Day 14 - Honduras and Bosnia-Herzegovina - World Cup Eating Challenge

I hope I don't offend anyone, but I'm only referring to it as Bosnia from here on out...

Anyways, I'm starting to break a little bit. This challenge has been super fun but Wednesday I had a case of nothing-is-turning-out-the-way-I-want-it-to and let's just say that I really need the break between group stage and the first knockout round. After two straight weeks, I'm excited that I'll get some spaces between rounds from here on out.

In addition to the struggles that come with trying out a new recipe most days, I've also been going grocery shopping almost every day. I know that can be chalked up to poor planning, but this past week I've really tried to wait it out and see what teams get knocked out before deciding on my recipe. It's helped me maximize country exposure but grocery shopping can come with all sorts of frustrations and between dealing with cat calls from supermarket employees, inefficient cashiers, trouble finding rare ingredients, or just staring down an aisle of corn flours trying to get the right one (I did not...) - I'm a little over the grocery store.

Anyways, moving rapidly forward to the food and not so much of my griping. This is going to be a picture/ word post hybrid because about half way through cooking everything went wrong and I could not manage pictures also.

My original plan was to make this tilapia recipe. I was thinking of doing a healthier version that just used the spice flavors and not frying it. However, after doing my ab challenge for the day and running 2.5 miles, I realized I hadn't had red meat in a couple of days and wanted some steak. I did a little search while doing my walk cool down to the store and saw that carne asada was a good option for Honduras. Done! Carne Asada is actually something I make at home quite often so I knew exactly what to do. 

This is probably the only worthwhile feature of G+

I normally just season my carne asada with a mix of spices, but I had just flipped through The Paleo Kitchen and saw they had a carne asada marinade. I was already home at this point so I adapted it to what I already had available - garlic, olive oil, cilantro, and tons of lime. Then I tried to get the perfect picture of lime squeezing (btw if you don't have one of those tools and love citrus - GET ONE). My phone automatically backs up all my photos to Google. This is awesome because it's super easy to then grab them for this blog. The other awesome side effect is that Google will sometimes decide to "auto awesome" some of my photos. They've taken to making gifs out of any series of matching photos I have. It's kind of my new favorite thing.

Anyways, I put all those delicious things in the food processor until it was a nice chunky mess. It maybe could have used more oil and garlic and less lime but I'm not complaining. 

I then put that pretty green sauce all over my steaks and stuck them in the fridge. 

Featuring the smallest avocados ever

I took this opportunity to prep my avocado mango salsa also. This is pretty similar to the one I made for Ecuador last week with a couple of tweaks. There was a better avocado - mango balance, a little more lime, some cilantro, and no tomatoes. I thought it turned out a lot better. I could go either way with the tomatoes but the extra lime and cilantro made it feel more like a salsa. 

Here's a finished picture for you because things are really going to start falling apart soon. Boy, was I happy that I made this early...

So probably the most Honduran thing I saw when looking for recipes was pupusas. They're made of corn so definitely not Paleo but I'm ok with cheating in order to try something from another culture and they're still gluten free! So originally I was just going to do cheese like in the recipe. However, as I mentioned above, my workout had me hungrier for meat than a Velociraptor in Jurassic Park (Bam - this post has a gif and Velociraptors. I told you guys there was room for improvement!) so I tried to figure out a meat option that I could add to them without making too much more work for myself and would still feel Latin. Obviously, the solution was chorizo. Another good option would be pulled pork but that's about 10 hours of slow cooking time that I didn't have so chorizo it was!

The ingredient I knew would be the hardest to find would be the harina de masa. I had a roommate once who was a pro at making tamales and she'd said she had no problem finding the harina de masa at the nearby Latin grocery store. It took me a while to come close but I finally found the aisle with harina de maiz. My Spanish isn't perfect but I knew both those words meant corn so that was probably the same ingredient right? WRONG. Back at home I just could not get the consistency to feel right. There was no way I was going to make this follow what the directions were telling me to do. 

It was too late to go back to the store so I made it work... ish. I was able to make the corn meal I had into some crumbly patties and put the chorizo, cheese, and cilantro filling on it then sprinkle it with more corn meal and gently scrap them into the pan. The pan frying in avocado oil was enough to get them to crisp up but they definitely did not have the right texture. I was pretty sad because I was looking forward to these a lot. 

Meanwhile, I was also busy cooking my steaks. Here came another rookie mistake - I overcrowded the pan and didn't let it get hot enough. The trick to carne asada is to cook it hot and fast on each side because it's so thin. Otherwise, the meat gets really chewy. Cooking it fast and hot on each side will sear the outside but leave the inside a tiny bit rare. The first two definitely got a little chewy but the third steak was cooked properly so at least that was ok. Then I cut up some onions and cooked them for a couple of minutes on the hot meat pan so they'd still be mostly raw but get some meat flavor. I feel like that and the salsa were the only things I didn't mess up in some way.

I also had an extra mango so I processed it and mixed it with some lime juice and tequila for a little mango margarita. There was accidentally a little cilantro in there since I only rinsed out the processor from the marinade so in the end every single aspect of the dish had cilantro in it. Cilantro goes a long way - for $0.50 it had a big part in all areas of my dish and I only used half of the bunch. No wonder it's so prominent in Latin dishes!

Dinner ended up tasting ok despite all of my missteps. I obviously know it could have been better but I was so hungry and tired and frustrated by that point that I was happy to have some delicious food. It also made a pretty good bunch of leftover meals the next day.

I still wasn't done though... I really wanted to make something for Bosnia as well. I've become a big fan of doing two countries at once and when I found this Bosnian cake recipe - I knew it would be a great dessert that I could easily make paleo. That would be if, you know, I knew the actual way to make paleo substitutions for baking. Guess there was still time to make more cooking errors in one night!

So here are my modifications and the corresponding judgement error:

1. I replaced cooking oil with coconut oil. Coconut oil is amazing for baking and totally natural. I love it. Guess what though? It's way oilier than normal oil. I used a 1:1 replacement ratio. I ended up taking a cake out of the oven that was literally drowning in oil. I had to hold it over the sink and pour out the extra oil. Hmm.. I just tried looking for information on how much to actually use and it says 1:1 is correct so maybe this was just a really oily recipe. Either way, it could have used half the oil.
2. I put in wayyy more coconut. This wasn't an error, it was actually awesome. I've done enough paleo baking to know that a recipe like this with no "flour" can turn out to be overly eggy. Maybe that's how they like it in Bosnia, but I like something a little more cakey. It was clear that the coconut flakes were the "flour" so I decided to make it more of a star. Who knows, maybe this added to my oil issue but I don't care, coconut is delicious.
3. I added honey to the cake as a sweetener. I maybe but a tad too much but this was also a nice addition since the cake otherwise didn't have a sweet element in it and would have been more of a bread. Probably the real error was also putting honey on top of it since there was supposed to be sugar in the frosting.
4. Everything about my frosting was a disaster. I decided to use coconut milk instead of heavy cream. I was certain I'd heard that you could whip coconut milk. So I take to aggressively beating my coconut milk... nothing much happening. I decide to take out the hand mixer... and it seems to thicken but definitely no where near the "stiff peaks" needed. I then turn to the interwebs for more instructions. It turns out you can whip coconut milk. It suggests only using the fatty part and not the watery part. That was fine - I was using full fat coconut milk so even though it was too late to worry about the separation, it should have had minimal coconut water. It also suggested the can be chilled. It was too late for that but I stuck my bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes to cool it down then went back at it with my hand mixer. It definitely got a little thicker but I was still a long way away. Maybe it was just too warm in the apartment but at this point it was almost 11pm and I was pretty tired of all my mishaps. I just poured my liquid coconut milk over a piece of cake and dribbled on some honey and called it a day. 

So ugly it's delicious

Despite everything, the cake was really tasty. Definitely a little oily, very coconuty (not a bad thing), and very ugly. I'm hoping now that my cream has been in the fridge over night I can go home and fix up the rest of the cake. 

Next up - Portugal!!

Day 13 - Italy - World Cup Eating Challenge

I've had a recipe for Italy in my back pocket since I started this thing, but I keep moving my "Italy" day becasue I was certain they'd advance. WRONG. So after spending all day Monday plotting out some English options and spending Tuesday morning debating between fish & chips or a "Sunday" roast, I went to check Fifa... and saw that Italy got eliminated. I'd like to tell you that I then spent a few hours debating between Italy and England but I won't lie to you. I wasn't planning on doing Italy yet, but there is no way I was going to pass it up.

Also... I had so much fun making the picture post the other day that I decided to take a million pictures for this one too. I really like these so I think they'll be popping up a little more often the next few weeks. All the pictures!!!

Since everything comes from Pinterest, it won't surprise you that my back pocket Italy recipe came from an awesome Pin I saw. I was following it mostly from memory so there were some changes but that's the fun thing about Pinterest - it's often just a nice Pinsperation and I can take the idea and make it my own. Anyways, this was a recipe for spaghetti squash in butter with Parmesan and parsley. The first step with spaghetti squash is always to bake it to soften up the inside. You can nuke it too but I think part of the skill of cooking is using down time to prep other parts of the meal. The microwave feels like cheating unless I'm in a rush or heating up leftovers. The squash needs to cook for about 40 minutes at 350 in about an inch of water so I stuck it in the oven and got cracking on the rest of dinner. 

Since the "pasta" part of this dish was going to be pretty heavy, I thought it would be great to have a little side salad. When I think of Italian salads, Caprese instantly comes to mind. I thought I'd take it to a slightly fresher level by deconstructing it and adding some spinach to make it a little bit of a leafier, greener salad. Before we get to the healthy stuff though, we started with the most important part of caprese - lots of fresh mozzarella! 

For tomatoes, I used these lovely greenish Kumatos. They're like the watermelon of tomatos but they have an amazing flavor. They're a little less acidic than a normal tomato so they are really good for just snacking on. I also used vine tomatoes to fill in the salad.

For greens, I used spinach and of course, basil. You can't have caprese without basil, but the spinach was my little addition to make it fresher. I also have a ton of veggies in my fridge. I did my bi-weekly produce order before thinking about this challenge and a lot of veggies haven't overlapped with the countries I was doing. It's sad though, because my veggies (which I get from Front Door Farms) are always fresh and awesome. 

I tossed the mozzarella, tomatoes, spinach, and basil together and sprinkled pepper on top. It looked awesome, but most of the tomatoes and cheese are on the bottom. 

My plan was to dress it in balsamic and olive oil. I did this on the plate though because I didn't want the salad to get soggy in the bowl. Balsamic is a great healthy salad topping. I always make sure to check the ingredients though because a lot will slip in additives or food coloring. My olive oil is from Campovida where I am a member of their wine club. I also opted in for olive oil and honey and they are awesome. 

Now that the salad was done, it was time for the squash to come out of the oven. 

When spaghetti squash is cooked, you can use a fork to scrape it out and it comes out in strings that look like... spaghetti! It's a popular healthy alternative to noodles if it's done right. 

Next, it was time to prep the other ingredients starting with fresh parsley.

For butter, I use Kerrygold grassfed butter. It's delicious and a little leaner than normal butter. I love it and they sell it at the best place ever - Costco.

...which is also where I got this tub of Parmesan cheese. I would like to tell you it lasts a long time but in my household, we love cheese so it really doesn't. 

I sauteed the noodles in the butter. 

And then added the parsley and a heaping handful of cheese... and then another handful of cheese after I took this picture. I maybe went overboard on the cheese. Cheese is awesome though so it's ok. 

Of course any good Italian dinner needs some wine. I pulled out this lovely Babera from Imagery. The lightness and acidity of it was great with my cheesey awesome dinner. 

It all came together so well! The pasta was a little heavy so next time I think I'd put a little less cheese, but the fresh Caprese salad was perfect to balance it out. I also realized that there was no meat in this. I'm a true carnivore so I was shocked it took me halfway through dinner to realize there was no meat. I think the pasta would have been AWESOME with some panchetta and it definitely would have made it more filling. 

Day 12 - Spain - World Cup Eating Challenge

I can honestly say that this World Cup has had a lot of surprises. I really thought Spain was going to make it out of group stage so I wasn't planning on attempting Paella until much later in the cup. This last round of group stage games has led me to do a lot of shuffling and I'm kind of sad about some of the countries that I'm going to have to skip. Luckily, I was able to shuffle my plans and get Spain in.

I had already been planning on having a couple of friends over for dinner. When I saw my country options, I immediately knew I was going to do a big Brazilian black bean stew. However, that clearly didn't work out and nobody minded when I said I was switching to Paella.

I scoured Pinterest and settled on the recipe I thought would be the most authentic. I followed this pretty closely except for a handful of changes. I'm pretty allergic to mussels so those were out. The only chorizo I could find at Safeway was more of a ground chorizo than a sliceable sausage. I thought about switching it out but I really wanted the flavor profile to be the same so I stuck with what I had. I also skipped the saffron. When I saw that it was $20/ bottle, I figured we'd manage without it. The paprika and chorizo both have such strong flavors, it didn't seem like it would matter. In the end, I was right about the chorizo. It kind of broke apart when it was cooked with the rice and really infiltrated it with tons of flavor. There were no discernible meaty chunks but you could taste it throughout. I really love the flavor of chorizo so this made me super happy.

I have always loved Paella so I'm really pleased that I was able to make it on my own and that it came out so tasty. I'm also pretty happy with the cost. This ended up being one of the more expensive dishes but I know I could make it again with a much lower cost. Half of the expense was just seafood and I would be totally happy just making it with shrimp. I actually ended up buying too much broth and rice so I have more than enough to make this dish again. All I would need to buy are more shrimp, chorizo, and another bell pepper. I could definitely round all of that up for about $12. That's definitely not bad for how much is made. It fed all four of us easily with enough for me to take leftovers.

My guests also brought a salad which went really well with it. Paella is pretty heavy so having fresh veggies on the side helped a ton.

So honestly... how soon is too soon to make this again?

Day 11 - Belgium and USA... again... - World Cup Eating Challenge

 In my blog writing history, there's something I haven't done too often but I really, really love.... a picture post! Sunday I had one of those days where I took pictures of everything. I was probably the most annoying person on Instagram and Facebook but the end result was a lot of fun pictures... and a gif. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to go through my awesome day of eating by telling you a story in pictures. A pictory.... or something.

I really love any sort of feedback I get from my blogs. I see stat numbers but I don't really get a sense of people's reception unless I get comments or responses. So when my friend Caroline tweeted me a suggestion, I was really excited. She said that if Belgium and the USA play each other, I should do chicken and waffles. I was already planning waffles for Belgium, but I noticed the USA played the same day. It was an awesome idea and I was totally down. So here's the step by step of how I had a totally paleo friendly chicken and waffle breakfast.

Step 1 was definitely getting my chickens all coated. The best paleo flour replacement is tapioca flour. I'd already used it in a few other recipes and I knew that it would make the best crust for the chicken. This is loosely based off of the Nom Nom Paleo Food 4 Humans chicken nugget recipe. The main variation is that she brines the chicken overnight to give it flavor. I really prefer putting seasoning directly in the flour. I feel like this gives the most flavor. 

I used almond milk as the binder. My chickens got a nicely milky bath and then rolled around in the tapioca flour until they would good and covered. This had the negative side of effect of being ridiculously messy. 

The chickens were now ready for some good new fashioned frying. Paleo forbids canola oil and frankly that stuff is really bad for you. However, you need an oil that has a high heat otherwise it will burn. The two best options are avocado oil and ghee. Avocado oil is awesome and Costco sells a giant bottle of it for about $10. I happened to be out though so I opted for ghee. Ghee is clarified butter. Basically, it's grass fed butter that has had the milk fats removed. In normal butter, the fat burns really easily and (as I've learned from experience) will cause your chicken to burn really easily. You won't get that with ghee or avocado oil so they're awesome for frying. 

Once the chickens looked ready, I let them sit on some paper towels for a while so some of the grease could be absorbed. I probably cooked my chicken way longer than I needed to. Because of the coating, it's hard to tell if they're done. Raw chicken is really not ok so I definitely let them sit in the frying pan for a while. I don't think they tasted overcooked at all and I was happy to eliminate my risk of salmonella.

I seriously love tapioca flour for paleo baking. It's not perfect and there are definitely times when almond or coconut flour work better but it's great to have around. Trust me, I'm stocked up. I've seen it around in stores more and more frequently but this sucker came from Amazon. I get a lot of my paleo dry goods there. 

And trust me - there are a lot of paleo dry good to stock up on. I'm never without a variety of grain free flours and just about every kind of nut you can think of. 

Next up were the waffles! My friend Shannon had made these Paleomg chocolate waffles for Easter last year so I looked up the recipe as well. I thought that it wouldn't make a lot of waffles and my boyfriend is a big eater so I decided to double the recipe. I figured that if we had leftovers I could bring them to work for breakfast.

I remembered that Shannon said they were a little dry and she put extra something in them to remedy that. I figured she must have meant milk so I used a whole can of coconut milk instead of the 2/3 called for. I also put in a cup of almond milk. The almond milk helped a lot but it wasn't quite right for the waffles. I think adding more liquid was the key but putting more coconut milk would have been a better solution. Even with that, the waffles were still a little dry and definitely soak up syrup.

After I was done waffling, we had a ton of them. I've been eating waffles for three days now and there are still two in the fridge. I'm going to be waffled out soon!

Breakfast was pretty amazing though! I don't eat a lot of carbs so while I usually have a plate full of food, it ends up being 1/3 meat and 2/3 veggies. This was waayyyy more filling than that. I only actually ate half of the above and even after a 3 mile run, I was not hungry.

For an extra touch of Belgium, I also found this gluten free Belgium lager at Whole Foods. The label proclaimed that it was grain free, gluten free, soy free, and a million other things. I'm honestly not really sure what was left for it to be made of. I'm guessing it was made quite a bit like a cider though. It tasted like a mix between a lager and pear cider so it was probably cider plus hops. I liked it but probably wouldn't buy it again.

Then it was time to get ready and head out to watch the USA game. I was really happy about my patriotic sweater so I told Dan to take a bunch of pictures of me. Google turned them into a gif which was pretty awesome and creepy at the same time. The Googles are becoming pretty self aware and it's frightening. 

Before we left though, we had a ton of fun getting silly kitty pictures. Cats are so ridiculous. 

We had a really fun time watching the USA game even if it didn't end quite the way we wanted to. A friend organized a viewing party so at least we had great company and it was close enough that we walked home. I kept wanting to stop in bars on the way back but Dan talked some sense into me... until we passed the Folsom Street Foundry. It's an event space / bar near our apartment that's never open... and it was open so we stopped in for a drink...

And saw the best wine menu ever. I mean, it would be better if there was more selection but I was tipsy and it was in the shape of a wine glass so I was incredibly amused.

Sunday was a super fun day for us both in and out of the kitchen. Hopefully I go camera crazy a little more often so you can have more picture posts!

Day 10 - Iran - World Cup Eating Challenge

Growing up, my family didn't go out to eat a lot. My mom is a great cook and we regularly had home cooked dinners, but when we did go out, we often went out for Persian food. It was pretty interesting when I got to college and wasn't familiar with Thai or Indian food like my friends. Persian restaurants weren't too common around Berkeley so it really faded from memory... until I was looking up Iranian recipes. It completely skipped my mind that Iran is Persia and that these would be the same cuisine. I decided to take a trip back in time and go out to dinner at a Persian restaurant.

I was really happy to find one that was nearby my apartment - Anar Restaurant. I was going to an event in that area that day anyways so it all worked out perfectly.

One of my favorite dishes of all time, is really well made tatziki. While I know this is Greek, I was really excited to see a similar yogurt dish on their menu. I ordered it as a starter and my friend Scott got a roasted eggplant dish. They were both really good on the flat bread and the yogurt went really well with my main dish too.

I decided to keep it really basic and get a chicken and lamb kebab plate. It was so good and I loved the Persian rice. It was something I remembered a lot from my childhood trips to Persian restaurants and I was happy it still tasted great. The only thing I would change would be to put a little less rice and a few more vegetables. This might not be too authentic but even one more tomato would have been really appreciated. Scott and Dan ordered a pomegranate chicken that I stole a couple of bites of and it as really good as well. The servers even gave us a bottle of the pomegranate sauce to take home.

I was a little shocked at how empty the restaurant was. We did go right when it opened  but we didn't see anyone aside from the servers. Apparently it's only been open a few weeks and  there are definitely some opening pains. The don't have any sort of alcohol permits yet and obviously they haven't gotten the word out. I'm hoping some more people stumble upon this place though as it does have great Persian food.

Day 9 - Ecuador and Switzerland - World Cup Eating Challenge

Friday my friend Scott was coming over for dinner and copious amounts of wine so I was excited to find a fun dish to make. I also had a great plan for dessert. Pinterest has really been my crutch through all of this so I used it to try to nail down the night's dinner. I searched for Ecuadorian, Honduran, and Costa Rican recipes and came across one for Chicha Chicken that looked amazing.

The recipe recommended marinating the chicken in chicha sauce but I was unable to find any so I went with the back up plan of orange juice and white wine. I also decided to make some of the sides recommended. Plantains were an easy and clear choice. It also suggested mango or avocado so I made a little side salad of those fruits.

All of it was so delicious. I would definitely make that chicken again in a heart beat. Being Brazilian, fried plantains were pretty common in our house. My mom tended to make them with cinnamon and sugar and serve them as more of a dessert. I did season mine with a little cinnamon but they definitely were not sweet. They were actually amazing with a little bit of sea salt.

The "salad" was of course amazing. It's tough to go wrong with mango or avocado and it gave a real tropical feel to the dinner.

For dessert - I decided to do a little Swiss fondue. I'm pretty guilty of online impulse shopping and the fondue set was part of a flash sale that I had eagerly participated in. Even though I've had it for years, I've never used it so when I was thinking up a Swiss dish, I knew this would be perfect. We easily plowed through a bag of Enjoy Life chocolate chips and two packs of strawberries while drinking wine and watching Lost. It was definitely an amazing dinner and a really fun night.

Things got pretty weird after all that...

Day 8 - Japan - World Cup Eating Challenge

Day 8 was a true case of my best laid plans gang aft a-gley...

When I thought of this challenge, one of my first plans was to find a way to work sushi in. I knew this would be a little difficult on the "cooking" side of things though. Ironically, not for the reason you would suspect. Most people think of sushi and figure it would be really hard to make the rolls. I actually took a class on how to do this and fashioning some temaki, nigiri, or maki doesn't worry me so much. However, I have a lot of concerns about the quality of raw fish I'm eating. I just don't feel comfortable that the fish I buy at the supermarket would be high enough quality to eat raw and I wasn't feeling like doing the fake fish California roll thing.

But I had a plan! I saw an idea on Pinterest for a tuna plate with a side of avocado. I currently had 5 avocados at home (down from 8) as a result of poor planning and sales at Whole Foods so I thought this would be perfect.

My solution for the raw fish was great too. At Costco they sell cut up raw tuna with different sauces and things. I felt more comfortable with this than cutting my own raw fish and it felt like a healthy alternative. However - once I got to the tuna stand, I knew this wasn't going to work. There were four options for the tuna and they were all drenched in sauce. The only one that didn't look too bad was a wasabi flavor which I'm not a fan of. I was pretty disappointed but at this point I was hungry and I wanted some sushi so I decided just to get a pre-made sushi roll package.

While pre-made sushi doesn't compare to getting it fresh at a restaurant, I actually really like it. It's one of my favorite grab and go meals and they are typically pretty affordable. This one only set me back $11 and it was huge. I normally don't eat a lot of rice but I like to make an exception for sushi. It really does bind the rolls together and in moderation, I don't think it's that bad. I'd had a huge workout on Wednesday and I knew my body could handle the extra carbs and calories.

So Costco - you kind of let me down yesterday but you also came back with the save. Just to show that there were no hard feelings, I made sure to buy a new cook book (The Paleo Kitchen - so excited!) and a pack of cider. Ok, I did those things for me.

Day 7 - Cameroon - World Cup Eating Challenge

Once the ball got rolling on this challenge, I realized how fun it would be to really branch out and try something I wasn't at all familiar with. I scoured the internet for Cameroonian and Ivory Coast recipes. A lot of dishes involved some heavy stews and dishes that not only wouldn't be enjoyable in summer but also would require a lot of ingredients that would be difficult for me to get together.

However, I was really excited to find a recipe for Cassava Fries. Cassava, also known as yucca or tapioca, was definitely something I'd seen at my local Hispanic market and I remember enjoying yucca fries in Brazil once. I also thought it was cool that these two different continents, South America and Africa, both used this ingredient in so many of their dishes. This was definitely the way to go for me.

The yucca itself is actually pretty difficult to work with. You have to peel the thick brown skin off. It's a little sticky and doesn't smell amazing. From there, it needs to be cut into chunks and boiled for 10-20 minutes until it's more tender.

When it was soft to knife point, I made sure any extra rind was off and also cut out the vein that runs through it. I cut it into fry strips and heated up my grease.

My recipe recommended lard or fat over oil so I used duck fat. The first batch got to the "golden brown color" the recipe said to look for but they didn't really feel done for me yet. I cooked them all longer until they looked more burnt than done. 

My issue with the fries wasn't flavor - they taste fine and I really liked my seasoning of garlic salt, chili powder, and paprika. However, the inside of them has a kind of gumminess that I know is typical for tapioca. I just could not get over the texture and only ate a few of the fries. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away though because it felt ironic to waste a dish from Africa even if it was very inexpensive to make. If anyone wants some cassava fries - I have a whole bunch I could give you. 

Back in the day when I was really experimenting with cooking and wasn't as comfortable with techniques and seasoning and how different products act when cooked, I had a theory that about half of the recipes I tried would work. It's been a while since I thought of that because cooking with high quality products and fresh produce has made it really easy for me to try new things with great results. However, this challenge is definitely pushing me outside of the box and closer to that 50% mark. After not loving these fries or my mac and cheese, I'm happy that Day 8 is taking me back out to a pre-made product.

Day 6 - Korea - World Cup Eating Challenge

I can still dress Brazilian!

Changing focus from teams that are winning and my favorite teams has really shaken up my schedule. My original plan had been to take every opportunity to make Brazilian dishes. However, I realized that would mean I'd miss some opportunities for other teams. Therefore, Tuesday became Korean day and next week I'm taking up my last chance to make Paella. It's funny how this challenge has really evolved from "I want to make Brazilian food" to truly eating globally for a few weeks.

One of the things I really wanted to do was try to cook as many of the dishes as possible. I've been spending quite a bit of time on Pinterest looking up recipes. However, it became clear that for some of the countries, the amount of items I'd have to purchase to even make a simple dish would just be very prohibitive or I didn't feel confident that I'd hit the mark. I realized that there were some instances where I'd be much better off just grabbing a bite out.

So I was very happy when I saw that Seoul on Wheels was going to be at the Soma Streat Food Park on Tuesday. It was perfect - I could go grab a bite of Korean food and watch some of the Brazil - Mexico game in the sun.

Seoul on Wheels, like many popular food trucks, has taken ethnic food and incorporated it into more casual dishes like tacos, burgers, and fries. I was hoping for something a little more traditional so I tried ordering dumplings but they were all out. There were other items like kimchee and rice bowls that I could have opted for as well but I wasn't in the mood for them so I settled on tacos.

I got short rib and chicken tacos and they were really good. The short rib was a dollar extra and had a lot of fat and cartilage left despite being boneless. I think I would have preferred trading that out for another meat option. The chicken, however, was amazing. Both tacos had great sauces and flavor and they were perfect for a light lunch.

Phew, I was really worried there

While I have your attention, I also just want to sing the praises of the Soma Streat Food Park. When it came into my neighborhood a couple of years ago, it was so hard to not try to go there every day. It's such a convenient dining option and perfect for groups with varying tastes. Dan and I love watching football there on Sundays with some bottomless mimosas and watching a bit of the World Cup there provided a similar experience. I actually couldn't believe how crowded it was for a weekday. Definitely check it out!