This post is sponsored by USA Pulses and Pulse Canada, thoughts and opinions are my own.
When I was in High School, I was introduced to this cute little cafe in Old Towne Orange called Felix’s Continental Cafe. If you happened to watch American Horror Story: Cult, they actually used the empty building across the street from this cafe for the set of Ivy’s restaurant, which I thought was super cool! Felix’s Cafe has been a staple in the City of Orange, specializing in food from Cuba and Spain, dubbed as the “La Casa de Paella” and it is here where I fell in love with the flavors of Cuba and Spain!
When USA Pulses & Pulse Canada reached out to me to see how I added pulses into my diet, I had just the recipe in mind. I wanted to share something inspired by my many trips to Felix’s. If you’re not familiar with pulses, they are the delicious, protein-packed, sustainable foods known as dry peas, chickpeas, lentils and beans. If you’re looking to find ways to incorporate more pulses into your diets, sign up for the Half-Cup Habit, and see how easy it can be to add 1⁄2 cup serving of pulses to your diet just 3x per week for added nutrients.
Today we’re making my version of potaje de garbanzo (or garbanzo stew), which is one of my favorite soups from Felix’s–which is always served with every meal. Potaje de Garbanzo, is a traditional Cuban garbanzo stew that has roots in Spain. The stew we’re making today starts with an aromatic sofrito to which we add pureed tomatoes, longanisa, garbanzo beans and potatoes. Some of the ingredients Felix’s uses were not available/a little hard to find so I adjusted the recipe to be more budget friendly. This is the kind of soup you want to have on a cold winter night, because it’s a hearty feel-good soup. It fills your house with the sweet smell of onions caramelizing, sizzling garlic, and spicy longanisa as everything cooks. Although it takes some time for it to come together, the end result is so worth it! If you live in areas where you get snow, definitely save this recipe for days when you get caught inside with a snowstorm, you won’t regret it!
For more recipes using pulses, be sure to check out USA Pulses.
If you don’t speak Spanish, you might be a little confused about what I spelled out above.
You might have seen palabras en Español start popping up with an X here and there, and that is because Spanish itself is not a very inclusive language. It is structured to give just about everyone and every object a gender, and it completely disregards those who might not have been blessed with the appropriate genitals at birth, or the gender they might currently identify with.
Con este frío, I had been craving sopa de letras for a while now and I finally decided to make some over the weekend. Mi mamà used to make it with a much thinner broth and we always accompanied it con quesadillas.