My Latin Rouxbe Shindig!

As you read this, imagine Gente de Zona playing in the background…

In February 2017, I completed the Rouxbe Plant-Based Professional Certification course (read my full review of Rouxbe here). Looking back, I now see that this was the first phase of my healing journey- both physically and emotionally, learning to cook brought be back to life.

It was a looooonnng journey: six months turned into a year! I'd say that a move and brain injury were what kept me from finishing sooner, but honestly it was also my perfectionist tendency and long-engrained student mindset.

If you've gone as far as to get a PhD like me, you'll know that being an avid learner who doesn't cut corners, well, it's just in your personality. So instead of just doing the 'required' assignments, I did all the 'recommended' ones as well. It may have taken me longer, but in the end I'm a better chef for it. 

I'm going to share here a few photos from the "shindig" (that's how Rouxbe describes the last assignment). The idea was to host a canapé party. A canapé (pronounced: CAN-uh-pay) is simply the fancy-shmancy french way to describe a one-bite appetizer that has a base, a topping, and a garnish. For instance, if you were to serve crackers with cheese and a jam, that's a canapé. Of course, my party involved a number of appetizers that were not of that style, too.

I had been envisioning this final assignment from the time I began the course, and knew all along that I wanted to have a Latin American themed party. I’ve spent many years of my life living and traveling through Latin America, so naturally it's a type of cuisine that I love and that I also feel quite familiar with.

That said, it's tough to call a cuisine "Latin American," given the vast array of countries in the region. In Guatemala and Bolivia, two countries I've lived in, the staple ingredients are very different. Black beans and corn are central in Guatemalan food, but potatoes are key in Bolivia and much of the Andes region. Also, meat is much more prevalent in Bolivian cuisine, including meat from llama. In Guatemala, there are no llama to be found. 

For my Latin shindig, then, I aimed to profile a few cuisines throughout the region, altering them as needed to eliminate animal products. Here's what I came up with (and note that my perfectionist tendencies have unfortunately not yet extended to my photography. First things first...)

In the first photo are green smoothie shooters.

I wanted to start off with a "shooter"- basically an appetizer that you drink, and could be a soup or juice or smoothie. I don't have a juicer so I made a smoothie with my Vitamix. This one is fresh and spicy, with flavors that we tend to associate with Latin America, especially Mexico: cilantro, jalapeno, pineapple.

As evidence of my still less-than-stellar plating and food photography skills, I forgot the garnish here. I would add a little lime wedge, and these would be perfect. They'd be fantastic for a warmer weather party, too, I think.

The bites in the second photo were a big hit: empanaditas, or 'little' empanadas.

The empanada actually originates in Spain, and since Spain colonized Latin America, numerous cultures there appropriated it in different ways. Perhaps when we think of empanadas, the first place our mind turns to is Argentina. But variations on this simple filled pastry abound. In Bolivia I learned to love tucumanas and salteñas. And I hear that they have a deep fried variety of empanada in Colombia too.

What I created here is a veganized version of the typical Argentine empanada. The dough omits any animal product (no butter or lard, just vegetable oil and water to bind the flour), but it's what's inside that's a real treat: sweet potatoes, roasted poblano peppers, and homemade tempeh "bacon". I served them up with a spicy cilantro salsa.

Third up were tamalitos Filled with Mole Poblano and Cashew Cream.

This one wasn't as popular as I'd anticipated, mainly because you can't make a tamalito (or tortilla, or really any corn dough food) in the U.S. with real maiz (freshly made corn dough). You're always forced to rely on maseca (masa harina, flour that's reconstituted with water to make corn dough).

In Guatemala, for instance, we would eat fresh tortillas and occasionally tamalitos or chuchitos, always made from dried, locally-grown corn that had been rinsed and soaked in water and cal at home and then ground into a meal/dough at the community molina.

Here in the states, none of that is possible and tamalitos made from reconstituted masa are never completely satisfying (in my opinion). What partly makes up for it, in this case, is the homemade mole poblano that I slaved over for hours. For all you mole virgins, that's the dark brown chocolately-spicy sauce you see in the photo.

In Providence many people in the Mexican community are originally from Puebla, the state in Mexico where mole poblano comes from. So I took a trip to my favorite mexican grocer, La Poblanita, and was able to purchase all twenty-nine (29!) of the necessary ingredients (I adapted Pati Jinich's mole recipe). I filled the tamalitos with this mole and some corn and black beans, and served them up with extra mole and cashew sour cream.

The next photo, my yuca canapés, were a huge hit.  

I wanted to create a canapé, but one that would go beyond the expected corn tortilla chip. These were probably the simplest to make, which just goes to show that delicious does not have to mean difficult.

Yuca (also known as cassava) is a popular root vegetable in many Latin American and Caribbean countries. To make these small bites I first boiled the yuca. Then I mashed it. Then I rolled it out like a dough and baked it in a mini-tart pan. I then filled the tartlets with a homemade guacamole and topped them with grape tomatoes. 

The final photo really does not do proper justice to my raw mini lime cashew cheesecakes. 

These took a couple days to make because I first had to ferment the cashews before turning them into "cheese". The crust is made of nuts and coconut oil, and the mini cakes are dusted with lime zest and garnished with a strawberry coulis. In another version (not shown), I topped them with coconut whipped cream.

So... I'm done! Now off to figure out how I can continue putting my new skills and knowledge into practice. Thanks Rouxbe!