One pot veggies and brown rice or No broth veggie soup

This is a one pot version of a dish that I made all the time. A simple mixture of veggies much like I would make chicken with vegetable soup or vegetable soup.


I started by sauteing white and red onion, yellow bell pepper and garlic after a little while I added a few hand fulls of brown rice and let it brown on all sides. I am not sure why you do this but I have seen it in a few recipes so... why not,

Then I added a bunch of water and a little chicken bullion and Pappy's. Once it started to boil I added my carrots, broccoli and chaote.


At this point I could pretty much leave it alone and let it just cook and stir occasionally.

This was a very tasty meal for the kids and I.

Stuffed Red Snapper, Corn pudding and Zucchini pudding

Torta de Elote (corn pudding) Budin de Calabcaita (zucchini pudding) with Stuffed Red Snapper. My authentic Mexican dishes for our Cinco de Mayo celebration.

This recipe was first inspired by the fact that Ruben was working in the morning and was going to be home for dinner. And it was Cinco de Mayo so I wanted to make something nice. Red Snapper is one of Ruben's favorite, it is very traditionally Mexican (especially here on the Caribbean) and I was literally walking right by the pescaderia. I picked out my fish and they cleaned it up and slit it for me. he asked me how I was going to cook it so we could decide if I wanted the head and tail or just the fillet. He said that I should stuff it. Sounds good to me.

In the cookbook, Mexico, The Beautiful Cookbook with recipes by Susanna Palazuelos, that was recently given to me as a gift I found 2 recipes that used things that I had in the house and I thought would go nicely.

The first was Torta de Elote (corn pudding)- This consisted of 8 cups of corn (I only had 4 - oh well)3/4 butter, 2 teaspoons baking powder,& 1/4 teaspoon of salt although I added some cinnamon and sugar to make more of a sweet pudding and it was really wet so I added maybe 3/4 cup of flour.

After blending the corn in my trusty mini chopper, I mixed with the remaining ingredients and put into my baking dish.

Next I made Budin de Calabcaita (zucchini pudding) The recipe for this originally called for white cheddar cheese but we do not have an abundance of cheese here so I used a yellow cheddar like cheese- I have no idea what it is called.


4 cups zucchini, boiled-drained-mashed, add 1 cup shredded cheese, 1 beaten egg, 1 cup crushed soda crackers, 1/2 cup butter and salt and pepper. I did not have individual ramekins so I used a muffin tin- they still had to be scooped onto the plate and did not hold a form. Ramekins would have been better/prettier.

I then stuffed the red snapper with garlic, sliced onion, red peppers & zucchini with salt, pepper and Pappy's. I also seasoned the outside of the fish on both sides.


For the kids I put some onions, red peppers and garlic on the baking sheet and laid the fillet of grouper I had gotten for them on top. I then sprinkled both fish with lime juice.



After cooking the corn pudding for 30 min I let it stand while I baked the fish and zucchini for 20 minutes.


The food was great. The kids loved every bite of the food and Ruben and I were thrilled with our dinners to. Dessert was also perfect at simple vanilla ice cream, fresh cut mango and cajeta sauce.

My garden

While I was in the USA with my kids I regret that my garden really suffered. For one, while I am sure he did it almost everyday, my herbs need to be watered 2 times a day. Most of the little herb pots were completely dried out. I have been nursing them back to health and some are making a great comeback.

My pumpkin did not make it. It had a ton of squash blossoms but the whole thing died before I we got any pumpkins. My corn also died. I think that was because it was not the right time to plant.

One problem I am having is with the soil itself. Someone told Ruben that the plants would probably not produce anything because the soil was not good enough. I need to be adding fertilizer. Well, the whole point of trying to grow my own food is to keep costs down so I really do not want to buy a bunch of expensive fertilizer.

Well, I have been doing some research and have found some home made fertilizer ideas. One is the egg shells and coffee grounds. We have eggs and coffee everyday so there is a ton of this to add to the garden. I also read about collecting sea kelp and soaking it in water for a month or 2. This is a good option for us as we live in a beach town. I also heard putting sand around my tomatoes will do wonders.

Some of the plants are doing really well but are not giving any fruit. This one is a pepper I think but there are no peppers????? There is also this other huge plant growing right in the middle of the pepper. I am not sure what either of them are really.

I have a few tomato plants that have finally started to grow but as of yet are not giving much. There is one little tomato on one of the plants but that is it?!?!?!

I really hope it changes soon.