Caribbean Vegetables

I love to balance my meals. When I cook I always mix proteins with vegetables and some kind of starch or carbs on the side. I do this with any dish I cook, regardless of the ethnicity of the dish. I try to match my vegetables and starches to the ethnicity of the main entree the best that I can too. So when I made my Caribbean roast Caribbean Roast, I also made my vegetables Caribbean style. I am old school, what can I say?!

One of the veggies I served was a fried purple sweet potato (the last one from Julia’s garden bounty). Sweet potatoes are a Caribbean staple and people eat them everyday, as well as all other varieties of tubers. Various types of squash are also eaten on a daily basis in the Caribbean. My main vegetables were a medley of zucchini, yellow crookneck, peppers, onions and garlic all tossed together with my jerk sauce and some rum butter from Bella La Crema Bella La Crema.

First I sauteed the vegetables in the butter/oil mixture I used for my meat. I sauteed the vegetables for about 5-7 minutes before adding the jerk sauce (I divided my jerk sauce before marinating my meat).

Once I added the jerk sauce, I brought it all to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer and continued to cook it for an additional 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently. Then I added about 1-2 TBSP of rum butter to finish the sauce before serving. We all know how popular rum is in the Caribbean, so adding rum butter just seemed like a given. 🙂

So what made these typical everyday vegetables Caribbean? Let’s see ……. I used Caribbean spices in my jerk sauce, I used typical vegetables that are used in Caribbean cooking, and I used rum in my butter. They were sweet and spicy at the same time. Yep! I’d say that makes them Caribbean vegetables indeed. 🙂

As I always say, play with your food. Make cooking fun. Life is short have fun with it and live life to the fullest. Have a great day and make everyday great. Enjoy the ride. ‘Til next time.