Living away from my beautiful Island of Puerto Rico is so hard. Not only I miss my family but also the wonderful delicacies that my Island has to offer. The “arroz con gandules”, the “alcapurias”, the “mofongo”, the “bacalaitos”. YUMMY!! My mouth is a pool of water right now, LOL!! All that deliciousness is hard to find in Ohio. So every time I can recreate some of our typical dishes I quickly jump to it.

Monday night I was roaming in my kitchen trying to decide what was I going to make for dinner. I wanted to do something quick and easy that didn’t involve to much prepping or cooking time. I looked over to where I put my vegetables and saw that I had to ripe plantains then I open up my fridge and found some ground beef. DING, DING, DING!!! I was going to make “canoas”. I Google a recipe to make the “canoas” because in all honesty, I certainly have enjoyed eaten them but never have I cooked them before.

Here is the link to the recipe that I found at The Noshery. It was easy to follow and I had all the necessa

 

ry ingredients to make it. I have to say that mine looked very similar to hers and tasted amazing (A+ to me). Go show a fellow Puertorrican some love! https://thenoshery.com/canoas-de-platanos-maduros-sweet-plantain-canoes/

So here is my take on the Canoas de Plátanos Maduros.

First this are the ingredients I use to make the Canoas de Plátanos Maduros:

 

• Two ripe plantains
• 1/2 lbs of ground beef (this was left over from a family pack so I’m guessing that’s how much meat was in the Ziploc bag)
• 1 Onion
• 1 Garlic clove
• 1 Jar of roasted red peppers
• Cilantro
• Oregano
• Black Pepper to taste
• Salt to taste
• Olives
• 1 pack of Sazón Knorr (or Goya)
• Shredded Mozzarella
• Oil

First cut two or three rings of onion and diced them up into very little pieces. Then cut the garlic clove into very little pieces. Get half of a roasted red pepper from the jar and cut it in small pieces. As well, get some of the cilantro and shop it off.

In large skillet pour some oil, add the onion and cook it until trans-lucid, add the garlic and roasted red peppers. Make sure to stir up the mixture several time to prevent the garlic from burning.

Then place the ground beef, season it with the black pepper, the salt, and the oregano.

Then add the cilantro. Add the olives and the sazón. Cook until browned and set aside.

In a large pot or skillet pour oil and heated up. In the mean time peel off the plantains.

Once the oil is hot enough put the plantains in the oil and fry them. Make sure to keep and I on it because they can burn really quick.

Take the plantains off the oil and place them in a paper towel to drain the excess oil. Once the plantains are cool enough to handle, cut a slit in the middle and pull the sides with a fork. Once the plantains are open pour in some mozzarella cheese, get some of the meet mixture inside the plantain, and top it up with more mozzarella cheese.

Boy this were delicious!! My husband loved it the only suggestion he made was to next time put the canoas in the oven to have the cheese melted. Otherwise, there was no complaints on this dish!

Hopefully you’ll give a try to this recipe on and fall in love with our Puertorrican food. Will love to hear in the comments if you tried it, whether you liked it or not and what was your take on it.

If you want to follow a more precise recipe with better measurements of the ingredients go ahead to The Noshery.