Cooking in Brazil

Excellent churrasco advice

2012-02-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

BBQ here in Brazil has remained a mystery to me. Frankly, I cut my teeth as a cook in college when I cooked for a 20 person vegetarian co-op (where I lived) and worked for a vegetarian hippy day care center (peanut butter pizza with peas). I later took a job as cook in a fraternity - but I always screwed up the hamburgers.

So don´t listen to me about Brazilian BBQ. But check out this link to a fantabulous explanation on how to cook picanha. It solves the mystery!

http://honestcooking.com/2012/01/20/picanha-101-brazilian-barbecue-meat/

Enchiladas in Brazil

2012-01-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

That's right! If you're here in Brazil and you miss Mexican food, then this recipe is for you. (The definition of "missing Mexican food" can also be "finding fault in the bland and insultingly overpriced slop that is a sorry excuse for Mexican cuisine".) This recipe is cheap if you decide not to splurge on the quiejo reino (the closest thing you'll get to cheddar), but I think the cheese is worth the price for this recipe!

This recipe is also totally doable in the US, especially if you want some nice, homemade food with little to no processed ingredients (it can be a completely unprocessed meal if you make Tiffany's recipe for homemade tortillas). I'm going to teach this recipe with store-bought tortillas. I tried Tiffany's recipe and failed miserably because I didn't do the math right when I tried to convert ounces to grams.

The ground beef can be replaced with boiled/shredded chicken, or, for a vegetarian option, ground soy or just cheese.

This recipe makes 10 enchiladas.

Ingredients:

The basics:
About 350g of ground beef
A few cloves of fresh, chopped up garlic to fry with the meat (optional)
1 pack of Rapi-10 tortillas (you can buy them in the bread section of most Brazilian supermarkets):

About 150g of mozzarella cheese
About 200g of quiejo reino

About the queijo reino: I've been told that it's OK to eat the red waxy cover part; I've also been told to avoid it. So I usually avoid it because it doesn't melt well, but I don't panic if a little bit gets into the cheese.

For the pico de gallo, you'll need:
1 big tomato
1 big onion
A handful of cilantro (aka coriander aka coentro)

You can put this pico de gallo salsa directly into the enchilada, like I did, or you can leave it on the outside as a side dish, which is more traditional.

For a mild enchilada sauce, you'll need:
A 350-g can of tomato paste (extrato de tomate)
2 or 3 tablespoons of cornstarch (amido de milho)
1/2 of a chicken bullion cube
The following spices, mixed together:
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon spicy paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (this is hard to find in Brazil, so if you don't have it, you can use tempero baiano or even pimenta calabresa)
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of the ever-popular Brazilian powdered garlic, onion and parsley mix (this can also be replaced with 1 teaspoon of onion powder and 1 teaspoon of garlic powder)

If you want it to be spicier, increase the spicy paprika and the cayenne pepper. But be careful-- it's easy to make this too spicy too fast. If you're especially sensitive to heat, just skip the paprika and cayenne entirely, and add them in to the sauce pinch by pinch while it's cooking.

Instructions:

1. Chop up your pico de gallo ingredients and mix them together.

2. If you're cooking the beef with garlic, chop it up now.

3. Fry the ground beef with the garlic and some salt and pepper. It's nothing special at this point: just a pan of cooked ground beef.

4. Start making your sauce. First, mix all the dry spices together separately.

5. Boil about 1 cup of water. The idea to making the sauce is to slowly keep adding water and tomato paste until you're satisfied with the texture and the level of spicy-ness. So start with the cup of water, then add in the spices, about 1/2 of the can of tomato paste, and 1/2 of a chicken bullion cube. Then add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Mix, taste, and then add paste, water, and cornstarch until you're happy. The sauce needs to be on the watery side, not too thick. It should be a little thinner than pizza sauce.

6. Now that everything's ready to build the enchiladas, set up your assembly line:

(does anyone have any better ideas on how I can organize my spices?)

7. As you can see in the picture above, you need to spread some of the enchilada sauce around the bottom of the pan that you're going to bake the enchiladas in. This will keep the tortillas from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

8. To build your enchiladas, dip one tortilla halfway into the enchilada sauce. Then set it into the baking pan and fill the sauced-up half with the ground beef, cheese, and, if you want, pico de gallo.

Your hands will get messy! Ideally you'll have help, so one person can get their hands dirty with the sauce and the rolling while the other scoops the filling in.

9. Now comes the hard part: you have to roll the enchiladas without ripping the tortillas. They'll easily rip if you've put too much filling, and sometimes, even if you haven't. I still haven't found a way to prevent this. I've tried heating up the tortillas first, but it didn't solve the problem. But if you don't drop the tortillas in the sauce first, then I think the enchiladas are too dry. Sigh. I just roll very, very carefully.

At some point in the rolling process, your sauce might start to run low, in which case you can always add in a little more water and tomato paste.

10. After rolling up all the enchiladas, cover them with the remaining sauce and cheese.

Don't mind the broken little runt one in the front.

11. Bake them in the oven at 220C/430F for about 15 minutes -- just long enough to heat the tortillas and melt the cheese.

Ta-Da!!! Delicious enchiladas! If you wrap them really well, individually, in plastic and foil, they actually freeze and reheat pretty decently.

If you're feeling extra ambitious and want to make a complete Mexican meal with beans, hot salsa, guacamole, and sour cream, click on the "Mexican" label below for more recipes from Jim and Corinne.

Enjoy!

The Sacrificial Kale

2011-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, Jim and I have really dropped the ball on this poor little cooking blog! Now that it's the holidays and we'll both be temporarily unemployed, maybe we'll have more time to update. I do want to share a perfect Brazilified chocolate chip cookie recipe with you all soon.

But first I just want to share a quick cooking tip with you guys: I call it "the sacrificial kale."

All it is is a kale (couve) leaf under the chicken when you bake it. It keeps the bottom of the chicken from burning. Also, depending on your luck, your amount of oil/fat, and your cooking temperature, you might get some nice roasted kale out of it, too. Sometimes the kale is too burnt, but that's OK, because the chicken isn't.

As you can see, kale leaves are the perfect size for my glass baking dish. It makes for some extra yummy baked chicken!

That's all! That's the tip! Enjoy!

Baked Baby Shark

2011-11-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Finding quality frozen fish in the supermarket has been achallenge. There are three supermarkets within about three blocks of ourapartment, but all of them sell frozen fish that has been simply wrapped inplastic and they ALWAYS have ice crystals all over the fillets (or shrimp) andare most certainly freezer burned. Only the salmon comes vacuum packed.

I usually make a trip to the municipal fish market for freshfish, but that’s not always possible on a busy day.

A few days ago I went to Horti-Fruity (it’s like a WholeFoods produce store) and looked through their frozen fish section. There theyhave everything vacuum pack, but the price is scary. Among the R$30 fillets Ifound a package of two cação steaks for R$10. Perfect.

Cação is baby shark, referred to as “smooth hound” in theStates, although I never ate it before moving to Brazil. It’s tasty. The flavoris light, but it definitely has a flavor of its own. Luiz likes it because itdoes not have any bones (except for the spine running down the middle).

I had no idea how to cook it, so I asked several of my olderfemale students for ideas. Here’s what Icame up with. Forgive me for not having exact measurements, but they aren’treally necessary. Follow your gut.

Ingredients: (I made just one of the steaks. Increaseingredients as necessary when feeding more people.)

1 cação steak, fresh or thawed
½ of an onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ green pepper, cut into medium size chunks
½ red pepper, similarly cut
1 medium tomato, seeded, cut into large chunks
a few fresh mushrooms, sliced
fresh hot peppers, minced, to taste
some green onions and parsley, chopped
coconut milk (1/3 cup more or less)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C (about 400 degrees F)

Sauté the onions until clear. Add the garlic and cook untilit smells wonderful. Add the peppers, tomato, mushrooms and hot peppers. Cook overmedium heat until just soft, but not totally pooped. Add the coconut milk. Salt and pepper to taste.

Place a small amount of your vegetable mixture in a baking dish. Place your caçãosteak on top of that, then cover it with the remaining vegetable mixture. Sprinkleyour chopped green onions and parseley over the top. Cover the pan withaluminum foil and place it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and serve hot with your favoriteaccompanyments.

Chicken-Stuffed Bell Peppers

2011-10-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

I felt like making stuffed bell peppers. I read some ideas from different recipes online. I tried to work with what I had in the fridge.

Bell peppers can be stuffed with pretty much anything, so, as always, take these ingredients and run with them!

it's hard to make these pretty, but they taste good -- I promise!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients

red bell peppers
chicken
chicken broth or chicken bullion cubes for chicken broth
onion
garlic
olive oil
celery
cayenne pepper
fennel seeds (erva doce in Portuguese)
bread crumbs
tomato
cheese

Instructions

1. Shred the cheese. Chop everything else up. The food processor is your friend in this recipe. You can mix the onion, garlic, celery, and chicken together at this point (chop them up together if you want).

2. Fry the onion, garlic, chicken, and celery together in some olive oil (or regular oil!). Add in the cayenne pepper, the fennel seeds, and some salt and pepper as they're all cooking.
3. Boil some water in a pot and put the bell peppers in the water just to boil them for a few minutes. This will save you on baking time.

4. Use some of that boiled water to make your chicken broth, if you're making it using chicken bullion cubes. You don't need much chicken broth -- maybe 1/2 a cup for 2 whole bell peppers.

5. Mix the bread crumbs and a bit of the chicken broth into the chicken mixture when the chicken is almost fully cooked.

6. Put the bell peppers in a baking dish. I cut them down the middle and filled each side, almost like a taco; some people cut the tops off and stuff the inside, like a pumpkin.

7. Top/fill the bell peppers with the chicken mixture. Top them with just a little more chicken broth.

no, you're not crazy. They're different sizes. I used some of the bell pepper halves for another recipe.

8. Put the tomatoes and cheese on top of the chicken mixture.

9. Bake for 20-30 minutes at about 230C, just to warm it all up together and to make the bell pepper a little crispy.

Enjoy!
What do you stuff bell peppers with?

Hot and Sour Soup

2011-10-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

This soup recipe is adapted from the Martha Stewart Cookbook I raved about a few weeks ago. I promised a friend I'd type it up for her, so I figured I'd share it with you guys, too.

this picture is from this cook, who also adapted this recipe to her liking

Anyway, Alexandre and I made this Japanese-style soup, and he loved it for its fresh mushrooms. I'm not a fan of mushrooms, and the egg mixture was strange for me, but I can see the appeal. And it's vegetarian, if you don't count the egg.

It's a little on the expensive side here in Brazil (tofu and fresh mushrooms, hello?), but this soup is easily freezable so you can get quite a few meals out of it. And, like almost all of the recipes I post, it's pretty easily modifiable. We added in a lot more vegetables, for example.

Hot and Sour Soup

Original Ingredients:

3-4 cups of chicken broth
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
a pinch of red pepper flakes (a.k.a. pimenta calabresa, but this can be any pepper/spice that you like)
One package of fresh shiitake mushrooms with the stems cut off (I found them in the produce section of the supermarket)
1 package of either kind of tofu (I bought mine at the farmer's market! holla!)
3-4 tablespoons of rice vinegar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
green onions, chopped up nice and small

We also added:
broccoli
onions
carrot
celery
peas (we put the whole pod in. it came out nice)

Instructions:

1. If you're in Brazil, you'll probably need to make your chicken broth first.

2. Now's also a good time to start drying out your tofu.

3. In a large pot, combine the chicken broth, soy sauce, pepper flakes, and 2 cups of water. Boil. (I started with 3 cups of the chicken broth and added the rest later. You may prefer your soup thicker or more watery, so this number is flexible.)

4. Slice the mushrooms into small strips. Add the mushrooms, carrots, and onions. Lower the heat, then simmer for about 10 minutes.

5. Now's a good time to add in the rest of your vegetables (broccoli, celery, and peas, whatever else you want).

6. In a small bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of the vinegar and the cornstarch. Add the mixture to the pot. Simmer and stir until the soup thickens (for about 1 minute).

7. Add in the egg using a slotted spoon. Mix mix mix. Simmer simmer simmer.

8. Add in the ginger. Then chop up your tofu and then add it to the soup, too. Cook for another minute or so.

9. Remove the soup from the heat. Taste the soup to see if you want the rest of the vinegar or not.

10. Sprinkle the green onions on top and enjoy!

The next time we make it, I'll take my own picture, OK? :)

Kale Wraps

2011-10-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I saw this video on a blog and really liked the idea of using kale leaves to make wraps.

anybody else noticing how Southern Californians are developing Canadian-style Os?

In the video, Margaret from eatnaked.com uses the term "collard greens," which, according to Wikipedia, is technically a category of these big leafy plants, and kale is a member of this category.

Since we're in Brazil, I had to buy the strain of kale available here, which is not the one in the video with the purple stripe down the middle. Alexandre complained that it was a little bitter for a recipe like this, but I'm really inexperienced with buying these kinds of leaves, so I welcome your suggestions on what we could use instead.

Anyway, I took the steaming and cutting techniques used in the video, and built up the filling using a combination of recipes from the internet. Here's what mine ended up like:

The ingredients are easily modifiable, but the tip I took away from the various recipes online was to have some kind of topping and then some kind of filling. So the ingredients I used are below. Feel free to just use my recipe as a template; be creative!

Kale Wraps

Ingredients for the filling:

chicken breasts

chickpeas

avocado (preferably American-style Haas avocado and not Brazilian-style Geada abacate; you can read more here, Ray )

Ingredients for the topping:
tomato
onion
garlic
celery
green pepper

Instructions:

1. Chop up all the veggies for the topping into small pieces. Don't mix them together just yet. At this point, you can also chop up the avocado and wash your chickpeas (or cook them from scratch, if you have time to do that).

2. If you're using chicken, sprinkle your favorite spices onto a chicken breast or two, and fry them (or use your George Foreman Grill, if you've got one and want to avoid all the oil!). Once the chicken is cooked, chop it up into small pieces.

3. Cut and steam the kale leaves according to the video above. To steam mine, I put my metal strainer into a pot of boiling water and put the lid on it! Voilá! Homemade steamer. :)

4. In a nice pan, heat the onion and some salt in a generous amount of oil (olive oil worked well). Then add in the garlic, the celery and the green pepper and heat them up. You can cook the tomato a bit too, if you want; I mixed it in fresh at the end.

5. Mix the ingredients for the filling together and put them into the kale leaves, à lá the video.

6. Set the wraps in a baking dish and top them with the topping mixture (if you had extra chickpeas left over, like I did, you can add those, too). Bake everything for just a few minutes 5-10 just to warm it all up together.

They're surprisingly filling!

What would you add? Any other ideas for fillings or toppings?

Jennifer's Perfect Brazilian Rice

2011-10-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

So newcomer Jennifer is very excited to share the Brazilian rice recipe that she has learned and perfected. She describes it as "simple but delicious!". There are a few different takes on the "best" way to make Brazilian rice, but this is the one I tend to follow, too (except I'm way too lazy to use a mortar and pestle). Lots of people have strong opinions on their version of Brazilian rice, so if you're one of those people, share your opinions and preferences in the comments!

Easy Brazilian Rice

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp oil

.5 Tbsp garlic/salt mixture

1 cup long grain white rice

2 cups water

Instructions:

In a mortar and pestle, grind 4 medium garlic cloves with a few pinches of salt (just so the garlic does not jump out) until it is a creamy paste. Add about 1/4 cup of salt and store in a sealed container for later. You will only use about 1/2 a tablespoon of the mixture for this recipe.

Heat oil in a rounded pan over medium-low heat. Add the half tablespoon of salt-garlic mixture and briefly sauteé. Don't let the heat get too high or the salt and garlic will burn.

Add 1 cup of rice and sauteé for about 2 minutes, stirring often.

Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Stir thoroughly, put on a well-fitting lid, and remove the pan from the heat.

In about 30 minutes, fluff with a fork, and enjoy your perfect pot of rice!

Jean's Healthy Chicken (or otherwise) Nuggets

2011-10-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

Friendly reader Jean sent in a great recipe for healthy homemade chicken nuggets -- you can also substitute the chicken with salmon or beef, and they're easily freezable and a hit with the kiddies.

Here's what Jean has to say:

I freeze these nuggets in big batches, and they last for months, so the hard work is worth it. I always have a batch or two in the freezer for an instant, healthful meal for my little one (and for me, too!)

Healthy Homemade Chicken Nuggets

INGREDIENTS:

--700g of salmon, chicken, or beef

--3 eggs

--1.5 cups of farinha de rosca (fine breadcrumbs), separated into 1 cup and 0.5 cup

--1 cup flour

--1 carrot, finely chopped

--1 bunch of couve (kale), finely chopped

--1 onion, chopped

--2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

--3 tbs of oil

--1 bunch of cheiro verde (cilantro and green onion) chopped

--salt and pepper to taste

**You can add in other vegetables as well...we've also used beets, zucchini, cauliflower,

broccoli, etc.

PROCESS:

--Cut the salmon, chicken or beef into small pieces and beat it with 1 egg in a processor.

--Mix the finely chopped carrot and finely chopped kale together.

--In a pan, place oil and saute the chopped onion, chopped garlic, and finely chopped cheiro verde.

--Mix all ingredients, including 1 cup farinha de rosca, into the meat/egg mixture and roll into tight balls.

--Roll the tight balls in flour and then roll the balls again into the remaining mixture of 0.5 cup farinha de rosca and remaining 2 eggs.

--Bake 15 minutes on one side, turn, and bake another 15 minutes.

Easy Freezable Beautiful... Tomato Sauce

2011-09-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Haha... nice title, right?

So this is a simple recipe for tomato sauce. I developed it using a combination of different sauce/soup/bisque recipes. Why is it great?

1. It's more flavorful (and much fresher and healthier) than pre-made tomato sauce.
2. It's flexible -- changing just a couple of things can give it a whole new purpose.
3. It freezes well and works great for dinner when you're too tired to make something.
4. It's a good way to use up tomatoes and/or onions and garlic if you were too excited by the pretty cheap tomatoes at the farmer's market (...what?)
5. You can easily change ingredients to your liking.

Here's what you do:

Tomato Bisque/Soup/Sauce

Ingredients:

Roma tomatoes (no seeds) (you can use regular tomatoes, too -- the important part is no seeds)

lots of butter

garlic

onion

a pinch of nutmeg

a bit of tomato paste (extrato de tomate in Portuguese)

Some tomato juice or sauce (juice is better for soup, sauce is better for, well, sauce. This isn't necessary and kind of defeats the purpose of making your own sauce, but it helps the sauce to thicken nicely. You can also just buy some canned/bagged crushed tomatoes, or use more tomato paste, or more fresh tomatoes. Tomato juice is hard to find in Brazil.)

fresh basil (you can use dried basil in a pinch -- get it, a pinch? har har) -- but fresh is better)

salt and pepper

chicken bullion (caldo de frango)

for soup: crème de leite/heavy cream

optional: shredded chicken and/or pasta

Instructions:

Melt the butter.
Heat the chopped garlic and onion in the butter.
Add tomato products and spices (not the basil).
Simmer until tomatoes are very soft.
Blend almost all of the mixture with the fresh basil. (Leave a little of the mixture in the pot. You'll add the blended mix back in and mix it all together again. This helps to thicken the sauce. It's optional, if you prefer a less chunky sauce.)
Remix the blended and unblended parts together and reheat.
For soup, add crème de leite.

I know my recipe seems kind of confusing/disjointed/incomplete, but that's the point -- it's the base of a recipe. It's meant to give you some ideas, and hopefully to inspire you to make your own tomato sauce. It's really tasty.

Martha Stewart Cookbook

2011-09-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been putting up many recipes lately because EVERYTHING I've been cooking has been coming out of this wonderful book:

It's called "Everyday Food: Great Food Fast" and it's from Martha Stewart Living. If you're starting out with cooking and don't have a lot of intuition in the kitchen, and if you're trying to cook simple, healthy stuff for yourself and your family, then this book is a perfect investment. I bought it at a Saraiva bookstore in the Rio Sul Mall in Rio de Janeiro, so it's here in Brazil! It was 50 reais, which is a steep markup from its 12-dollar price (5 bucks used!) in the US, but it's still worth every penny (or centavo, as it were). Not only does it have delicious, doable recipes (no crazy, hard-to-find ingredients or advanced cooking methods), it also comes with a guide to cooking the basics at the back of the book, with tips on how to fry rice, or roast a chicken, or make marinades, stuff like that (you know, stuff your mom was supposed to teach you but may not have known herself).

I looked into a few Rachel Ray books, but a lot of the recipes were (a) really unhealthy; (b) heavy on the American ingredients (like cheddar, asparagus, and turkey); or not quite meals (things that couldn't stand alone). Her books are popular, but not what I was looking for.

I also researched some of the new fresh food movement cookbooks, stuff from foodie authors like Mark Bittman who are focusing on going organic and eating more vegetables and things like that, but a lot of the recipes were so unfamiliar and included really unique ingredients that I wouldn't even know how to find in the US, let alone in Brazil (gorp with seaweed and walnuts? What?!?!).

So this Martha Stewart cookbook has revolutionized our kitchen, our diets, and our routine. I know that sounds dramatic, but almost every recipe looks tasty and, more importantly, accessible. I started out making a few things and every one was successful, and it built up my confidence to keep trying stuff out. We hardly eat out at all anymore. We've made 15 of the recipes! Here are some pictures of my successes:

Mediterranean Chicken Stew with Polenta, page 287

(it teaches you how to make polenta on page 360, and even Alexandre admitted that it was better than his traditional Brazilian-Italian version)

Garlic-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Broccoli, page 275

Vegetarian Lentil-Walnut Burgers, page 153

(this pic is actually from dear Lindsey's house, because we made it together. But then Alexandre and I made it, and it's his favorite from the book so far.)

Salmon and Lentils, page 228

(my first time cooking fish! I just used the George Foreman -- nothing fancy)

Another great thing about these recipes is that they're easy to modify -- I tend to add more vegetables to the recipes to increase the vegetable:meat ratio. The book will also suggest specific types of a given vegetable, like broccoli rabe (typical broccoli in Brazil) rather than what Americans consider typical broccoli (called "broccoli ninja" in Brazil), but these ingredients are rarely set in stone. Basically, it's not important if you buy the broccoli rabe vs. the traditional broccoli, or if you buy green olives instead of red ones, things like that.

OK? Is that enough raving? Have I convinced you to buy the book yet?

Are there any cookbooks that you swear by?

Peanut Butter and Peanut Sauce

2011-09-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

OK guys, thanks to Lindsey, we can all stop wishing that we had peanut butter here in Brazil. Now you can make your own! The recipe is so easy, it's healthier and cheaper than the store-bought stuff with all the preservatives, and you have more control over it, so you can get exactly the flavor that you want! I don't think I'll ever go back to Jiff, even if we move back to the US one day.

Lindsey and I made this peanut butter recipe together when I went to visit her. To show you just how easy it is, I'm going to type up the short version (hopefully to inspire you). Then, to give you visual inspiration, I'll put a step-by-step version with pictures below. After that, I've even found a Thai peanut sauce recipe that you can make using your own homemade peanut butter! Look at you go!

So do you want the recipe for homemade peanut butter? Here it is:

Mix ground peanuts, canola oil, sugar, and salt in a blender, adding more and more of each ingredient, until you like it!

That's it!

OK, now with pictures:

Here's the bag of ground peanuts that we used:

The brand is Carreteiro, and you can ask at the store for "amendoim torrado e moído," which technically means toasted and ground peanuts. Yay!

Start off with 1/3 of the bag of the peanuts. We did this with a food processor. Lindsey can attest that a regular ol' blender is much better.

Add the sugar and the salt that you want. We suggest throwing in about 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of salt, to start.

Then add in some canola oil. Start off with about 1/4 or 1/3 of a cup.

As you blend, add in more canola oil to get it moving. You may have to stop the blender and manually mix it a bit in the beginning.

Just keep on mixing and tasting, mixing and tasting, adding in more sugar, salt, peanuts, and oil. "Do that dance," as Jim would say, and watch the mixture turn from crunchy to smooth.

and eventually:

So if you like your peanut butter to be on the crunchy side, you can mix it less, or put a higher percentage of peanuts (vs. oil).

Store it in your fridge. Lindsey says it's good for about a week, but I'd probably try to get away with keeping it longer:

So now, with that amazing peanut butter, you can make some of your own Thai peanut sauce! Serve it with some chicken, rice, and snow peas, and you'll ALMOST feel like you're back in the US (or, ya know, in Thailand).

I got this recipe from a combination of peanut sauce recipes on allrecipes.com. There are quite a few variations, so if you're feeling inspired, you can click that link to check them out and come up with your own version. Some add honey; some add fish sauce (not gonna happen in Brazil), etc.

Here's the one that I thought was the most doable and with the most consistent ingredients (they are to taste, just like with the peanut butter):

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup peanut butter

brown sugar (some recipes called for white sugar, some, no sugar)

soy sauce

red pepper flakes or chili sauce or cayenne pepper

garlic

sesame seeds/green onions for topping

white rice vinegar

~~water~~

Instructions:

Blend everything except the water. ~~Add water until it's the consistency you want~~. (Some recipes said not to put water, so it's your call! EDIT EDIT: Don't add water! It may be because of the oil in the homemade peanut butter, but the peanut sauce turns this icky color and takes on a completely different consistency.)

Hooray! I hope this made you as happy as it made me.

Roasting vegetables

2011-08-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the cauliflower at the market is just too beautiful to be ignored. Huge heads with tight flowerets – so bright white. It captures my attention and even though I was not thinking of cooking cauliflower – I change my mind. I get inspired.

That happened yesterday, at the family-owned produce market just a couple blocks from my house. It was the rock bottom price that caught my attention. The wonderful cauliflower rewarded my decision.

It’s simple to roast vegetables. Turn your oven to its hottest setting. Then clean and trim your vegetables, but don’t cut them too small or thin. Toss everything with a crushed garlic/bay leaf/olive oil mixture. (Not too much, you are not frying things…) Add salt and pepper.

I like to use a very heavy pan that is large enough to hold everything with some room left over – and also heavy enough so that it will distribute the heat evenly. A simple aluminum pan may be problematic – but you can deal with that with more attention…

Put your oil/herb-covered vegetables into the HOT oven and let them roast. Stir/toss them every 20 minutes or so (more frequently if your quantity is small). Keep an eye on it. I say – let ‘em roast a little longer than you may think is right. Get that braised char on the vegetables.

Plate beautifully, maybe add more salt and pepper – then enjoy your roasted vegetables.

These days cauliflower is in season, but this works for every firm vegetable, and even soft ones like zucchini. Go for it.

American Style Lasagna

2011-08-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

Let me be perfectly clear: I love Brazilian cuisine. A good moqueca, an amazing pudim, BBQ’d liver – all of it. Yum.

But nasty knock-offs (compared to my experience)? … no thank you.

In this case I am referring to the Brazilian version of lasagna. It’s too slippery-creamy and has a layer of sliced ham. No, no, no.

Give me my momma’s lasagna any time (every time).

Here’s a recipe for a corn-fed US Midwestern lasagna that put the MAN in Manwich. Your Brazilian friends will be a bit confused at first, but it will win over the more open minded.

I recently made this in a small portion for just the two of us, so you may want to double things.

Ingredients:

The sauce -
1 good size onion, chopped
several cloves of garlic, minced
300 grams ground meat (more or less)
some mushrooms (I find the dried varieties here of a better flavor than the jarred buttons)
fresh basil
a pouch of tomato sauce
3 fresh tomatoes
salt and pepper

The main event -
6 lasagna noodles
200 grms Ricotta cheese (smooth)
200 grms Mozzeralla cheese, grated
1oo grms Parmesan cheese, grated
one egg

Procedure:

Brown the ground meat (add some canola oil if things are too dry), add the chopped onion and cook until the onion is clear. Add the minced garlic and chopped mushrooms. Cook a bit. Then add the tomato sauce and simmer. You may want to add some water – a little bit – to give it enough liquid to evaporate but still be fluid.

I like to take the skin off the fresh tomatoes before adding them to the sauce. Do this by boiling a pot of water, add the fresh tomatoes to boiling water and par-boil them until the skin splits (maybe a minute longer). Then remove the tomatoes from the water, and plunge them into a bath of cold water. When it is safe to touch them, simply peel off the skin. Then core the tomatoes, chop ‘em up, and add them to your sauce.

Add your spices and let it simmer for as long as possible, one hour is good, but you can get away with just 20 minutes or so. Add water if things are getting too dense.

Now boil a pot of water for your noodles. The trick for a dry lasagna (not one that spills all over your plate) is to NOT fully cook your noodles. Just cook them for a couple minutes, let them remain firm and under-cooked. They will finish their cooking while surrounded by your sauce in the final product. It makes the noodles taste better (they absorb your sauce) and they will absorb the excess liquid that can sometimes make your lasagna runny.

Beat one egg into your ricotta cheese. This will also help hold everything together

Assemble your lasagna by placing about ½ cup of your sauce in the bottom of the Pyrex you are using. Then a layer of noodles, then a layer of ricotta, then a layer of sauce, then a layer of mozzarella. Repeat this. Finish with a layer of sauce. Then on top sprinkle your grated parmesan cheese.

Put this wonderful creation into a hot oven - 375 degrees or so - for about 35 minutes. Watch that the top does not brown too much. But a little crisp is good.

Pull it out, let it set a few minutes, then please your family.

Note: I had a lot of extra sauce, which we will reuse for pasteis or panqueca. No worries.

Corinne's Mango Bread

2011-08-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Blogger buddy and new friend Corinne (we finally got to meet in Rio!) has submitted a recipe for mango bread. Sounds interesting and doable! Here's what Corinne has to say about it:

Here is an easy quick bread recipe that does not require any fancy equipment. I like it as is, but the ginger and cinnamon do make this more like a mango spice bread, so if that is not your thing, I would reduce the ginger to 1 tsp and the cinnamon to 1/2 tsp.

Fresh Mango Bread

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:

3 large eggs
3/4 cup flavorless oil, such as canola or safflower
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 cups diced mango (from 1 large peeled and pitted mango) - it has always taken me 1 1/2 mangos
3/4 cup moist, plump golden raisins
grated zest of half a lime

Directions:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees (180C). Spray an 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper (I just spray with non-cooking spray). Put the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two rectangular baking sheets stacked one on top of the other. (The extra insulation will keep the bottom of the bread from burning.)
Whisk the eggs and oil together.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Rub the brown sugar between your palms into the bowl, breaking up any lumps, then stir it in. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, switch to a sturdy rubber spatula or wooden spoon, and mix until blended. The batter will be very thick, more like a dough than batter. Stir in the mango, raisins, and zest. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.
Bake the bread for 80 to 90 minutes, until it is golden brown and a wooden stick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. If, after 50 to 60 minutes, the bread looks as if it’s getting too brown as it bakes, cover it loosely with a foil tent. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before using the parchment paper to lift the bread out of the pan. Cool to room temperature.

Easy metric conversions

2011-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

I found this site that has a super simple recipe metric conversion engine. Weight, volume and temperature.

Bookmark it. =8^)

Recipe Dump

2011-08-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

So I've been cooking a ton lately, but none of the recipes have been mine, specifically, nor anything I've modified significantly enough to take pictures and type it all up on here. So I'm just going to share some links with you for what I've been making:

My sweetest friend Crystal introduced me to Big Girls Small Kitchen, who, in turn, inspired me with these recipes:

*A delicious roasted chicken that I mix with the Pioneer Woman's stuffing recipe. DELICIOUS. I make this about once a week now with a fresh frango caipira from the farmer's market -- so fresh I have to clean out the organs and throw away the head that comes stuffed inside. Intense.

*A chicken with snow peas and rice recipe, as well as a spicy beef salad recipe (which I modified a bit for lack of ingredients).

Those recipes got me on an Asian food kick, so I researched and then learned how to make pretty tempura using this video.

Then I made my own taco seasoning using this recipe. I did take a picture of that one:

Yeah, I'm obviously not a food blog photographer of any kind, but you can get an idea of the pretty colors. It was so tasty. Even better than the packaged stuff we have begged our families to send to us.

Alexandre and I bought a George Foreman grill, which has been super fun to experiment with. I covered some chicken breasts with that taco seasoning and grilled 'em up with some bell peppers. Yum.

Let's see...what else? Oh, there's the garlic and potato soup that's easily modifiable. I've added broccoli and taken out the pork, for example.

Then, of course, there's the tikka masala that Lindsey and I made from scratch, and the cream cheese frosting recipe that I halved and still managed to gorge myself on.

I hope something on this list helps you out. Let's all give a big thank you to my friend Crystal, who sends me 90% of the recipes I end up cooking.

What have you been cooking lately?

Perfect Hash Browns

2011-07-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

OK – how many times have you tried to make hash browns and ended up with a mushy mess? We’re talking wanting CRISPY hash browns. Nothing out of the freezer, please (not that you could even find that here…)

Luiz just finished a week long stint as a volunteer at the World Military Games and is actually home for breakfast these days. I offered to cook whatever he wanted for breakfast, and he requested eggs, bacon and hash browns.

Here’s what I learned trying to get it right.

Wash and grate a potato – one for each eater. You don’t really need to peel them, just wash them well. (Nobody is going to notice you did not peel them.) Also grate about ¼ onion for every potato you use. Salt the mess and let it sit a few minutes.

Take several layers of paper towel… place the grated mixture on the edge of the layered towels and roll them into a burrito. Now squish and squeeze over the sink to extract as much liquid as possible. You want DRY grated potatoes.

It’s good to add some whipped egg to hold everything together, but only about 1/3 egg for every potato. Add some pepper

Now heat oil in a pan; enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan – a little more. Better yet, if you are cooking bacon, save the grease and add a bit of oil to that mess and heat it up. You want to heat the oil to a very high temperature, shy of it smoking and burning. But hot.

Now take a snow ball size of grated potatoes and onions (and salt) and press it into a flat patty, no more than ½ inch thick. Plop it into the hot oil. Stand back. Let it cook. Resist the temptation to play with it. Let it fry. Wait a good five minutes. Then flip it over and fry the other side. Don’t play with it!

At this point I like to remove it from the pan and put it on a few layers of paper towels to drain off the excess oil. That’s just me. But don’t wait too long and let it get soggy on you. Serve it up!

Perfect hash browns!

Sweet and Simple Applesauce

2011-07-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

This is for Stephanie.

In my post-gastric bypass surgery period I am eating a lot of puréed foods. My favorite is tomato-onion-garlic-pepper salsa. But on the sweet side I’m making a lot of applesauce.

Applesauce is a synch to make. I can explain it in a brief paragraph. Here goes.

Buy some beautiful apples that, when you smell them, make your mouth water (at least 5). If you are feeling adventurous, buy a few yummy pears as well. Peel, core and chop the fruit into bits the size of your thumb. Place the fruit, some sugar (or sweetener) and cinnamon to taste plus maybe 1/3 cup of water in a heavy pot and cook slowly for an hour or more (or more), stirring occasionally (add more water, as needed). Some people would add a pinch of salt to boost the flavor (or out of superstition). Cook until mushy.

There you have it. And it makes your house smell good too!

Corrine's Cream of Pumpkin Soup

2011-06-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Corrine submitted this recipe for cream of pumpkin soup. Looks delicious!! Here's what she has to say:

With all the cold weather, I wanted to make some soup. I sort of winged a pumpkin soup recipe and it turned out so well and was so easy I thought I would share.

The recipe makes a lot of soup (at least 6 servings). Plenty to eat and freeze. Not bad considering the total cost of ingredients is about R$7!

Cream of Pumpkin Soup

1/2 pumpkin or other winter squash (I used a moranga japonesa)
2 Knorr chicken or vegetable boullion cubes
1 liter water
1 box creme de leite
1/2 onion, minced
1 tsp ground ginger

1. Cut the pumpkin in 4 pieces. Sprinkle it with salt, pepper and olive oil, and place in a baking dish.
2. Add enough water to reach about 1/4 of an inch in the dish.
3. Cover with foil and bake in a 210-degree C oven for about 30 to 40 minutes until soft.
4. Let it cool enough to handle, and then remove the pumpkin from the skin.
5. In a large pot, saute the minced onion in a small amount of oil until soft.
6. Add the water and 2 boullion cubes and the pumpkin and let it come to a boil. 7. Reduce the heat and cook until the pumpkin and boullion cubes have mixed into the water.
8. Take the soup off the heat and puree the soup in a blender or food processor (or use an imersion blender).
9. Put the puréed soup back on the heat and add one box of creme de leite and the ground ginger and bring to a boil to thicken slightly. Enjoy!

Baked Vegetable (and Chicken?) Dish

2011-06-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

So I've been promising this recipe to a few people for a while now. Here it is, finally!

Back story: Alexandre and I discovered Knorr's Meu Frango Assado packets, which are essentially Shake N' Bake packets: spices and a plastic bag to cook chicken in. We started to get creative with them, adding vegetables to the chicken, adding more spices, adding sauces, etc. But then the bags started ripping with all of our enthusiasm!

So we stopped buying the Knorr packets and now we just bake the chicken and vegetables on our own. Sometimes we just bake vegetables, and we fry up some beef or chicken on the side:

But the recipe is super simple. Essentially, you just chop up some vegetables, whip up a sauce with things you like, and throw it all in the oven.

This recipe explains it with the chicken, but the pictures are without. The choice is yours!

Baked Vegetable (and Chicken?) Dish

Ingredients:

*Chicken in any form (I really like to use legs; Alexandre prefers boneless skinless)

*Any vegetables on hand (good things are carrots, onions, squash, tomatoes, green onion, and potatoes)

*Spices of your choice (good options are oregano, instant soup mixes, or any green herbs)

*A bit of tomato sauce or paste

*A bit of soy sauce (later mixed with water)

*Potato flakes to thicken your sauce (optional)

*Margarine to line the pan

Instructions:

(1) Chop up vegetables that you want into slightly-larger-than-bite-size pieces.

(2) If you're using chicken, chop it up into smaller pieces and roll it in some spices that you like (the way you would if you were using the Shake N' Bake packet).

(3) Rub margarine around in your baking dish (glass is best, though you can even throw it all in a wok and throw that in your oven).

(4) Throw the veggies and chicken in the baking dish.

as you can see, this particular version has different squashes, eggplant, onion, snow peas, and green beans.

(5) Put the tomato sauce, soy sauce, and a splash of water in a pot with any other spices you want. Boil it up really fast.

If you want thicker sauce, put some potato flakes in it.

When the sauce is ready, pour it over the chicken and veggies.

I made a huge mess while trying to pour the sauce and take the pic at the same time.

(If you're in a hurry, you can skip this part and just slather everything directly on the chicken and vegetables.)

(6) If you're using any instant soup powder, top the food with it last (it'll make the top a bit crunchier).

(7) If you want things to be a bit moister, cover the baking dish in foil. Take it off for the last 10 minutes or so of your cooking.

(8)Put the baking dish in the oven at about 400F/200C until the chicken is cooked (about 30-40 mins)

You can make a lot of this, and it keeps really well, especially if it's only vegetables. It's also easily modifiable. Today, for example, I made this again (we have it about once a week!), but I was sick of soy sauce, so I made a sort of chicken broth with buillion cubes, potato flakes, and instant soup powder, and used that as the sauce. So today's lesson: Bake veggies with yummy sauces (and with chicken if you want) for a quick and easy meal!

How would you modify it?

Cauliflower Leek & Sun-Dried Tomato Quiche

2011-06-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

While helping Luiz haul his flower arrangements to the weekend craft fair in the park I walked past a vegetable stand that had INCREDIBLE cauliflower and leeks piled high. Inspiration followed.

When I sat down to write up this recipe I realized that I made this tart/quiche without using a recipe. So forgive me for the lack of exact measures. But quiches are pretty simple. They follow a formula. You can follow your inspiration, as I did with these fresh vegetables.

Preheat your oven to 375 F

Basic 9" or 10" Crust:
4 oz. cold butter (one stick), cut into small pieces
1 cup flour, can be part whole wheat
Dash salt
3 tbsp. ice water
you can add some dried spice, like tarragon or something, if you like

Make the pie crust and line a pie plate or glass baking dish. I used one a little deeper than a fruit pie dish. Put the crust in the refrigerator while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Quiche Filling:
1/3 to 1/2 cup grated cheese, I used parmesan
4 large eggs
1-1/2 cup milk
1 small cauliflower
3 leeks
some sun-dried tomatoes (maybe 8 or 10 pieces)

If you are not familiar with leeks, the most important thing to know is that they grow in sandy, muddy soil and this grit finds its way into the leek, between the layers. Cleaning out the grit is a must. Slice up the white portion of the leeks and place in a bowl filled with cool water. Swish the bits around to clean out the grit. Drain.

Wash and pull apart the cauliflower, cutting larger pieces up a bit. Some folks would steam the flourettes just enough to take the crunch out, but I prefer them firm in the quiche, so I did not steam them.

Slice the sun-dried tomatoes.

Sauté the vegetables in a tablespoon of oil. Spice it up with whatever fancies you.

Beat up the eggs and add the milk. For that secret touch, add a pinch or two of nutmeg (trust me).

To assemble the quiche begin by placing a thin layer of cheese across the bottom of the crust (this creates a moisture barrier and will help keep you bottom of the crust from getting soggy). Then spread your vegetable sauté evenly.

Pour your custard over everything and place it in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Beautiful Beet Cake recipe/video

2011-06-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's not my creation, but it is too good to not share. All of the ingredients are easily found in Brazil.

beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

Gallo Pinto

2011-06-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Awesome reader Margaret submitted a Costa Rican recipe. The name is hilarious overkill in Portuguese, but it's apparently delicious in any language! ::snicker snicker snicker::.

Here's Margaret's story:
Last year, I was an exchange student in Costa Rica. I lived with a family that didn't speak any English in the rural mountainous region of CR for a whole year. Every morning, my host mom would make us "gallo pinto," the Costa Rican national dish. Basically, it is just beans and rice. But ohhh so good. They cooked it a little differently in CR, but I've had to make do with the ingredients available here in Canada.

And here's her super easy and doable recipe:

Gallo Pinto Recipe:
Yield: 4 servings

*1 can of black beans (if you're in Brazil, you might have them made from scratch already)
*1 cup rice (preferably white, however I have used basmati and brown and it turns out the same)
*1/2 an onion, finely chopped
*1/4 red pepper, finely chopped
*1 tbsp. of finely chopped cilantro
*Salt and Pepper to taste
*1 cup chicken stock
*1 tbsp Salsa Lizano - this is apparently a famous Costa Rican sauce that you'll be able to get in the US and some other Latin American countries, but I (Danielle) have never seen it in Brazil. If you can't find it. it's essentially just black pepper, cumin, and ground up vegetables. So you can add those things to the recipe.

Instructions:

1. Cook the rice.

2. In a frying pan, fry onion, red pepper and cilantro until soft.

3. Add in the beans, chicken stock, and Salsa Lizano (or spice-vegetable medley). Let it simmer for approximately 5 minutes.

4. Add in the cooked rice, stir it all together. Viola! An extremely flavourful and easy dish!

Hearty Creme de Mandioquinha

2011-05-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

So creme de mandioquinha is a Brazilian purée thick enough to stand alone, either as an appetizer or a meal. In case you don't already know, mandioquinha is a root vegetable akin to a potato. According to Wikipedia, it's technically called arracacha in the US, but good luck finding it in the states.

Anyway, I've eaten creme de mandioquinha in restaurants and decided to try it out myself. In my internet search, I found quite a few variations on the traditional recipe, which seems to include only mandioquinha, chicken or vegetable stock, onion, and garlic.

the traditional stuff, as explained on this blog

So I decided to combine things from all of the variations I found, and I also made some changes of my own. I wanted something thicker and more complete as a meal. The apparent debate in the creme de mandiquinha world is whether or not to add créme de leite, or heavy cream, to the mix. I decided against it, but you might be for it. Isn't food fun?

Anyway, I added chopped chicken, carrots, and green beans to the recipe, and topped it with tomatoes and green onion. Mine came out like this:

I don't know how traditional it is anymore, but it was hearty enough to be a nice meal for us on this sunny but cold winter day.

Necessary ingredients (serves 2):

*About 1kg of mandioquinha (it looks like this when you buy it at the store, and you should try to cut it into slices, the way you'd slice a carrot, kind of like this)

*1/2 of a big onion, or one whole small onion, chopped up into tiny bits (you can put more or less, depending on your love for onions)

*A few cloves of garlic, also chopped up into tiny bits (onion + garlic + food processor = success)

*A splash of olive oil

*Chicken and/or vegetable cubes to make stock (I actually used my new love, Knorr potinho de legumes, mixed with a bit of a chicken bullion cube)

Modifiable ingredients:

*1 small carrot, chopped small, like this (I used the food processor, but see the @@@ note below)

*A handful of green beans, chopped up the way you cut the carrot

*1 tomato, cut up pretty and with the seeds removed (to use as a topping)

*A bit of green onion for the topping

*1 large chicken breast, chopped into small chunks

I read other recipes that put broccoli, bacon, kale (couve), sausage, parsley, oregano...take this recipe and run with it! Vegetarians, you can skip the meat and still have a great dish.

@@@You might run into the problem that the thing you use to steam vegetables has holes that are too big for the size of your vegetables. You can either cut the vegetables bigger, or you can just boil them.

Instructions:

*Cut up the onion and garlic in the food processor (very small! Liquidy!) and fry them on low in some oil with the chicken.

*Heat your bullion cube(s) in water and a bit of olive oil to make a stock. To get the consistency of the creme de mandioquinha in my picture above, you need enough water to only slightly cover the mandioquinha when it's in the pot (see the first picture below).

*Peel the mandioquinha, then cut it up into equal sized pieces. Cook it in the stock, covered.

*Separately, steam the carrots and green beans, and/or any other vegetables you're using, also cut up very small.

Yes, three pots. See how much water you need? You can get away with a little bit more if you want something thinner. Also, the mandioquinha pot should be covered; I just took off the lid for the pic.

*Once the mandioquinha is very soft and starts turning into a mush with the stock, but before it has a chance to start sticking to the bottom of the pan, put the mandioquinha WITH THE STOCK in the blender.

*Blend blend blend. It's thick, so blending is not easy. Patience! Also, good luck cleaning that blender afterward.

*Add the mandioquinha back to its pot. Try not to just eat it all now. If you're too tempted, you can scoop out what's stuck in the blender with your finger and eat that. Wait, what? I mean...

*Add in the chicken/onion/garlic mix, plus the steamed vegetables. Mix it all together. If necessary, heat it a little more.

*Chop up the tomato into very small, pretty pieces and take out the seeds. Make the green onion equally pretty.

*Top the crème de mandioquinha with the green onion and the tomato, and/or whatever else you're using.

One with tomato, and one without. Alexandre thought tomato to be a strange combination with the rest of it, but I liked it!

So what do you think? Delicious...or sacrilegious? What would you add, if anything?

Sweet & Sticky Baked Chicken Drumsticks

2011-05-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

photo from here: http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2011/01/blog-post.html

This is a wonderfully easy and super delicious chicken recipe. Recently food scientists have begun to tout the virtues of chicken dark meat, such as drumsticks, so cast aside your focus on lean breast meat (which can often be too dry) and give this scrumptious recipe a try.

The chicken is cooked in a very hot oven, so this is a perfect main course when you are looking to warm up your house a bit – as we are want to do these days. Temperatures have dropped into the 60s!

I found the recipe here, via TasteSpotting, although I have modified it a bit. The photo as well is from The Comfort of Food blog.

Yields 12 chicken drumsticks

Ingredients:

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

3 garlic cloves, minced

I small-ish onion, minced

12 chicken drumsticks (I used 20, smaller, “Drumets”)

2 Tbsp. sesame seeds

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions:

Combine the balsamic vinegar, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, onions and garlic cloves in a large resealable bag (a good one that will not pop open when you are handling it).

Clean up the drumsticks by rinsing well and snipping off any excess skin with kitchen shears. Add the chicken to the bag and seal. Toss and mush it around to mix well, coating all the chicken. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Top with a cooling rack. (I do not have said cooking rack so I just went commando.)

Remove the chicken from the bag, reserving the marinade, and arrange the drumsticks in the lined pan (on the cooling rack, if you have it). Bake until the skin is caramelized and dark in spots, about 30 minutes. I cooked it for nearly an hour. I wanted a little crisp.

Meanwhile, place the leftover marinade in a small saucepan, uncovered. Bring the marinade to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook over low heat until thick, about 15 minutes.

Use a pastry brush to brush the cooked marinade on the chicken. Return chicken to the oven for 10 more minutes (or longer, as desired). I think you really want some little burnt patches on the skin – to get that BBQ touch. Don’t worry, it will not dry out. If you like – brush just a bit more heated marinade on them before serving.

Since I did not use a cooking rack (for lack of one available) I then placed the chicken in a single layer on several layers of newsprint (you could use a brown paper bag) to drain some of the grease (or as Luiz likes to say: “The juice”).

Place the chicken on a serving platter and sprinkle with the sesame seeds and the chopped parsley.

Have napkins at the ready!

I served this with creamy mashed potatoes, steamed green beans and a salad.

Chicken, Palmito, and Catipury Pie (from Flavors of Brazil)

2011-05-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am simply going to post a link to James's easy and delicious-looking recipe for chicken, palmito, and Catipury pie. It's a very Brazilian recipe, with ingredients that are harder to find in the US (sorry guys! Now you know how we feel!).

I'm totally going to try it this week!!

Click here for the recipe. Thanks to James and his much worthier cooking blog, Flavors of Brazil.

Fajita-Style Pepper Stir Fry Thing

2011-05-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

So I was trying to come up with some kind of vegetable concoction to go with the beef and rice I was making for lunch. This is what I came up with. I'm calling it a fajita=style pepper stir fry thing, for lack of a better name. :)

If you haven't noticed so far, 99% of the recipes I put up (and some of Jim's, too) are easily modifiable. Stuff can be taken out or added. I hope you can see them as templates or jumping-off points to get ideas of what to make. I also hope you'll share your opinions and changes in the comments so even more ideas can be available!

So here was the vegetable dish:

It tastes much better than it looks!

If you're vegetarian, you can just eat it with rice or noodles! Yum.

Ingredients:

*red bell pepper

*green bell pepper

*small dedo de moça peppers

*onion

*fresh garlic

*green onion

*carrot

*taco seasoning or paprika/cumin

*tomato

Instructions:

*Slice up your bell peppers the easy way (like in the picture to the right, which I did not take).

*Cut everything in slices to match the way the bell peppers are sliced, except for the tomato. Cut the tomato into wedges.

*Boil or steam the carrots separately to soften them.

*Fry everything covered on low heat, except for the tomato. Add water and oil to keep it from burning and to make a sort of sauce. Keeping it covered is important so the vegetables don't burn before they can soften!

*Once things start to soften, add in the carrots and the tomato.

*Keep the vegetables covered and stir occasionally until they're all soft.

Serve and eat! Mmmm!

Broccoli-and-Mushroom-Stuffed Chicken

2011-05-21T05:03:00.002-07:00

So I got a little ambitious last weekend and decided to make a "fancy" dinner for us. I created a recipe of chicken stuffed with broccoli and mushrooms and topped with my white pasta sauce. This chicken recipe took a while, and it didn't come out as "pretty" as I would've liked it to, but it tasted great!

This recipe is just for the chicken and the stuffing. As you can see in the picture, we served it with some potatoes that Alexandre made, and then we had some wine. I had stuffing left over, so the next day I basically made the same thing again, except I added boiled potatoes, eggplant, and squash to the baking dish before I put it in the oven so the meal wasn't so carb-y.

Ok, recipe:

Ingredients:

thick chicken breasts

broccoli

mushroom (preserved mushrooms are OK, and cheaper)

onion

garlic

2 Knorr Quick instant soup packets (mushroom and Parmesan flavor is best)

olive oil

oregano and whatever spices are around for the marinade

White sauce (the white sauce recipe)

Instructions:

*Marinate the chicken for a couple of hours. It’s good with oregano, olive oil, caldo de frango, and garlic. I also put rosemary, but it kind of overpowered the rest of the food. The Knorr instant soup can be added to the marinade, too.

*Chop up the broccoli, mushrooms, and onions, preferably in a food processor. Set it aside for the filling.

Do you like the little Rio bowl that came with the cereal box? :)

*Make the white sauce.

*Cut a pocket in the chicken to put the stuffing in. This very helpful video shows you how to cut the pocket.

*Put the stuffing and a little bit of the white sauce inside the pocket. If necessary, close the chicken with toothpicks.

*Put some margarine or cooking spray in a glass baking dish and add the chicken to it.

*Sprinkle the chicken with more of the Knorr instant soup powder.

*Put it in the oven at about 220C and cook the chicken. When it needs about 5 more minutes, add the rest of the white sauce to the top of the chicken.

White Sauce

2011-05-21T05:03:00.001-07:00

Never buy white pasta sauce again! It's so much tastier and cheaper (and sometimes healthier) to make it from scratch.

This recipe is a combination of internet recipes, plus my own ideas after trying to make it so many times. I like it because it's the kind of recipe that you can keep tweaking as you're cooking until it's just right.

Ingredients:

*2 tablespoons of butter or margarine

*2 tablespoons of flour

*¼ tablespoon of salt

*About 1 cup of milk

*1 chicken bullion cube (caldo de frango)

*Some Parmesan cheese

*Any spices you want (pepper? oregano? I usually don't add salt because of the Parmesan and the bullion cube)

Instructions:

*Melt the butter in a small pot on very low heat. Patience!

*Add the flour and caldo de frango, and any spices you want. Mix the dry ingredients in quickly so they don't burn.

*Once the dry ingredients are mixed and hot, add the milk. Continue mixing. The sauce will thicken.

*Add more flour, butter, and milk until it has the consistency that you want.

*Add the Parmesan cheese and mix it until it melts. Keep mixing until the sauce has the consistency that you want.

Sometimes Alexandre and I add vegetables directly into the sauce, like carrots and green beans. You can also put this sauce on top of my stuffed chicken recipe. :)

What do you like to put in your white sauce?

Chicken with Mango

2011-05-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Mmm... I found this yummy recipe for chicken with mango and coconut milk on the National Mango Board's website. They say to use Haden mangoes, but those are super expensive here. I bought the cheapest mangoes (I think they were Tommy) and they worked fine.

their picture, not mine, obviously

I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter, except for changing the mango and skipping the ginger.

You can read the written recipe by clicking here.

You can also watch a helpful video of the recipe being made:

I thought it was delicious, but Alexandre wasn't a fan. He doesn't really like foods with sweet and sour combinations, so if you don't either, then I guess this isn't the recipe for you!

As a side note, this same chef has a video in which he shows different ways to cut mangoes (which was how I found this recipe in the first place). If you are fruit-cutting-challenged the way I was, or if you just want to see some creative ways to cut mangoes, then click here to watch his video!

Enjoy!

Chili in Brazil

2011-05-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not trying to steal Jim's carrot cake thunder, so I've actually postponed this post (har har) by a day to make sure everyone tries out his recipe! But this recipe here is for some yummy American chili!

I found a recipe for chili on the Dr. Oz website and I simplified it a little bit, mostly to make it Brazil-friendly. Brazilians are big on their own version of the hot dog, which is deliciously unhealthy in its own right, but I've just really missed a traditional American chili dog, so decided to use the chili for that.

I served them with mangos and avocados, just because
we had them and they were ripe.

So this chili recipe isn't exactly traditional -- it's much healthier! But that's better. It came out great, Alexandre was bowled over, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. My dear friend Kristin is a chili cookoff champion, but until I can try out her award-winning recipe, this one will have to do.

We used this chili to make chili dogs, but it can be served alone, or with rice, or with whatever else you want! It's hearty all by itself.

The ingredients can be modified (that's why there are so many chili recipes in existence), so be creative! I also tried to make a small amount, but even with the ingredients below, it made enough for about 8 hot dogs! Lunch and dinner!

I used:

The important stuff:
*about 250g of ground beef
*2-3 big spoonfulls of tomato sauce

*A chicken bullion cube or any kind of bullion cubes (even vegetable) to make some stock/broth

*1 small tomato, chopped

*1 box of pre-cooked white beans (feijão branco) The original recipe calls for kidney/red beans, but those don't come pre-cooked in Brazil, and I was in a hurry. If you're in the US, you can likely find some kidney beans that are ready to heat and serve.

The modifiable stuff
*1/2 of an onion
*A spoonful or so of minced garlic (easier than fresh!): called alho puro or alho titurado in Portuguese
*1 small carrot, peeled and cut into thin slices
*1/2 of a green pepper, chopped
*some green onions (I put them inside and then on top when I was finished)
*A pinch or two of paprika
*Cheese for topping (I would've loved to use cheddar or queijo reino, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it. So I just used the mozzarella we had.)
*A spicy spice! The original recipe called for red pepper flakes, but I just chopped up some of the peppers from my Thai pepper plant. You can put what you want, or you can put nothing spicy.
*The original recipe also calls for cumin, but I didn't want the cumin to dominate the chili, so I didn't put any.

What to do

1. Chop up your onion and throw it in the pot with a generous amount of oil. Soften the onions on low heat.
2. Add in the garlic and the carrots to the pot, and mix mix mix.
3. Add in the ground beef and mix mix mix. Make sure your heat is higher at this point.

4. Meanwhile, whip up some stock/broth by boiling a little bit of water in another pot (about 1/2 a cup) and throwing in a bit of bullion cube. You'll add this to the chili last.

5. Add the rest of your ingredients to the chili pot: green onion, green pepper, tomato, tomato sauce, paprika, and red pepper. Mix mix mix! You might need to turn down your heat.

6. Add the now-boiled stock bit by bit so as not to make the chili too watery. You might not use it all. (I made too much, so I boiled the hot dogs in the extra stock.)

7. The original recipe says to add some salt and pepper at this point, but I found that my chili was salty enough with the stock and garlic. You can test yours and decide what you want.

The original recipe also says it takes 40 minutes to finish cooking, but mine took less than 10 minutes!

Without a barbecue, I boiled the hot dogs until they expanded, cut some slits in them, and then fried them for about a minute on a regular Teflon pan. Then, with the pan hot all hot-dog-y, I heated up the buns really quickly.

I topped it off with cheese and green onions! Yum!

This is the picture from the original recipe. I think mine was pretty close!

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

2011-05-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

The first time I had carrot cake in Brazil I was surprised to discover it typically has a creamy chocolate frosting. It’s good. The cake is not too sweet, and since frosting is often applied in the thinnest possible layer, the chocolate does not totally override the carrot flavor. Give it a try if you have the chance.

On the other hand I’ve been missing my mother’s carrot cake with its carrots, crushed pineapple and chopped walnuts – not to mention a thick layer of cream cheese frosting. Yum!

So I whipped one up for Luiz and my birthday party. (Our birthdays are one day apart.)

Just a word of warning: this recipe is not for the faint of heart. It took me about two hours to “whip it up” and the ingredients cost about R$45 - $50.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup finely chopped fresh pineapple (I gave some cut-up pineapple a few pulses in the food processor.)

4 cups grated carrots

1 ¼ cups chopped walnuts

2 ½ cups cake flour

1 Tbls. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 ¼ cup brown sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

½ cup milk

For the Frosting–

2 cups firm cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup butter, at room temperature

¼ cup whole, firm yogurt (just in case)

1 tsp. vanilla

2 ½ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

(optional) 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

[Note: I added the coconut to my mother’s recipe to give it a more familiar Brazilian flavor – people loved it. Also – this makes a lot of frosting, so if you plan to go easy – it is quite sweet – cut back a bit on each of the ingredients.]

METHOD:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

- Clean the pineapple, being careful to remove the spiny eyes and the coarse center core. Chop it finely. Drain well. Set aside. [You can use an 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained, if you can't get your hands on a good pineapple.]

- Peel the carrots (or just wash them thoroughly) and grate. Set aside.

- Chop the walnuts, set aside.

- In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

- Cream together the softened butter and brown sugar. Beat until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla. Then on low speed alternately add 1/3 the flour, half the milk, another 1/3 of the flour, the rest of the milk, the rest of the flour. Beat just until mixed. Then add the carrots, drained pineapple and walnuts (save ¼ cup to sprinkle on the top of the cake). Beat slowly just until mixed.

- Fold into two greased and floured cake pans (or one large sheet pan). Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 – 45 minutes. The cake will darken, but don’t worry.

- Remove from oven and let it cool. After about 15 minutes flip the cake out of the pan(s) and allow to cool completely.

- For the frosting: Cream the softened butter in a mixing bowl, add the vanilla. Mix in the cream cheese (cut into smaller chunks before adding). Mix well, but do not over beat or whip (it will get thinner). Add about 1/3 of the powdered sugar and mix well (on low). Gradually add the rest of the sugar (scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally). If it is too thick, add a small amount of the yogurt. If it is too thin, add more sugar. If you decide to add the coconut, add it now (save a little to toast and sprinkle on the top of the cake).

- If you used two round cake pans, place one layer, top side down, on the serving dish and apply a layer of frosting. Place the second layer, top side up, on top and frost completely. If you used one large baking pan, slice the layer into two layers. Carefully remove the top layer and frost, etc… like the other version.

- To finish it off, toast up the reserved coconut flakes (be careful, they burn quickly). Sprinkle the toasted coconut over the top of the frosted cake. Then sprinkle the finely chopped walnuts around the edge of the cake.

PHEW! That’s a lot of work, but let me assure you, it is worth it. This cake tastes wonderful, with or without the coconut. I have also make a hippy version in the past with a mix of whole wheat and white flours and substituting honey for some of the sugar.

As you can see in the picture, the frosting came out too soft and was sagging down the sides of the cake, fouling up the esthetics of the cake. I think this was the result of the cream cheese (I used Philadelphia-brand) being too creamy in nature. In the States it is more firm. So look for the firmest cream cheese you can find.

Let me know how yours comes out.

Rachel and Tasha's Stuffed Pumpkin

2011-04-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

Rachel over at Rachel's Rantings in Rio shared a recipe that she got from Tasha from Becoming Brazilian, and now I'm sharing it with you guys!

The recipe is for stuffed pumpkin. You buy a pumpkin, cut it in half (or buy a half that's already been cut), bake it, take out the seeds, fill it with the goodness of your choosing, and bake it again.

I always get a little confused with buying pumpkins so... I haven't yet. I get confused by the translations: pumpkin vs. squash? Abórbora x Aborbrinha? Are they both reflecting the same technical difference?

It seems like the pumpkin Rachel used in her picture was half of a big abórbora japonesa, which is a pumpkin hybrid unique to Brazil. I learned that while trying to find the name in English. The site, which explains the crop, calls it a Japanese squash, not a pumpkin. Sigh.

From what I can find, the most similar crop in the US is an acorn squash.

When I make this, I think I'm going to treat the stuffing the way I would treat stuffing for bell peppers: a bread crumb base (farinha de rosca), onion, tomato, and garlic (my fundamental ingredients for almost anything), some spinach or rúcula, maybe some quiejo minas, because it won't melt too much. I'd like to add in some eggplant to the mix, but I'm so bad at preparing eggplant.

In case you missed the link above, check out the recipe here.

Come on! Try it! Tell us what you put (or would put) in your stuffing!

Thanks for the recipe, ladies!

Yummy Apple Crisp

2011-04-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

This recipe is super simple and ALL of the ingredients are easily found at any grocery store. It’s an old favorite of mine dating back to my hippy days when I lived in a vegetarian housing co-op (in college), so it’s a little crunchy granola like – but I love it.

The overall concept is to slice up some apples and layer them with a sweet crumble, then bake. The ingredients list makes about 6-8 servings in an oblong baking dish, but you can shrink it to serve just you and your sweetie, or expand it to take to a BBQ. It is not delicate.

INGREDIENTS:

8 – 10 medium apples (choose crisp, tart varieties, mix and match)

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, maybe some sunflower seeds)

2 cups raw oats (not the shredded “instant” variety)

¾ cup flour

½ cup butter

1/3 cup honey

½ cup orange juice

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. nutmeg (Portuguese: noz-moscada)

½ tsp. salt

PROCEDURE:

Peel, pare and slice the apples. You don’t want them to be too big, but don’t slice them too thin either. Drizzle the apple slices with fresh lemon juice. Toss. Spread half of the apples into a suitable, greased, baking dish.

Mix the oats, flour, nuts/seeds, salt and spices in a bowl. Melt the butter and honey together. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix well. It should be a somewhat dry, crumbly mixture. If it looks too dry, add a touch more melted butter. Some might want to add a little sugar to sweeten things up. This recipe is not a super sweet one. (Hippies like to taste the nuts, oats and fruit and not just the sugar.)

Crumble half of the mixture over the apples in your pan. Cover with the remaining apples, and then the rest of the topping. Pour the orange juice over everything. Bake 40 – 45 minutes, uncovered, at 375 degrees F. Watch it near the end and cover it if it crisps too quickly. You want the apples cooked well, but not mushy.

Serve with vanilla ice cream, or drizzle your serving with crème de leite.

NOTE: if you want to add raisins, include them with the apples, not the crumble topping. You can also use pears or peaches, but then reduce the cooking time by perhaps 20 minutes.

Oh, and if you have any leftover the next morning, put some in a bowl, heat it up in the microwave, pour a little milk over it and enjoy a super scrumptious hippy, crunchy, granola breakfast.

This recipe is only slightly modified from the original published in the Mooswood Cookbook.

Brownies in Brazil

2011-04-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, dear cooking blog! How I´ve abandoned you! You´re practically Jim´s cooking blog now. That´s OK. You´re in good hands.

::Cue infomercial music and black and white dramatization::

Are you living in Brazil? Are you tired of paying too much for defrosted brownies that just aren´t the same as Grandma´s, or even TGI Fridays´s?

::Back to color::

Well I have the solution for you! This easy brownie recipe can be made right in the comfort of your Brazilian kitchen! No ingredients have to be imported! No boxed brownie mix required!

I followed the recipe from this website exactly. Then I copied an idea from this website and put doce de leite on top of the brownies before I put them in the oven.

Some tips to help you ´´translate´´ this recipe in your Brazilian kitchen:

*The recipe calls for an American stick of butter. This is approximately 115 grams. Brazilian sticks of butter are typically 200 grams. I bought manteiga com sal and used a little more than half of it.

*The word for powdered cocoa in Portuguese is cacau em pó. We went to a huge supermarket to buy it. In the aisle with chocolate for baking and other types of chocolate (like ice cream topping), we found exactly one brand of cacau em pó. It was Garoto. It came in a box. It looks like this. It was 10 reais! I thought it ironic that, in a country where cacau grows in abundance, I could only find one brand, and it was expensive. But you´ll only use about half of the box, and maybe your supermarket will have other (cheaper) brands. (But if not, IT´S WORTH IT! Remember, you´ll pay like R$15 for a crappy brownie in a restaurant.)

*the recipe calls for parchment (wax paper) to line the pan. I just slathered the glass baking pan in margarine and it worked fine.

*the doce de leite recipe says to use an entire can of doce de leite. I thought that was too much. I bought one of those little buckets (400g) and used about 1/3 of it, and it was plenty.

*To make your brownie experience extra special, buy some American-style milk to drink with it! Brazilian milk is great, with its practicality and long shelf life and all, but the flavor just isn´t the same. When you´re in the cold section of the supermarket buying your butter, pick up some Batavo pasteurized milk. It looks like this. It´s only like, 1 real more than the Brazilian-style milk. I love how the translation of ´´skim milk´´ is leite magro.

Thank you so much to my great friend Crystal for the recipe and tips!!

Enjoy! Try not to eat too many at once, or you´ll end up with a stomach ache, like I did.

Here´s the recipe, copied from Inside a Black Apple:

You need: 1 medium sized pot, parchment, and an 8" sq. baking dish

Ingredients: 1 stick butter (8 tbsp)
1/2 c Brown Sugar
1 c White Sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
Pinch salt
Tbsp Vanilla
1. Preheat Oven to 390F (200C)
2. Melt butter in pot over stove
3. Remove butter from heat, let cool about a minute, then add sugars (just use the pot as your bowl...it saves you more dishes). Mix well.
4. Add eggs, flour, cocoa, salt, and generous tablespoon-splash of vanilla, and mix well.
5. Line baking dish (I use a glass one) with parchment, pour in batter, and pop in oven.
6. Bake 20-25 minutes, I test with a knife in the center and remove when only a few little crumbs cling to the knife.
7. Cool one hour or overnight.

Eggs cooked three ways

2011-03-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I recently had a friend over for lunch before she left for Ireland to be with her internet dream boy (fingers crossed for her). Cooked eggs offered an inexpensive way to put on a spread without having to put out a lot of cash. And it appealed to her Brazilian tastes.

The menu was a breakfast parfait, deviled eggs, and a tasty frittata.

Check it out:

US American-style breakfasts, with their two fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast and whatever else the daily special at the local roadside diner is pushing are dumbfounding to most Brazilians. By any reasonable measure Daily Special breakfasts in US diners are huge stomach bombs fed to folks before they go off to work (unless you are a farmer, construction worker, or a mother of four and need the energy!)

The Brazilian habit is to eat a small piece of bread with a small coffee – and call it breakfast.

Here’s a cute little compromise version of the US American breakfast that you can serve to your Brazilian friends – and it’s wrapped up in a small enough package that they might actually try it.

I found the recipe here (slightly modified) while TasteSpotting.

Here we go.

photo from the original food blog post here: http://thedabble.com/blog/bloomington-iu-bacon-egg-cups-potatoes-parmesan-blossoms/

Bacon and Egg Cups with Potatoes and Parmesan

Makes 6 small servings (feeds three US Americans or 6 Brazilians – LOL!)

INGREDIENTS:

6 slices of bacon

3 small potatoes, diced

1 medium zucchini, diced

3 tbls rosemary (or your favorite herb)

6 tbls heavy cream

3 tbls butter

6 large eggs

Grated parmesan cheese

Salt/pepper

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat 6 muffin tin cups with oil. [Actually – I used a super-quality non-stick muffin tin and things stuck like crazy. It was a mess. So I suggest you cut strips of parchment (papel mantega) and line the walls of the cups.]

In a skillet, cook the bacon until cooked but not crisp. Line the sides of the cups with a slice of bacon. In the same skillet, keep about ½ tablespoon of the bacon grease, remove the remaining, and cook the diced potatoes until tender. If you don’t have that much left over grease, add some butter or oil.

Place the potatoes and zucchini in the bottom of the 6 greased and lined cups, divided evenly, making sure the bacon stays on the side. Top the potato mixture with a few sprinkles of rosemary, 1 tbsp of cream and ½ tbsp. of butter in each cup. Crack an egg over the top of each cup, grate parmesan over the top of the egg, sprinkle salt/pepper.

Fill the empty cups (if any) in the muffin tin with water to keep the temperature of the pan even. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until the egg is set. Pop the little egg bakes out of the cups and serve with toasted bread.

Deviled Eggs

Early on I discovered that while most Brazilians I have met were not familiar with deviled eggs – they enjoyed them all the same. And as so many of us know, they are typically a hit with children. The only modification I’ve made to my mother’s recipe, to try and reach out to the Brazilian pallet, has been to add finely diced ham.

Let’s take a look.

INGREDIENTS:

6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise

½ cup finely minced ham

1/8 cup minced parsely
¼ cup Mayonnaise
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
½ teaspoon white vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Paprika for garnish

PROCEDURE:

Pop out (remove) the egg yolks and place into a small bowl and mash with a fork. Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Adjust the flavor to your taste. Fill the empty egg white shells with the mixture and sprinkle lightly with paprika. Chill before serving.

Bacon and Cheese Frittata

Here’s another super easy egg dish that packs flavor and is not too strange for your Brazilian friends to try. It’s best if you have a really heavy fry pan that can go into the oven – or you can try the”flip and finish” method on the top of the stove.

Check it out.

INGREDIENTS:

6 eggs

1 cup milk (or ½ c milk and ½ c crème de leite)

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup chopped green onions

5 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (queijo prato or finer varieties)

PROCEDURE:

Beat the eggs. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into a hot frying pan with sloped sides (so you can work a spatula around the edges later). Cook over medium heat until nearly set. At this point you can wither place the whole pan into a hot oven and cook it off until completely set and browned a bit, OR you can loosen the nearly cooked frittata with a spatula, place a large plate over the pan, flip the frittata onto the plate, then slide the frittata back into the pan with the uncooked side down to finish cooking it off on the stove top.

Serve hot (but it works cold as an appetizer finger food item as well).

The whole thing: cheap, easy, accessible.

Scrumptious granola bars

2011-01-28T03:45:00.000-08:00

After a month of making Panettone, the number one sweet bread treat throughout the Brazilian Christmas holiday season, I had a plastic container filled with candied fruits hiding out in the back of my refrigerator. My friend Alice, supreme professional chef extraordinaire, suggested via Facebook that I could make granola bars with the leftover fruit. I loved the idea.

So I Googled “granola bars” and weeded through a number of recipes until I settled on this one. Then of course I tweaked it a bit to use up the ingredients I had on hand, and to incorporate my friend Alice’s suggestion that I soak the dried/candied fruit in orange juice.

Here we go.

Ingredients:

3 ½ c. oats

1 ½ c. mix of dried fruit (I used golden raisins, dried cranberries and diced candied fruit)

1 ½ c. mix of chopped nuts (I used walnuts, almonds, peanuts and sesame seeds)

2 oranges, juiced

1/3 – ½ c. honey

½ c. brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

1 egg, beaten

2/3 c. melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used almond extract)

Procedure:

Rinse the excess sugar off the candied fruits and dice them into pieces about the size of the raisins. Mix the dried/candied fruits in a bowl and add the orange juice. Stir. Set aside.

Chop the walnuts and almonds. In a large ungreased shallow pan, stir together the nuts, sesame seeds and oats. Place the mixture in a 350 degree F. oven until toasted, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Watch carefully so you toast, but do not burn the mix. It may take 20 – 30 minutes depending on your oven and how deep the mix is in your pan. (The peanuts and sesame seeds I had were already toasted, so I added them after the oats mix was done.)

Combine the honey, brown sugar, melted butter, beaten egg, cinnamon and extract.

Drain the fruit.

Combine everything in a large bowl and mix well.

Press the mixture into a greased, large baking pan. I was nervous about it being difficult to remove from the pan so I lined the pan with parchment (papel manteiga) and then greased the paper.

A little mouse has already nibbled on the corner.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned along the edges. Cool completely. (I cooled on the counter for about 20 minutes and then placed the pan in the refrigerator. Given the ambient heat, things would not have set without being chilled a bit.) Cut into bars. Enjoy! [Store tightly sealed in the refrigerator.]

Chicken Risotto Thing

2011-01-21T16:52:00.000-08:00

Ok so this recipe is a combination of recipes and my own preferences for a chicken risotto. It's SUPER easy and delicious!

The batteries in my camera died a while ago and I always forget to buy new ones, so I'll have to take a picture the next time I make it. So here's a picture I stole off the internet to kind of give you an idea of how mine looked:

This recipe is enough for 2 people.

You need:

*2 chicken breasts
*1 small cup of rice (like however much you usually make for 2 people)
*3 parts water to 1 part rice
*the spices you want (I used cumin, oregano, and a Knorr chicken bullion cube (of course))
*3 garlic cloves
*a small carrot
*half of an onion
*Some green onion and cilantro
*a bit of cooking oil

*The important thing to remember is that this recipe is really easy to modify. I just used these veggies and spices because they were what I already had in the fridge. Some versions of this said you could use tomato (I thought the texture didn't really go with the rest though), and as you can see in the picture, they have peas and (what I think are) bell peppers. Alexandre makes a similar dish with palmito. So just take this style and run with it, I suppose!

Instructions:

*Chop up the chicken into small chunks (like in the picture).

*Chop up your onions, carrot, garlic and cilantro. Best not to mix them yet.

*In a pot big enough for everything (the convenience of this recipe is having to wash only one pot), fry the chicken, onion, and garlic in a bit of oil. It shouldn't take long if your chicken is cut up small.

*Add in the spices that you're using, and keep mixing so it doesn't burn!

*Add in the dry rice and mix it all up really fast with the rest of the stuff in the pot, just for a few seconds.

*Add in the water (remember, about 3 parts water to rice-- you can always drain it if it's too much)

*Add in the other vegetables, mix one more time, and cover it. It takes about 10 minutes for the rice to cook.
If you see that the rice seems done but there's still a bit too much water, just keep frying it with the lid off and mixing it to burn off the extra water.

Wait for it to cool, and then enjoy! It's not "pretty" necessarily, but it's quick and easy and pretty healthy. Great when you are feeling lazy but don't want to spend money on eating out (which is like, pretty much how I feel every night).

What would you guys add to this? I welcome your ideas!

Fresh Banana Mango Sorbet

2011-01-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

Here's another tasty dessert recipe.

Celebrating local ingredients here in Brazil begins and ends with fresh tropical fruit. Here is a simple way to cool down on a hot summer night. This is a super-simple recipe for fresh sorbet – and you do not need an ice cream maker.

Ingredients: (Use more or less – it’s totally flexible)

4 – 6 bananas (Choose your favorite: banana prata, banana d’ agua, banana ouro, banana nanica, banana maçá, banana figo…)

2 ripe mangos (Again, choose your favorite: manga rosa, manga espada, manga carlotinha – or the one that hit you on the head while waiting for the bus yesterday ;-) …)

1 lime (or 2 if they are small)

Sugar (I used artificial sweetener – Luiz is a diabetic with a sweet tooth)

Procedure:

Peel the bananas and chop into pieces about an inch long. Place in a bowl. Slice the large pit out of the center of the mango. Remove the mango fruit from within its skin. This is done by scoring all the way through the fruit, but not through the skin in a cross-hatch fashion. Then invert the mango half inside out. Slice off the squares of mango. Place in the bowl with the bananas.

Pour about two - three tablespoons of lime juice over the fruit and toss well. This will both keep the fruit from discoloring and push the flavors a bit.

Cover the bowl and place it into the freezer overnight (or from morning to evening). In other words: freeze completely.

Remove the frozen fruit from the freezer and chop it up a bit, it will have all frozen together slightly.

From here you can either simply push the frozen fruit through a CLEAN meat grinder set to fine grinding, OR place the fruit in a food processer using the metal blade and process it for a good 5 minutes or until smooth. You will likely need to stop the processor once or twice and stir up the fruit to keep it puréeing evenly.

Then stir in sugar or other sweetener to your own taste and depending on the original sweetness of the fruit itself.

VARIATION: If you prefer a creamy/dairy version, while the frozen fruit is being puréed in the food processer, add about ¼ - ½ cup of chilled crème de leite and combine well.

Get a spoon and enjoy.

Chocolate and Banana Crepes

2011-01-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

We just made chocolate and banana crepes. I gave myself a tummyache because I ate too much. But boy, were they amazing. Here's the recipe for you:

picture from http://emilyk.typepad.com, but the recipe is mine-- a combination of other recipes

The Crepes: Makes about 6 big crepes

5 tablespoons (aka 70g) of real butter-- you can eyeball a stick of it (the sticks in Brazil are usually 200g)
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 3/4 cups of milk (more milk = thinner crepe)
1 or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of sugar (it can be less if you want to use the crepe for something salty)

A banana or two

The Chocolate Topping

1 big (170g) Brazilian chocolate bar of your choice (it can have nuts, it can be dark chocolate)
1 heaping teaspoon of real butter
About 2 tablespoons of cream (creme de leite)

Instructions: The Crepes

*Combine the milk, egg yolks, and vanilla in a big bowl.

*Melt the 5 tablespoons of butter. (I just used the microwave.)

*In a second bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, and the melted butter.

*Slowly stir in the ingredients from the second bowl into the first bowl.

*Heat a good pan for cooking crepes. (We have a wonderful electric grill with this type of surface.) You'll want it on a low temperature.

*Pour some of the crepe mix onto the warmed pan. Once the ends start to brown, flip it over. The crepe is done when it's brown (you probably know what a finished crepe looks like).

Instructions: The Chocolate topping

*Boil some water in a pot and put a container inside to make a banho-maria, or "water bath" for the chocolate (i.e. to cook it in hot water instead of frying it directly). Here's a picture from Wikipedia:

We put a small glass casserole dish inside of the pot.

*Add the chocolate to the pot and melt it on low heat.

*Add the heaping teaspoon of butter to the chocolate. Mix mix mix.

*Slowly add creme de leite and keep mixing until you're happy with the flavor and consistency.

------------------------------------------------
Once everything is ready, chop up the bananas. Then you have 2 options: You can add the chocolate and bananas to the crepes while they're still cooking (Alexandre's preference), or you can finish frying the crepe and add the yummy things at the end (my preference).

A note: This recipe might make a lot of crepe mix and not a lot of chocolate topping, depending on how much chocolate topping you like. One problem may have been that I was in charge of mixing the chocolate, and Alexandre was in charge of frying the crepes. So.... you can imagine how that went. I needed to "test" the chocolate about 20 times to make sure it didn't need more cream or anything. ;) But anyway, if you REALLY like chocolate, you might want to double the topping recipe.

And of course, you can change the ingredients, use different fruits, etc. I encourage you to share your ideas in the comments!

Enjoy!

Kibe Semi-Success

2011-01-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

from www.cometudo.com

As the final recipe in Jim's and my Lebanese-Brazilian collection, I planned to share you the kibe recipe that I made yesterday. Ours were pretty good-- the only problem was that they were ugly. But that's fine, because my camera ran out of battery this week, and there's a great video online that you can use (see below).

We made fried kibe. The important ingredients are farinha para kibe and pimenta siria. We made a meat stuffing separate from the shell (the shell is just ground beef, farinha para kibe, pimenta siria, and salt).

This video doesn't suggest it, but Alexandre came home with coalhada while I was finishing the kibe, so we put some inside as stuffing. It worked well! I LOVE coalhada, but it is so difficult and time-consuming to make.

So without further ado, here's the video with the kibe recipe. It's in Portuguese. He discusses fried kibe at the end. If you're dying to make kibe and you can't understand him, let me know and I'll type out the instructions in English.

Click here for the video!

Hummus

2011-01-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

Yay! It's my turn to add to Jim's Middle Eastern food posts. Tomorrow I might put up a kibe recipe, if all goes well with cooking it today.

Here's the recipe I learned for hummus over the holidays:. It makes a big bowl, as you'll see in the pictures. If you want less, you can try halving the amounts of everything.

Ingredients:

*2 ½ cups of dry Chickpeas (called grão de bico in Portuguese). They come in a bag of 500g in Brazil, so you can just put in the whole bag. Don't buy the chickpeas in a can or jar!

*1 big spoonful of Tahini, aka sesame seed paste. The 2 names in Portuguese are tahini and pasta de gergelim. I bought it at a little Middle Eastern market in town. I've heard you can find it at Pão de Açúcar. If I can get it in my small town, it shouldn't be too hard to find in other parts of Brazil!

*A bit of garlic (optional)-- it can be fresh chopped garlic, or that pre-prepared purée de alho, either way

*1 tablespoon of olive oil

*1 small lime

*1 small onion

*Salt, pepper, and/or whatever spices you want

*A bit of green onion and parsley or cilantro (mostly for decoration)

Instructions:

*After soaking them in water for 3-4 hours (the way you would other beans), pressure cook the chickpeas for 40 minutes (start counting the 40 minutes when it actually is pressurized). I learned the hard way that if you don't soak them and you don't pressure cook them, they take about 3 and a half hours to cook. They need to be extra soft and easy to mash with a spoon. Otherwise, your hummus will be too grainy.

*Let the boiled chickpeas cool, and then put them in the blender with a tablespoon or two of the water that they boiled in. Blend blend blend, a lot, until they turn into a cream. If they're hard to blend, add more water (but remember that you're making a creamy paste, so it can't be too watery).

*Add 1 big spoonful of the Tahini to the blender.

*If you want garlic, add it in now. Keep blending!

*Add in the 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Blend a little more.

*Take the hummus out of the blender and put it into a bowl that you want to serve it in.

*Add the juice of 1 small lime, and also some salt or whatever spices you're using. Mix by hand.

*Slice the onions like this and add them to the hummus like tombstones. The idea is that guests can scoop the hummus with the little onion pieces.

*Decorate the top of the hummus with some more olive oil, parsley and chopped green onion.

all done!

There are lots of variations to the extra ingredients in hummus. The base things are just the chickpeas, the tahini, and the olive oil. My dear friend Michelle recommends adding a bit of roasted red peppers, but I was voted out on that idea at home. Any other changes that you guys make to your hummus?

Tabouleh

2011-01-06T04:08:00.000-08:00

Another Lebanese food post from Jim! Enjoy!

Tabouleh (Parsley and bulgur salad)

Serves 6 – 8

This tabouleh is best served with Jim's stuffed cabbage rolls,

The age-old and regional dispute about this salad centers around the ratios of parsley to bulgur (cracked wheat). Our family came down decidedly on the MORE PARSLEY side. Plus lots of lemon juice.

NOTE: For us, the cracked wheat was seen as the ‘cheaper’ ingredient and was added when it was necessary to stretch the meal. In our family – the greater the percentage of the parsley, the finer the salad.

If you are accustomed to a ‘wheat salad’ experience – stay with me. This version will change your opinion of tabouleh.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup bulgur (farinha para kibbe), rinsed well

2 cups boiling water

2 packed cups chopped parsley (not Italian parsley or cilantro)

½ cup finely chopped green onions

¼ cup finely chopped fresh mint

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 Tbls. lemon juice (not lime juice)

1 ½ tsp. salt, or to taste

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

2 firm, ripe, delicious tomatoes

Lemon wedges

Procedure:

Thoroughly rinse the cracked wheat. Pour the boiling water over the cracked wheat in a bowl and set aside.

Wash all the greens, finely chop (mince to a texture you will enjoy but don’t shred to a pulp in a food processor) and toss in a serving bowl. .

Seed and dice the tomatoes.

Drain, rinse and squeeze dry the soaked cracked wheat. It should be plumped with water, but not mushy. There should be a bit of an al dente thing going on.

Mix everything in the serving bowl. Drizzle the olive oil over the salad, and then pour in the lemon juice. Toss – toss – toss. Salt and pepper.

Serve with big lemon wedges and olive oil for those who wish to push or pull the fresh flavors.

Rice – you know that one…

Have fun impressing yourself (or your mother-in-law).

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

2011-01-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Jim from Qualidade de Vida is sharing some great recipes this week. Take it away, Jim!:

Some time ago there was an animated discussion about Lebanese foods in Brazil on my blog. Brazil enjoys a robust immigrant community from Lebanon and has a much popularized set of foods from this culture in restaurants and fast food outlets.

After writing about it I got all inspired to make some old-country food for Luiz and I. Independent of seasonal thinking I decided to make stuffed cabbage leaves, rice, and a tabouleh salad.

Since I grew up in a family only one and a half generations separated from Lebanon, I used my mother’s recipes. That meant that the lamb was to be ground more finely and the tabouli was to contain only a little bit of bulghar – and everything was to have a bit more lemon (not lime) dribbled over it.

So here we go:

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Mishi Malfuf)

Serves 6; Cooking time 1 ¼ hours

Don’t be afraid – it is not that hard.

Ingredients:

1 large head of cabbage

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 Tbls. clarified butter (or just use soja oil)

1 ½ lbs (750 g) coarsely ground lamb shoulder (carne moida cordeiro) [You can use ground hamburger if you can’t find the lamb, but it is not quite as delicious.]

1 cup short grain rice, washed and drained

½ tsp. ground allspice (pimenta da Jamaica) [I could not find pimento da Jamaica so I used 3 parts cinnamon and 1 part nutmeg (noz-moscada)]

Salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup water

4 cloves garlic (more to taste), chopped

¼+ cup lemon juice (not lime juice)

1 tsp. dried mint (or perhaps 2+ tsp. if fresh)

Water as needed

Procedure:

Peel off the outer, typically torn or otherwise soiled, leaves of the cabbage, save. Core out the stem of the cabbage as keenly as you can.

Bring a huge pot of water to a boil. When the water is boiling, plop the cabbage (gently, don’t splash!) into the bath and, after each leaf has cooked sufficiently, peel off one leaf at a time and drain. You really want to have a completely cooked leaf. If it is still a bit crisp it will work against you later on.

Leaves will fall off the cabbage head easily when they are completely cooked. You may want to let them cook a bit more even after they have fallen off the head. Don’t rush this process. Trim out the core as needed as you get further into the head. You want full, completely cooked, untorn leaves.

When the leaves are cool to the touch, trim off the bulk of the rib on each. You are cutting the rib down to nearly the thickness of the leaf itself. Try not to cut all the way through. You want a flexible, yet intact, full leaf.

Some of the outer leaves are super big. If you have some of those, slice them in half along the ridge line.

Keep the sliced-off rib bits and any torn leaves to use to line your cooking pan.

Gently sauté the chopped onion in the clarified butter or oil until soft and nearly clear. Add the ground lamb, rice, allspice, salt, pepper and water. Combine well and cook just a bit.

chop

sauté

Place a couple tablespoons (more or less, usually less) of the meat/rice/onion filling on the bottom edge of a leaf and roll, tucking in the sides to contain the filling. Maintain a tightening pressure as you roll so the final product is tight, neat sausage shape. Repeat. Repeat.

Pack finished rolls flap side down in a big pot with a layer of trashed leaves on the bottom. Place them close together. When you begin the second layer, place them at 90 degrees to the first layer, etc. Pack ‘em tight. (Read ahead here.)

Combine the minced garlic and mint. Have salt and lemon juice at hand.

Sprinkle the garlic/mint mixture between each layer and on top of the whole affair. Then pour the lemon juice over everything. Salt, also, as you see necessary.

Now you have a lined pot layered with tight stuffed cabbage rolls spiced between each layer. Carefully add water to cover the rolls. Now invert a heavy plate and place it over the rolls. (You are keeping pressure on the rolls so they do not UNROLL while cooking.)

Cover the pot and simmer for about an hour.

Serve hot. (OMG!)

Check out the tabouleh salad that goes with these rolls here.

Pumpkin Coconut Pecan Bread

2010-11-27T06:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jim for this recipe!! I think he puts more time into this cooking blog than I do! haha

Sorry I took so long to get this up. I know Thanksgiving has passed, but you can still enjoy it with your leftovers. (But besides, every day is Thanksgiving Day in Brazil, am I right?? :D)

Jim says....

This recipe rocks. The bread is flavorful, super moist, rich in texture, and when served with butter you will involuntarily drift into a dreamy state and think of your sweet, loving grandmother. Be forewarned.

I wanted a taste of Thanksgiving to welcome Luiz home with (he has been out of town for nearly a week). After some TasteSpotting [http://www.tastespotting.com/] I found this recipe [http://www.duodishes.com/2010/11/18/another-go-around/] which could stand up to my slight modifications.

Ingredients:

12 Tbl. butter (about ¾ of the block of butter)

15 ounces of pumpkin purée (1 ¾ cups)

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ½ c. flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

¾ c. golden raisins

1/3 c. flaked coconut

¼ c. chopped pecans (if not available, I think chopped Brazil nuts would work well)

Method:

Roast a nice chunk of seeded abóbora in a hot oven, enough to collect 1 ¾ cups of creamed pumpkin. This might take 1 ½ hours. Do not drain the liquid that will separate from the vegetable. Let it reincorporate, then scrape the roasted vegetable from the rind and purée.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9” x 5 ½” loaf pan.

Place the butter in a small pan over medium heat and warm until all of the butter has melted and it begins to crackle and pop, turn brown and the milk solids separate and float to the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Using a mixer, beat together the abóbora, both sugars, the eggs and vanilla. Mix well until the sugars are no longer grainy when the mixture is rubbed between your fingers. Blend in the melted butter.

In a separate bowl wisk together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined. Do not over mix. Fold in the raisins, coconut and pecans.

Pour the rather wet batter into your prepared pan and bake for an hour (likely longer) until a tooth pick comes out clean. Don’t be afraid – it will take a while. Keep baking until it is done.

Let it cool a bit before trying to remove the loaf from the pan. Then cool completely on a rack.

Slice, spread with butter, then go say hello to your sweet grandmother.

My Faux Tex-Mex Stuffed Chicken

2010-11-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

So I should really just call this "the week of the pepper." I wanted to use up the few I had left...like half of a red bell pepper, half of a yellow bell pepper, and a couple of pimentas dedo-de-moça:

mmmm!

So to continue with almost all of the same ingredients from the last two recipes, I give you My Faux Tex Mex Stuffed Chicken recipe!

This recipe is for the chicken and the "sauce" on top of it. Click here for my recipe for beans.

You will need:

* 2 chicken breasts of any kind
* some bell pepper(s) cut up in thin slices (to stuff inside the chicken)
*Some butter (to spread in your cooking dish)
*a handful of chopped green onion (cebolhina)
*Some Mexican taco meat seasoning, if you have it (if not, any spices of your liking will work, even just salt and pepper)
--------------
* olive oil
* a couple of pieces of fresh garlic (I guess you can substitute it for the purée de alho)
* some onion
* only 1 (more if you're brave or cooking for a group) pimenta dedo-de-moça (I can't figure out the name of this in English!)

Part 1: Prepare the Chicken

* Lightly cover your raw chicken with the taco meat seasoning or whatever spices you're using.

*Chop up bell peppers into thin slices and find a way to put the bell peppers inside of your chicken. This video is very helpful. I had thin chicken breasts that had been pre-cut by the butcher, so for each chicken breast, I put the bell pepper slices on one half, folded it over, and pinned the halves together with toothpicks.

*Use the butter to spread in your baking pan or casserole dish (mine was made of glass), or, if you don't want to use butter, put something on the pan to prevent the chicken from sticking and burning.

*Put the chicken inside the casserole dish and set it aside.

Part 2: Prepare your "Sauce" (I guess you can call it a sauce... a topping?)

*Chop up your onion, garlic, and pimenta dedo-de-moça into small pieces (I used my handy dandy food processor).

*Fry this mix in olive oil on low heat until the onions start to brown.

Part 3: Combine!

*Put this mix on top of the chicken in the casserole dish, like this:

*Sprinkle the chopped green onions on top of the chicken, and add in some more olive oil so the chicken isn't too dry.

Bake on a medium temperature (my oven is super old and the temperatures are worn off, so I just guess) for about 20 minutes-- until the chicken is cooked, obviously.

Take it out and enjoy! I only ate it with beans because I was too lazy to make rice, but if I had guests, I'd serve it with beans and rice.

Chicken and Bell Pepper Pasta

2010-11-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

So today I had to figure out something to do with the extra vegetables from last night's fantastic coconut chicken dinner. I found a recipe for ravioli with bell peppers on allrecipes.com, and I modified it a bit. They tell you to use chicken broth, but I didn't have any, so I made my own (I guess you can call what I made "broth").

Here's a picture of my lunch. If it looks good to you, follow the instructions below!

Chicken and Bell Pepper Pasta (serves 2)

You will need:
* 2 small boneless skinless chicken breasts (bife de frango in Portuguese)

*Pasta of your choice (I used nhoque with requejão, because that's what I had. I don't recommend this. It was SUPER heavy. Anything a bit lighter, like maybe a ravioli stuffed with ricotta, would be good.)

*1 chicken bullion (caldo de frango) cube

*1 small onion

Leftovers from the coconut chicken recipe:
* A bit of each color bell pepper (pimentão)

*A clove of garlic (for the broth... optional, I guess, if you're not a fan of garlic)

*A few leaves of cilantro

*Olive oil

*Oregano (optional)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 1: Start the broth

*Chop up the garlic, some of the onion, and the cilantro, and fry them for a minute or two with a generous amount of olive oil, the oregano, and half of the chicken bullion cube in a pot.

please excuse the old pot and the dirty stove.... yours will probably be prettier

*Chop up the chicken into cube-like pieces (doesn't really matter) and add it to the broth.

*Then add in enough water just to cover the chicken. Cover and let that cook, stirring occasionally.

Part 2: The pasta

*Boil some water at this point-- you've got to cook your pasta! That's all of Part 2.

Part 3: The veggies

*Cut the bell peppers into big-ish pieces.
*Chop up the rest of the onion.

so pretty!

*Add these newly-chopped veggies to a deep pan on low heat with a bit of olive oil.

Part 4: Putting it all together

*Once the chicken seems mostly cooked and the broth has thickened, dump it all into the deep pot with the bell peppers and onion, and let it cook on low heat until it thickens to your liking.

*If you haven't already, drain your pasta, and then dump your hot and fresh sauce on top! If you didn't use cheese-stuffed pasta, you may want to add some parmesan cheese on top, like in the allrecipes.com version.

Yum yum! Enjoy!

Thai (kind of) Coconut Chicken Deliciousness

2010-11-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

So Fiona put up a delicious recipe for coconut chicken. I made it, successfully!

http://bloodpearls.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-cooking-time-recipe-for-coconut.html

I went a little crazy with the small red peppers, so be careful with those if you don't like spicy food (I do, but it's a good thing I was only cooking for myself this time).

Fiona writes in her recipe that you can play around with the vegetables a bit, so I did. I added onion into the mix with the garlic and the small red peppers. I also used one of each color bell pepper, along with the other green pepper in Fiona's picture (apparently called pimenta americana in Portuguese). At the end, I also added in some chopped, shell-less peanuts.

DELICIOUS!! Thanks, Fiona!

Update: Click here for a recipe that has something to do with your leftovers from this dish!

Corinne's Quick Faux Sour Cream

2010-10-05T20:10:00.001-07:00

Homesick for yummy Mexican sour cream while living in Brazil? Here's Corinne's quick and easy recipe:

Take one box of creme de leite and add the juice of one lime and a little salt. Stir. Let it sit out on the counter for about 30 minutes and then refrigerate for about 30 minutes or more. That's it! I have not tried it yet for cooking, but works great atop nachos or fajitas, very close to the real thing.

As the creme de leite gets colder it will get denser. I actually had some last night that I made last Thursday and it was nice and thick!

Corrine's Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks and Coconut Drizzle

2010-10-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

Dear reader Corrine submitted a yummy cake recipe for you all to enjoy! It's even Brazil-ingredient friendly!

The rest is from Connie:

Connie's notes:
I have a subscription to the magazine Bon Appetit and although I love it, often times looking at the recipes just make me depressed, since so many of the ingredients are either 1) not available in Brazil or 2) WAY too expensive. However, my January issue actually had a dessert that contains ingredients that are EASIER to find in Brazil that the US!! So, I HAD to try it and boy is it GOOD. I have made this several times and gotten rave reviews. The recipe calls for a 9-in cake pan (which is hard to find in Brazil), but it works just fine in a square 8x8 (and is actually easier to slice this way). It can also be doubled and baked in a 9x13 pan.

Here's the original recipe with a picture too.

Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks and Coconut Drizzle

Ingredients:

Cake

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt (I use regular salt and it turns out fine)
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (this is approximately one bag)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature (this is the equivalent of a little more than 1/2 of a 200g pack of butter - 113g)
2 teaspoons (packed) finely grated orange peel
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk (a US cup is 250ml and a jar is 200ml - you will need about 1 1/3 jars in order to follow the recipe exactly, but will have some coconut milk leftover. You can also use one jar and top it off with whole milk to get 1 cup and make the glaze out of regular milk- not quite as good but then you don't have a half jar of coconut milk going bad in your refrigerator)
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate bars (do not exceed 61% cacao), broken into 1/2-inch irregular pieces, divided (I use a 170 or 180g bar of Garoto or Nestle meio-amargo)
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut (about half a bag)

Coconut Drizzle

3/4 cup powdered sugar (this is açucar confiteiro or Glaçucar - you can find it in the aisle with the sugar usually)
2 tablespoons (or more) canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vanilla ice cream (the original recipe recommends serving it will ice cream - I have never done this - the cake is rich enough to stand on its own)

Preparation

cake

Preheat oven to 350°F (180 degree celcius). Generously butter 9-inch-diameter cake pan with 2-inch-high sides (or other pan that you are using); dust pan with flour, shaking out excess. Sift 1 3/4 cups flour, baking powder, and sea salt into medium bowl. Stir in unsweetened shredded coconut and set aside. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and orange peel in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating just until blended after each addition. Fold in half of bittersweet chocolate pieces. Spread batter evenly in prepared cake pan. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces over batter, then sprinkle with sweetened flaked coconut.
Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, tenting with sheet of foil if coconut atop cake is browning too quickly, 60 to 70 minutes (last time I made this it only needed 60 minutes. If your oven bakes unevenly like mine, rotate the pan half-way through the baking). Transfer cake to rack and cool in pan 45 minutes.

coconut drizzle

Whisk powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk, and vanilla in small bowl to blend well, adding more coconut milk by 1/2 teaspoonfuls until mixture is thin enough to drizzle over cake.
Carefully run small knife around sides of cake to loosen. Invert cake onto platter, then carefully invert again onto another platter, coconut side up (this makes it pretty for serving, but you can cut and serve this cake directly from the pan). Using small spoon, drizzle powdered sugar mixture decoratively over cake. Cool cake completely on platter. DO AHEAD Cake can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover cake and let stand at room temperature.
Cut cake into wedges and serve with vanilla ice cream.

test-kitchen tip

To make the chocolate chunks, leave the chocolate bars in their wrappers and break up the chocolate with a meat mallet (this is totally the way to chop up this chocolate. I give my toddler the mallet or rolling pin and let him have at it!).

Oatmeal Applesauce Craisin Muffins

2010-10-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jim from Qualidade da Vida for this lovely recipe! Take it away, Jim!

---------------------------------------------------

Believe it or not, I still have a supply of craisins in my refrigerator. My friend brought me a gigantic (Costco-type) bag of Ocean Spray craisins almost a year ago. It has a good zip lock seal and I have kept them in the refrigerator – and of course, sugar is a preservative. They are still tasty and of a good texture.

So this morning I thought what better way to please my Luizinho than to offer some fresh-out-of-the-oven oatmeal, applesauce, craisin muffins? After a little TasteSpotting I found a recipe suitable for modification.

Here we go.

Oatmeal Applesauce Craisin Muffins

Yields 12 muffins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

¼ cup whole wheat flour

1 ¼ cups rolled oats

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

1 cup applesauce (three medium apples)

½ cup qualiada

½ cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional if your brown sugar is dark with a strong flavor)

1 egg

¾ cup craisins (or raisins)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin tins with cupcake liners (or just butter them up good).

2) Place rolled oats into a food processor and pulse until they are chopped down to about half their original whole self. This will make for a smoother texture muffin.

3) In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients, except sugar, and set aside.

4) Peel and chop apples and place in a food processor (maybe add some nutmeg, or cinnamon, or sugar to taste) and process to create a somewhat lumpy apple sauce.

5) In another large bowl combine the wet ingredients, plus the brown sugar. Mix well. Mix really well.

6) Now add the wet ingredients to the dry little by little and fold together. Do not over mix.

7) Add the craisins and mix minimally but completely.

8) Spoon the batter (it should be a little wet, but not runny) into the cupcake liners.

9) Place the muffins in the oven for 16 – 18 minutinhos. Test doneness with a pick. Let cool completely (OK, you can eat one while it is still warm, but the paper cup will peel off more effectively when the muffins are cooled).

NOTE: Luiz likes his baked goods SWEET – and he is diabetic. I added two packets of Splenda (rather than sugar) when making the applesauce. And I added two packets – in addition to the brown sugar – to the dry ingredients. The muffins came out to his satisfaction.

Baked Chicken and Onion Casserole

2010-08-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

I invented a sort of chicken casserole. It's delicious. It has lots of carbs. It's great for chilly days. It's easy to make.

My recipe serves 2 hungry people or 3 less-hungry people.

You will need:
* 3 thin chicken breasts
* 2 little packets of Knorr Quick Sopa mix: we chose the cebola (onion) flavor (not pictured), but you can choose whatever you want, I suppose:

*2 big potatoes... this kind:

*1 onion
*Some chopped up green onion (optional)
*1 Knorr potinho de caldo

(In case you haven't noticed, I'm totally addicted to anything involving Knorr and chicken stock. These are new. I love them.)

*About 1 tablespoon of potato flakes (batata desidratada em flocos).... this can be optional if you don't have it, but it makes the recipe way better
*A tablespoon of butter or margarine

What to do:

1. Wash and chop up the potato in big-ish pieces. Jamie Oliver says not to take the skin off of these potatoes, so I don't.

2. Add the potatoes to at least 600-700ml of water and boil them.

3. While the potatoes are boiling, use a napkin to spread a thin layer of butter around the dish that you're going to use to cook the casserole. The butter prevents everything from sticking to the pan and burning.

4. Peel and chop up your onion into small-ish pieces. The size doesn't really matter.

5. Throw the onion into the buttered dish and spread it around.

6. Once the water is boiled and the potatoes are softer (not soft enough to be mashed potatoes, just a bit softened.... should take about 10-15 minutes) use a strainer to take the potatoes out of the water while saving the water. Save the boiled water!

7. Mix the potatoes in with the onion in the buttered casserole dish.

8. Measure out 500ml of the boiled water. (If you don't have potato flakes, add only 300ml.) Put the 500ml (or 300ml) of boiled water back on the stove to continue boiling. Add in 1 packet of the Knorr Quick soup and the 1 Knorr potinho de caldo. (If you have potato flakes and 500ml of water, add in the 1-2 tablespoons of potato flakes.) Mix this and continue to boil this to make your sauce.

9. Lay out the chicken breasts on top of the potatoes and onions on the casserole dish. The chicken breasts should be defrosted but uncooked.

10. Get the other packet of Knorr Quick soup and sprinkle the powder directly over the chicken, onions, and potatoes (focusing on the chicken).

11. Pour your boiled Knorr sauce over the everything in the casserole dish.

12. If you want, sprinkle some green onions on top of everything.

13. Stick your casserole dish in the oven at 230 degrees Celsius and bake it until the chicken is ready (for about 20-30 minutes).

14. Take it out, wait for it to cool a bit, and enjoy!!

Same photo as above:

It isn't necessarily the healthiest meal, but it sure is tasty.

Remember that if you don't have the Knorr spices and mixes, you can make your own sauce/broth to cover the chicken, potatoes and onions. This recipe can be easily modified.

I hope you like it as much as we did! We licked the pan a bit, because when you eat at home with your loved one(s), you can do that.

Fun with Mandioquinha

2010-08-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

Mandioquinha! It starts like this:

And can end up like this:

(Don't mind the super old pot)

It has quite a few names. The lady at the farmers' market called it mandioquinha, but the grocery store labels it as aipim. (However, I've been told that aipim is the northeast word for what Paulistas call regular mandioca.) Like regular mandioca, it's also a root. Wikipedia has some nice information about it in English.

The lady at the farmers' market taught me and Alexandre a recipe. We modified it to our liking and now I'm sharing it with you. This is just a simple way to serve mandioquinha as a side dish during a meal. It's fast and easy and sooo yummy (a lil' salty, a lil' sweet) and hard not to eat in large quantities.

Cooked Mandioquinha

You will need:

1. Mandioquina (obviously).... to serve 2 people, I buy about 3 good-sized pieces.
2. Water
3. Cooking oil
4. 1/2 a white onion
5. Some green onion (cebolinha)
6. Some garlic and whatever spices you want (I keep it simple and just put salt and pepper)

What to do:

1. Peel the mandioquinha. I use a peeler; it's easier than a knife.

2. Chop the mandioquinha in big-ish pieces. The lady at the farmers' market recommended cutting it haphazardly instead of in perfect straight pieces... not sure why, but it cooked really well when I did that, so I've just kept on doing it. I guess the point is, it doesn't really matter how you chop it.

3. Chop up the white onion into very very small pieces. You don't need much.

4. If you're a good Brazilian or Brazilian import, you've already got green onion chopped up in your fridge. So you can use some of that too.

5. Throw the mandioquinha, the white onion, and the green onion into a small pot.

6. Add in just enough water to make the water visible, but not to completely cover the vegetables. Then add in a splash of cooking oil.

7. Add in the garlic, salts, and spices that you want. Less is more!

8. Cover everything and let it cook for about 10 minutes. Check it and stir it occasionally. You want the mandioquinha to turn bright yellow and get mushy, but not so soft that it sticks to the bottom of the pan and burns. It's a fine line!

When it's soft and smells good, it's ready! If you ended up putting too much water, you can drain it a bit.

That's it! Yum yum. Enjoy!

Rice with Squash

2010-08-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

I invented this recipe. I wanted to jazz up my rice a bit, so I added some squash (called "abobrinha nacional" in Portuguese), onion, and green onion. It's yummy!

You will need:
1. Rice
2. Abobrinha nacional...Wikipedia translates it as zucchini, but later calls it a squash....I'm confused! It's this one:

3. Some white onion
4. Some green onion (optional)
5. Caldo de legumes (a bit of a vegetable bullion cube)

What to do:

Make rice the way you make rice, but add in all the ingredients, chopped up. I use my rice cooker for best results. I've never tried to make it on a stove. If anyone tries, let me know what you do!

It's so easy and delicious, and tastes better than plain white rice as leftovers.

Enjoy!

Caipirinha de Leite Condensado

2010-08-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

Oh yes. You read that right. One of our friends taught me a new and improved version of the traditional caipirinha. It has condensed milk in it. That makes it fabulous. It's not disrespecting any Brazilian traditions because a Brazilian guy taught me, right?

It's easy. I think it's easier than a regular caipirinha, because you don't have to worry about cutting the limes in a fancy way to prevent sourness and acidity. Here's what you need for one caipirinha with condensed milk:

1. Some condensed milk.
2. 2 limes
3. "5 seconds of pinga" (my friend's exact instructions; let the pinga pour into the glass for 5 seconds)
4. A couple teaspoons of sugar (less than a regular caipirinha, because you've got the condensed milk)
5. Some ice and some cold water

-------------
Here's what you do:
1. Slice the lime like this
2. Put the lime in a cup and add the sugar and mash it up with a pilão (the pestle from the mortar and pestle)
3. Add in the pinga (cahaça if you're fancy) and as much leite condensado as you want (I put a tablespoon or two)
4. Shake shake shake shake
5. Add in some cold water and the ice so it's not so strong that you die
6. Shake shake shake shake

7. Drink very fast because the leite condensado hides how strong it is and then get unexpectedly drunk.

mmmmmmm! :D

Here's how it should look, kind of (like a milky caipirinha):

This picture is from the internet. Mine are not as pretty, and I leave the limes in the bottom of the ~~plastic cup~~ pretty glass while I drink it. I'm all about flavor over appearance.

I imagine this would be good with strawberries instead of limes, but I haven't tried it yet.

Enjoy!

Jim's Tex-Mex Recipes, Brazilian Style

2010-08-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a both useful and entertaining post on cooking Mexican food in Brazil, courtesy of Jim from Qualidade da Vida:

Bringing Tex Mex cooking to Brazil (WAY south of the border!)

The other day I was on a bus zipping through Piritininga in Niterói and I caught a glimpse of a restaurant billing itself as Tex Mex. Wow – I never saw a Tex Mex restaurant in Brazil. At some point I will check it out. For now, I’ll make some of my own.

Here’s my recipe for Nachos, which includes corn chips, refried beans, ground beef, cheese, salsa and guacamole.

CORN CHIPS

I cannot find your basic corn chips, or corn tortillas which I could cut up and fry into fresh chips. What I can find are Doritos brand chips. We work within our local reality.

REFRIED BEANS

2 cups raw pinto beans (feijão da casa)

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 ½ cups chopped yellow onion

3 cloves crushed garlic

½ cup minced green pepper

2 tsp. ground cumin (cominho)

¼ tsp. black pepper

4 Tbs. butter

A little olive oil

Cook the beans using your favorite method. After you wash them thoroughly and remove any stones that may have found their way into the bag, you can let them soak for a few hours and then boil them on the stove for 1 ½ - 2 hours (watch your water level!) – or you can just put them into a pressure cooker, cover well with water and cook with the little party hat hissing and jiggling for about 35 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the pressure reduce on its own. Either way, resist the temptation to add salt at this point. There will be plenty of time later to do that – in a more precise manner. You want the beans to be cooked completely (soft).

Drain the beans. Personally I do not rinse the beans further. Some folks insist this reduces the intestinal gas-inducing nature of them, but I prefer to keep some of the flavorful “bean liquor” that clings to the beans even after draining them. (Back in the States there was a product called “Beano” [http://www.beanogas.com/default.aspx] that you could add to eliminate the gas issue. If you know where to find that here in Brazil, by all means post a comment.)

Now mash the beans. I use a simple potato masher, but if you like really, really smooth refried beans you can put them in a food processor and go for it. Mash well. I generally add the butter at this point. The beans, as you mash them, will become rather thirsty. The butter keeps thing emulsified until I am done mashing.

Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions, garlic, cumin and ½ tsp. salt. Cook over low heat until onions are translucent. Add green pepper, cover and simmer 5 – 8 minutes. Add the mashed beans plus the rest of the salt. (I might actually slip in a little hot sauce at this point as well.) Mix well.

Here is where the “refried” part comes in. Simmer the beans over low heat. Add about ¼ cup water and stir well. The beans will absorb the liquid. You want to add small amounts of water, stirring well to totally incorporate the liquid. Let the beans simmer and absorb the water – while at the same time you are simmering off the excess liquid. Work this little dance for a half hour or so until you get the texture you like. Adjust seasoning. (I should add that my beans come from a personal vegetarian tradition, way back when. You may want to add some diced bacon back when you cook the onions.)

GROUND BEEF

Not everyone wants ground beef on their Nachos, but I have a husband who does not consider a meal without meat a real meal. So I add a layer of sautéed hamburger.

1 ½ lbs ground beef

¾ cup chopped onion

2 cloves crushed garlic

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground pepper

A little olive oil

Sauté all that up and set aside.

CHEESE

Given the lack of cheddar cheese I use a nice big hunk of Quiejo Prato, grated. Set aside.

DANIELLE'S NOTE: Queijo Reino is a great (albiet expensive) substitute for cheddar. When I make Mexican food, I mix queijo reino with mozzarella.

SALSA

Here is where your imagination can run wild. You can make a simple tomato-centric salsa or you can branch out into the world of mango or pineapple salsas. Google them. Follow your bliss.

For a basic, traditional fresh salsa check out this tried and true, simple, tasty recipe. Note: this is a warm puréed salsa, not a chunky cold salsa much like a “vinaigrette” served here in Brazil. We’re talking old school.

2 large yellow onions, peeled and sliced in half

8 – 10 peeled garlic cloves

4 tomatoes, stems removed, cut in half

1 green pepper, cored, sliced in half lengthwise

Hot peppers (whatever you can find) a few or a lot depending on your taste, sliced in half lengthwise, seeds removed

½ cup shopped cilantro

1 lime

Salt and pepper

A little olive oil

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking pan and place everything but the cilantro, salt and pepper, face down, on the pan. Bake for (oh, I don’t know) 40 minutes or so, less if your vegetables are cut smaller. Cook until everything is pretty pooped, soft and roasted. If your hot chili peppers are small, remove them sooner than the other ingredients during this stage but be sure they get roasted. Everything should smell great.

Place everything into a food processor and pulse until you get the texture you are after. Do not over-purée. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in cilantro to taste. Drizzle with some fresh lime juice.

GUACAMOLE

Here is a basic guacamole recipe which can be modified to make it chunkier or smoother, depending on your taste.

2 ripe medium-large avocadoes, mashed

Juice of two small limes

1 small, finely chopped red onion

2 – 3 cloves crushed garlic

1 diced red or yellow pepper (I think green peppers are too bitter for this purpose, but they are usable.)

1 medium tomato, seeded, diced

½ tsp. salt (more to taste)

Chili powder and black pepper to taste (or use molha da pimenta)

Mix it all together and correct seasoning to your taste. Chill before serving.

To add some chunky heartiness consider adding a chopped hard-cooked egg, a small, peeled, chopped, seeded cucumber, or some chopped green olives.

To smooth it out a bit add some quality mayonnaise or coalhada, or yogurt.

NACHOS

To assemble your Nachos use an oven-safe serving platter. Arrange a thick layer of corn chips on the platter. Top them with your heated, refried beans. Then spread some heated ground beef mixture over the beans. Top this with a healthy layer of grated cheese. Now place just a little salsa atop the cheese. You will have an opportunity to add more salsa later.

Put the now mounded platter into a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes or so to melt the cheese. Remove from the oven and spread your fabulous guacamole over the whole thing.

Serve hot with the remaining salsa at hand, and hopefully with more guacamole and chips handy as well.

Don’t forget the cold beer!

P.S. My experience cooking Nachos and all the various parts therein has been informed by the Moosewood Cookbook, which I first discovered 30 years ago while living in a vegetarian housing cooperative. It’s still one of my favorite wedding presents.

How I Make Beans

2010-07-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

So if you're reading this, there's a good chance you live in Brazil, and an even greater chance that, even if you don't live here, you know how to make beans, Brazil style. But per Jim's request, I'm posting the way I make beans, just in case it can help anyone out.

My personal bean recipe is a combination of lessons from 3 different Brazilian women, internet recipes, and personal preference. Making beans is time-consuming, but not that difficult.

Before you read what I do, check out Julie's recipe (she uses black beans and adds bacon), and then, when you're ready to start your own beans, check out this website, which has helpful pictures and tips on getting started.

Most people prefer to cook beans with the pressure cooker, because it's faster, but my pressure cooker is broken. The only change to the recipe is that you leave them cooking for a long time and stir them occasionally.

And now, my bean recipe:

You will need:

1. 2 cups of beans! I buy feijão carioca here.
2. A couple of tablespoons of cooking oil
3. About 1/3 of an onion (a Brazilian-sized onion, so like 1/5 of a giant American onion)
4. A couple teaspoons of garlic (I use alho picado in the little tub. I actually prefer it to regular garlic because, duh, it's already chopped up and ready to go, but also because it's not as harsh and overpowering as fresh garlic)
5. 1 caldo de frango (chicken bullion) cube (I'm addicted to these things, if you haven't noticed by now)
6. A bit of cilantro
7. A lot of salt and pepper

What I do:

1. I soak the beans for at least 5 hours. Julie says that she has had success boiling them when she forgets to soak them, but I didn't have much luck with that. Soak them with 3 parts water to 1 part beans, at least. You can't soak them in too much water, but you can soak them in not enough water. They expand, ok?

2. I drain the soaked beans and wash them off.

3. When I'm ready to cook the beans, I put the oil in the pot with all of the ingredients except for the beans. The portions are pretty much your preference. If you like a lot of garlic, put more. If you don't like it, put less. You can add in whatever spices or seasonings that you like. The possibilities are endless. There are no rules, really.

4. I fry up the ingredients for just a few minutes to heat everything up, and then I add in the beans. I mix the still-uncooked beans with all the things in the pot so that everything is spread around with the beans and not stuck to the bottom. Some websites say that adding salt at this point is bad and dries out the beans, but I've tried adding salt at all different points in the recipe, and I don't notice a difference.

5. Then I add in the water. Again, it's about 3 parts water to 1 part beans. It's better to add too much than not enough, because you can drain it, or you can leave it (if you're one of those people who like a lot of liquid with the beans... I'm not, so I usually put in a little less than 3 parts water, especially if I have 2 cups of beans instead of 1).

6. I mix up the water and the beans and add a bunch of salt and pepper.

7. Then I leave the beans to cook, stirring occasionally. The site above has guidelines for how long to expect to spend cooking the beans based on the type of bean, whether or not you have a pressure cooker, and how much you're cooking.

8. As you're cooking, taste the beans every once in a while to see if you need any more seasonings and to see if they're soft enough. You'll know when they're ready. That's kind of why I prefer cooking beans in a regular pan-- you can check on it without possibly dying. (However, I've never made beans with a pressure cooker that wasn't broken, so maybe I'll prefer it once I buy a good one.)

That's it! Enjoy! Please share your variations and preferences!

Roasted Chicken, All By Myself!

2010-07-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

I am so proud of myself. This was our dinner last night:

That's right, folks! I roasted a chicken, all by myself. Well, Alexandre helped a bit. He had the smart idea of putting the chicken breast-side up, and he gave some tips (i.e. told me which things he didn't want, like "not too much garlic!"). The recipe was time consuming, but was actually surprisingly easy.

I followed this recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Roasted-Herb-Chicken--Potatoes/Detail.aspx
You may see my picture, because I submitted it. :)
I changed the recipe a bit because our oven is so tiny. Since I had to cook it for 2 hours, I turned the pan around after 1 hour. At the 1-hour mark, we also added some more sauce (just a mix of soy sauce and water) to make it more juicy.

The recipe has one sauce (which, when roasting chicken, is apparently called a "rub"), which I made and used, but I found a recipe for another rub that I mixed in, too (I'm all about extra sauces and spices!). This is the other recipe for the rub (ignore the weird picture): http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rosemary-Garlic-Rub/Detail.aspx

If you've never roasted a chicken before, this page has tips on preparing the chicken beforehand (like soaking it in salt water, which is called "brining"): http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Roasting-Chicken/Detail.aspx

We enjoyed our chicken and potato mix with champagne, Italian bread, and a not-so-yummy olive oil sauce that I tried to make. I was trying to remember a friend's recipe, but I did something wrong. When I get the real one, I'll put it here.

The only problem is that it makes a LOT of chicken for only 2 people. Looks like we're gonna be eating chicken and potatoes all week. You may even say that, by the end of the week, we'll be.... chickened out! har har har.

If anyone has any tips, let me know! I'll try again next time we have company.