheaper than buying new.

6. Clearance - Watch out for canning jars on clearance at Wal-Mart toward the end of the canning season. Last year, I picked up quite a few boxes, rings & lids for pretty cheap. I found all the canning stuff on clearance there around the end of the Summer and September & October. I grabbed what I thought I could use and what I could afford. I got jars, pectin, rings, lids, a big water bath canner, jelly bags, and a couple of other things then while on clearance.

Some Safety Concerns:

Any time you re-use jars or rings, you should do the following...

1. Check the jar opening for chips. Do not use any canning jars that have chips on the openings, as they may not for a good seal and the food can spoil. Save these jars for storage or for gifty items like mixes and such.

2. Check the jars for hairline crack and such. If they have any cracks, don't use them for canning as they may explose while canning or again, let the food spoil.

3. Check your rings for rust. If they have a lot of rust, don't reuse them. A little rust is fine, but if they're heavily rusted, toss them.

4. NEVER reuse lids! They may not reseal properly causing food to spoil. Lids are cheap...use a new one every time.

5. Whenever you open a jar, smell the food and check for any strange textures or colors. If you have any questions about food in a jar, it's safer for you family to toss the contents than get food poisoning from it.

Well I hope this helps some of y'all find some cheap and useable jars for your canning needs! It's quickly approaching time for me to start making Pickly Pear & Mequite Bean jellies, so I've personally been stocking up on my jelly jars. I'm going to probably be making well over 100 jars of jelly this year. We ran out last year really quickly and so I've made it a goal this year for me to put up enough jelly for the entire year, plus to have some to give away to family and friends. I'm also going to try to put up about the same number of jars of salsa. Wish me luck :)

~ Susan Godfrey is a Christian wife, mom and homemaker. She is also the owner of Homekeeper's Heart, http://www.freewebtown.com/homekeepersheart, a Titus 2 Ministry to encourage Christian women to be the wives, mothers and homemakers that God wants them to be! She has her own blog at http://www.susangodfrey.blogspot.com and also is the owner of the Homesteader's Heart Blog at http://www.homesteadersheart.blogspot.com where she shares homesteading, gardening and country living articles.

Eating History - The Way to a Viking's Heart is Through His Stomach

Food history has always interested me. We can learn a lot about our present eating habits from what our ancestors ate. I've read up on the subject and I've even hosted a few parties serving period foods. Today we'll talk about the Vikings. With the help of our friends the archaeologists, food finds have been made. The Scandinavian people of the 8th through 11th centuries were not as limited in terms of their diet as some might think. They were masters of the sea and ate everything from oysters to whales. They were much more than just avid anglers feasting on a variety of fresh and saltwater fish. They were farmers as well. In the Danish settlement of Jorvik, now called York in Great Britain, finds of both wild and domestic meats were found. Among those were venison, beef, mutton/lamb, goat, pork, chicken, goose, duck, grouse, and wood pigeon. The Vikings cultivated grains such as barley, wheat, rye, and barley. They grew vegetables and fruit like carrots, parsnips, turnips, celery, plums, apples, raspberries, elderberries, and much much more. To top that off, they were not opposed to using spices and herbs other than salt for a little extra flavor.

Honey was the big sweetener in the Middle Ages. The Vikings used a lot of it to make mead. You can read my article “The Stuff of Poetry Mead” (http://onlinecooking.net/output_story.php?ID=1038) for more information. The Vikings drank more than just mead. They had access to ale and even wines brought back from Italy and France. Bread would have been a staple, since it is filling (it also keeps you pretty regular). I recall a class assignment back in elementary school where we had to prepare a food from our respective cultures. Being proud of my Scandinavian ancestors, I picked something Viking related. I found a recipe in an old issue of Skalk, (http://www.skalk.dk/) an archaeological periodical published in Denmark. It had a lot of different grains in it, and unlike some of the breads we are use to today, this stuff hit your stomach with a "thud". (One of the things I enjoy doing is making improvised dishes based on ingredients found in the Viking and Medieval ages.)

Here is a recipe that translates pretty well even to modern times. It will keep you going on the coldest of winter nights. Drink a couple horns of mead and you'll be really happy.

Paul's Viking Stew

A large piece of meat cut into cubes

One large onion (chopped)

One carrot (chopped)

A few stalks of celery (chopped)

One Parsnip (chopped)

Some cabbage (chopped)

Pearled barley

Beef broth or stock, you can use chicken stock as well

Oil for cooking

Salt and Pepper

Put your vegetables into a big pot and cook on low heat in a little oil. If you want to stay authentic, do not use corn oil. Corn as we know it in the Americas was not used until much later. Olive oil might have been used if some Norwegian traveled to Italy and picked up some.

When the onions and cabbage look translucent, then add the meat and barley. Cover everything with your stock and bring it to a boil. Reduce it to a simmer and stir it occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom.

Cook until the barley is cooked and the meat is done all the way through. You can also thicken this with a little flour in water.

So there you have it, an interpretation that would probably be a little better than what the standard Viking would have. The point is that this is a dish that would have been made with ingredients that were available at the time. Stay tuned for more medieval recipes.

Paul Rinehart is classically trained and is the founder of Online Cooking.