Wine Wednesdays: What does the T-Rex Drink?, Stop the Press, and Comic Wining

One of the many things I talked about doing now that the World Cup Challenge is over, is Wine Wedenesdays! The idea is to give you a glimpse of some of the wine (and sometimes more) that I enjoyed the week before. Because I'm not perfect and I'd like to break these posts into themes, I'm not going to define "a week." It might be Sunday-Sunday. It might be Tuesday-Tuesday. It might be Tuesday-Sunday. It might be one day. The posts will vary in length and detail. Basically the only thing that will be consistent is the name and that I'll talk about wine.

What Does the T-Rex Drink??

Completely unrelated to wine - I kind of love the T-Rex. It started because I bought a workout tank top that says "T-Rex hates push ups." I realized this is one of the many things that we have in common - hatred of push ups, love of meat, and arms that sometimes just aren't as long as you want them to be. The T-Rex and I are soul sisters. I've since expanded my T-Rex shirt collection and it's a little bit of a running joke with me and my boyfriend.

So when I was sent a sample bottle of wine called Carnivor as a sample, I was just elated. It's not too often (I mean, it happens but
not frequently) that I fall in love with a wine because of its name. However, the meat eater in me was really excited to try it.

The wine itself was very nice. Carnivor is a Cabernet Sauvignon. A lot of times these can be very overpowering but this one was a little smoother which was very nice. I paired it with a steak and potatoes dinner which also helped to temper the intensity of the wine. I don't drink a lot of big bold wines but when I do, I take advantage of how well they go with super meaty dishes. It felt especially appropriate to have a big hunk of red meat with a wine called Carnivor. Normally, my wine pictures also include whatever I paired it with but the meat eater in me couldn't wait to eat all of the steak before I remembered to take a picture. Oops!

Carnivor 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon  $15.00

Stop the Press

While drinking wine at home is really fun, drinking wine out and about can be even better. My buddy Natalie and I were long overdue for a wine date so we decided to meet up for a couple of glasses before I took off for Comicon. I couldn't think of a better place to go than Press Club, one of my favorite wine bars in San Francisco.

Since I was out with a friend I didn't take any tasting notes and frankly, I was a little more into chatting with her than picking out nuances in my wines but I can post this awesome picture of us wining together and let you know what each of us had.

2011 Nita, Priorat, Spain (Garnacha / Carinena / Cabernet Sauvignon / Syrah) $17 / glass - This was definitely a bigger red than I was hoping for.

2011 Pinot Noir, Estate, Bethel Heights, Eola Amity Hills, Oregon $18 / glass - This was Natalie's first wine. She loves Pinots and was hoping to try something new. The distinct taste of Oregon Pinots wasn't really what she was expecting though.

2011 Minervois, Château Massiac, Languedoc-Roussillon, France (Syrah / Carignan) $11 / glass - I enjoyed this wine way more than my first glass. Carignan is a wine I'm really starting to get into and this blend was really balanced.

The first two glasses we got were a little pricey. Luckily, we slipped them in just before happy hour ended and got $3 off each one. As you can see by their menu, Press Club has a variety of wines at a range of prices. It's a great place to go to try new varietals or unique blends. Unfortunately, most of San Francisco has figured that out as well and it's pretty crowded.

Comic Wining

I was planning on using my Wine Wednesday to talk about some of the wine I had while at Comic Con. Of course, I definitely had a few glasses of vino while on my little nerdcation. Unfortunately, so much of the weekend was a blur and I was exhausted most of the time so most of my glasses of wine were just a way to wind down a little at the end of each day. The only ones I really remember was from a winery that I saw few times on various menus and was able to try two of their wines - Stark Raving Red and Stark Raving Malbec. Once again, I maybe chose these because of the name. I mean, they also seemed like the best options at the bars I was at but the name helped a lot too. In both cases, the wines were not super expense. It seems like you can a whole bottle for about $13. The wines are super drinkable and were great for a tired Nikki that just wanted to relax with a glass of wine. I think these would be great to take to parties. They have a decent price point and a screw top so they are convenient and economical without being super cheap.

Stark Raving Wines $12.99

In addition to wine, I made sure to celebrate National Tequila Day on Thursday. While my drink of choice was just a simple tequila, soda, and lime, the real highlight was that it gave excellent powers of Giant Jenga.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but seriously, I think Giant Jenga is my calling in life. We played for over two hours and 4-5 tequila sodas and I never lost a game. I beat all of my friends and Indiana Jones. I may need to invest in some Giant Jenga blocks for the apartment and keep practicing!

Shuck you! Oysters at Home

Now that the World Cup Eating Challenge is over, I think it will be really fun to keep up food and cooking challenges. I do want to circle back and grab the countries I missed and several others that have great food but crappy soccer. However, after all the new things I tried over the last month, I was feeling a little empowered and wanted to try something that I love but is super expensive to eat out - Oysters.

It started while I was watching Chopped. I get a lot of ideas and kitchen drive from watching cooking challenges so I tend to keep them in the background while I cook. I was cutting up some fruit and I saw they got fresh oysters for the appetizer round. This is like Chopped gold. One chef freaked out because he didn't know how to shuck oysters but he figured it out and they all made awesome dishes. I started craving oysters so badly.

I love San Francisco, but despite being in an area surronded by oysters, they can cost $2-3 each at a restaurant. They are much cheaper at the store... but you have to shuck them yourself....

Challenge Accepted!!!

It took some googling and asking a friend but I figured out that you stick the knife into the muscle of the oyster (at the tip) and push and twist until it comes loose. Then you work the knife around to loosen the shell and pull it off. Some are trickier than others. Oysters are like the snowflakes of the sea - all of them are so different. Figuring out the best place to start was a new challenge for each one.

After opening about two it was time for a wine break. I was feeling like a red but I knew it wouldn't go well with the oysters. Ideally I would need an acidic white. I decided to find a compromise - my friend, William Allen of Two Shepherds' Trousseau Gris. Trousseau Gris is a "gray" grape. It's not really white and it's definitely not red. It can be pressed immediately to make a white wine but a lot of adventurous wine makers are treating it more like a red grape. This gives it a beautiful salmony orange color. As for the taste - it's completely unique. It has the crisp acidity of a great white while having savory elements found in reds. It's one of my favorite wines, but it's definitely hit or miss with the general public. I love seeing what people think about it when I pour it at tastings. 

Isn't this just the prettiest oyster shell you've ever seen?

The biggest oyster I've ever seen.

In the end, it turned out awesome! My hands might be a little tender. My kitchen smells like an ocean. I definitely broke one of the shells. All in all though, this was a great idea. I just got these at Safeway but I would love to go to an oyster shop and actually pick out some high quality oysters next time. Because there will definitely be a next time.

On another note though, a whole lemon was too much lemon but at least it made pretty pictures!

The wine paired perfectly. The lemon was more acidic than the wine so it brought out some of the creamier notes. This wine unexpectedly went through full maloactic fermentation so it was fun to pair it with something that brought that out. The wine is so amazing on its own though that mostly I was happy to have a few glasses when all the oysters were gone.

....because there was still this mess to deal with.

Looking Back on the World Cup Eating Challenge

Now that this challenge is all wrapped up, I wanted to share some thoughts I had along the way. This challenge was really fun for me and the longer I did it, the more excited I was to try new cuisines and experiment in the kitchen. Even though I've enjoyed cooking for many years now, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. I also love cooking competitions and this was a fun little way for me to challenge myself with different constraints. Those are the obvious, over arching takeaways, but there were a lot of little ones too.

1. Grocery Shopping Every Day 

I feel like I inadvertedly started living like I didn't have the convenience of super markets that is common in many countries. It's not unusual for people to go to markets to get items for dinner each day instead of making a big shopping trip every week or two like we tend to do in places where we have cars and can "stock up" at the supermarket. Even some people in New York and San Francisco live in this way, but I've always been the kind of person to make a huge shopping trip and try to stretch things as long as possible. This is great for convenience but it makes it easy to waste things like produce that go bad after a number of days. It also makes it really hard to keep track of the cost of the meal (which we'll get to later). Despite a couple of unpleasant trips to the store, or trouble finding certain ingredients, going to the store every day wasn't that bad. I started becoming more familiar with my markets and I was able to get really ripe items that I could use immediately. It also was a nice way to break up the day and make sure I did something other than work/home/gym.

I think ideally, going every couple of days would be best. The reason I ended up going every day instead of planning ahead was because I was trying to cover as many teams as possible. This allowed me to see the results of the games and allow me to adjust my plans accordingly.

2. The Cost of Meals 

Since I was going to the store just about every day, I was able to really get a feel for how much each meal cost. I tend to buy a ton of things at once. I generally freeze meats and keep a well stocked pantry. This makes it tough to get a feel for how much things cost on an individual level. However, with this challenge, I had a good idea of what everything set me back. In general, each meal cost around $10-20 which isn't two bad considered it easily fed Dan and I (who are both big eaters) and there were generally enough leftovers for another meal or two. There were a few exceptions of course. The yucca for Cameroon was only like $2 (if that) and the seafood dishes were more pricey.

I'd say the least efficient aspect of it was the fact that I was cooking just about every day. This made it hard to always eat our leftovers despite our best efforts. In a more normal situation I think we could stretch out most meals to be our dinner, my lunch, and part of the next night's dinner too making it really go further.

3. Gluten Free / Paleo Alternatives 

I know some people caught on but if you didn't - I really tried to make each meal in a paleo or gluten free way. For some of them like Iran and Algeria, I gave in and had lavash bread because I love it. In general though, it wasn't that hard to either find a recipe that was paleo/gluten-free or to just make my own substitutions. I think the biggest comment I always get is "isn't paleo hard" or "it's so restrictive, I could never give up ____." To that I point out that I made waffles (two different ways), fried chicken, cheesey bread (cheese isn't paleo and I would never give it up), cake, fries, and mac and cheese - all without gluten, most of them paleo. There's an unlimited number of options for dinners, desserts, breakfasts, and sides but sometimes you have to be a little creative. Maybe people don't want to go through the work but it's worth it. The waffles and cupcakes I made for this challenge were easily the best I've ever had. It goes to show that a lot of time dietary "restrictions" can actually be huge improvements to the quality of your eating.

4. Differentiating Similar Countries 

After I'd decided to do this, I sat back and thought about planning and I realized very quickly that there were a lot of countries that I just assumed all had similar cuisine. I was very worried about being able to find things that would feel different while being a very similar type of cuisine. I did reuse a lot of ingredients - corn flour, plantains, mangoes, avocados, etc. - but I tried to use them all in different ways or tweak them from before. It led me to really see a lot of differences and similarities between the countries. This was very poignant in South America. For example, every country has a kind of sauce that's pretty common and it was interesting to see the differences (even if I didn't make them all). Argentina has chimichurri. Uruguay also has chimichurri but it's a little different. Colombia has the Aji sauce that I made which is similar but different from Brazilian molho. It was really fun to find and use the differences to make the countries feel unique despite similar ingredients. It really helped give me a better appreciation for all of the countries.

5. Learning When to Stick to Paleo 

Part of the extra fun and challenge for me was to try to make things paleo that people don't normally think would be possible. Breads, cakes, waffles - all possible. However, beans aren't paleo and there's no way to make them paleo so when I wanted to make black beans, I had to just go for it. I think the best thing about trying to eat healthy and fresh... is to do it with moderation. If you are too strict on yourself, you're just going to feel like you're missing out on things you love. I'm Brazilian and I grew up with black beans so I'm having black beans sometimes. I also love cheese and most times I was great with going gluten-free or mostly paleo and then would add a handful of cheese because cheese is awesome.

6. What to do Next 

In my first post, I talked about how I needed to re-brand my blog and figure out what direction I wanted to take with it. I said that this challenge was outside of all of that and I didn't know what was next. It's funny how these things happen but the challenge helped me figure it out. I love cooking and wine and eating and writing. Writing about just wine was really hard for me. Writing about food and cooking (and the struggles or joys that come with it) alongside wine - that's really fun. I think mixing that in with some of my adventures will be even more fun.

The title of this blog has been "Nikki's Adventures with Wine, Food, Travel," etc... but now I know how to execute that. I want to really focus on cooking globally (which still includes good 'ole American food), the wines and drinks that go with those dishes, and also just international travel and culture. That's not a strict guideline. I'm still a total nerd at heart and I have some ideas for nerdy dishes as well. I just know that this challenge gave me a taste (hehe puns...) of how fun international cooking can be and there are so many countries that weren't in the world cup or didn't get the attention that their food deserved and I want to give it to them.

7. Sharing My Food Journeys 

To everyone who supported and shared and gave amazing feedback to my posts - I really appreciate it. It was really amazing for me to see people I wasn't in a lot of contact with telling me how much they enjoyed this challenge. I had a lot of people tag me in Instagram and Facebook pictures of recipes they borrowed or Paleo inspirations because of all of this and I really loved. It's really helped me decide that this is something I have a lot of passion for and want to continue sharing with everyone! Even though I had a little rant in my last post about some negative feedback I got from someone who didn't even try the food, for that one comment I've gotten a ton of positive ones so thank you friends!

For those that don't know - you can follow me on Instagram/Twitter (content is mostly the same so pick your poison or follow both). My handle is the same as the blog address - @nikkilinc. I post a lot about my daily meals, wines, adventures, and, of course, cats. In real life, I eat a lot stricter paleo (mostly lots of fresh veggies and quality meat) and drink a lot more wine than I think showed up here.

I'm also really active on Pinterest (also @nikkilinc). I got a lot of recipes and inspiration from there and I have a ton of food boards including one just for this challenge so you can see all the ideas I didn't get a chance to use.

8. Future Posts 

Here are the rest of the ideas that I have. Some of the posts are ready to go and you'll see them soon. Others are still brain babies so there are no promises but I'm hoping to get them out as well.

• Shucking oysters at home
• Recent trips - Santa Cruz, State fair, San Diego (and the wine tasting involved)
• Food from the World Cup countries I didn't get to
• Food from countries that aren't good at soccer - China, Thailand, Vietnam, Ireland, Canada, India, etc.
• Wine Wednesdays - short weekly post recapping wines I've tried over the week

I'd love to hear any other suggestions and I look forward to more blog adventures!

Finals - German Chocolate Cupcakes - World Cup Eating Challenge

I just want to start out and apologize this post is so late after the World Cup finished! Excuses suck but I was really sick last week and it was a struggle just to do normal work and chores without having to also figure out how to write words and sound interesting. This week I'm pretty distracted by Comicon planning but if I don't write this post now, I never will.

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I had pretty ambitious plans for Germany. I had thought of ways to do schnitzel and spatzle in a paleo fashion and I'd seen tons of paleo German chocolate cupcake recipes. However, when my plans for the final four settled and I saw I'd be doing Germany the same day I was going to a BBQ, I knew I'd have to reorganize a bit.

The cupcakes would still be a great thing to make for a BBQ. Spatzle sadly wouldn't travel well and is hard to eat/ serve at a BBQ so I skipped that idea. I decided I'd start my cupcakes Saturday night and in the morning I could frost cupcakes while frying schnitzel . I had great plans for a productive morning. I was going to wake up early, go for a 4 mile run, frost cupcakes, make schnitzel , pick up some wine from a wine club and get to the party half an hour before the game started. I woke up an hour late, making frosting takes forever, and it was already 11:30 before we were out the door without schnitzel or running. I'm terrible at figuring how much time it takes to do things.

The good news is the cupcakes were awesome so here goes...

The most important step to making cupcakes is getting your cupcake liners set up. I ordered a bunch of different colored liners from Amazon. This was kind of perfect because I doubt I'll have much use for the red so I was able to use a bunch on these cupcakes. I also probably didn't need to be so precise about alternating the colors since I'm the only one that saw this part but hey, wasn't it pretty?

Now that I had my colored liners in a row, it was time to mix my ingredients. I actually found a ton of Paleo German Chocolate cake/cupcake recipes which was awesome. Paleo baking is pretty easy as there are a lot of alternative flours and sweetners as well as allergen free chocolates. The hard part is frosting. I personally have had some failed attempts with whipping coconut cream frosting but German Chocolate uses a frosting made of pecans and coconut (all paleo) so it naturally lends itself better to being adapted in a paleo version.

I ended up picking this recipe, mostly because it was the prettiest. 

The instructions for these cupcakes were a little more involved than a lot of the other paleo baking I've done. There were a lot of steps that I hadn't had to do for any other recipe and the cupcakes on the surface looked a lot tastier than some of the other things I'd made. I think the creator of them did a great job of making a complicated process straightforward and I wasn't confused at any point on how to execute them all. I ended up doubling the recipe so I could have two dozen cupcakes and it was easy to do that after I'd already started which was nice. 

The next morning (when I woke up to not run or make schnitzel), I started working on the frosting. German Chocolate cake was always one of my favorite things growing up. That says a lot since I really don't like chocolate cake very much. However, I love coconut and so anything covered in coconut pecan caramel can't be bad. Making paleo caramel is pretty fun. I've never made the real stuff but it basically just uses coconut milk and coconut sugar cooked on the stove until it turns into awesome caramely goodness. It looks and smells amazing during the whole process and while it's kind of time consuming, I really like watching the ingredients completely transform before my eyes. 

The next step was to put it all together. Once my caramel was ready and had cooled down, I added the pecans and coconut. I realized my frosting wasn't nearly as pretty as the pictures. I think my coconut was shredded a lot finer so it soaked up more of the caramel and it turned out to be chunkier than the ones from the recipe. 

They tasted awesome though!! As I'd mentioned above, the process to make them was much more involved than other paleo baking I'd done. It really paid off. These were the most moist (sorry to people who hate that word) cupcakes I've ever made, paleo or not. I liked that the use of paleo ingredients lightened up the sweetness of them. Anything bursting with chocolate and sugar and caramel can easily be overly sweet and I'm happy that using the paleo alternatives leveled that out more.

I did have a little bit of a rant at the end of it all though. I took 20 cupcakes to the bbq... and came home with 16. There was definitely a comment thrown out suggesting that things don't taste as good because they are paleo and it's had me really frustrated for the whole week and a half since. Paleo or not - it drives me crazy when people won't even try something. How do you know that they don't taste good if you don't don't give them a shot? The few people who tried them all had great things to say. Dan and I were able to bring a bunch for co-workers who loved them as well. It kind of breaks my heart that I went through a lot of effort to make these and was really excited that the last thing I made for my challenge could be shared with a wider audience... and that excitement was crushed.

I was already planning on doing a post about paleo and my eating lifestyle choices so that's still coming. I do just want to say that this choice for me has been a huge factor in helping my health, lifestyle, and happiness. People think it's just some fad diet but it's really a choice to eat more fresh food, to know where your meals are coming from, and to put things in your body that it can process easier. Paleo cupcakes definitely aren't the healthiest thing in the world but they're better than crap filled with refined sugar and chemicals that you can't even pronounce. I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life or what dietary choices to make. I don't expect everyone to read this or try something I make and decide to do paleo. It's not easy and it's not for everyone, but it would be nice if you were open to other points of view. To assume something tastes bad because it's healthier or organic or unprocessed is just so closed minded. 

I don't mean to rant or complain but it's something that's had me upset for some time. The good part of it though? I still had one cupcake left yesterday and it was the best way to reward myself after my two hour workout. 

Third Place Game - Struggling through Dutch Food - World Cup Eating Challenge

Well, it looks like I wasn't the only Brazilian that had issues with the Dutch on Saturday. I love to cook and I've been playing around in my kitchen long enough that I have a great sense of how to adapt recipes or where/how to add flavor. Granted, this isn't always perfect, but I feel like I just couldn't get anything to work with the Dutch food.

I found this nice little list of Dutch foods to try and the first thing I wanted to make were Bitterballen. Despite the name, Bitterballen are not at all bitter. They are actually little fried doughy meaty balls. Ok, well that didn't sound too bad...

I knew that I was going to make some Paleo substitutions here so I didn't really stick with one recipe. I basically went with a mix of this blog post and this Pinterest pin. For some reason I pictured "stew meat" as "pot roast." I've seen stew meat in the store a thousand times but I guess I was just feeling the pot roast idea... I didn't want to take the work to make pot roast and then all the other steps for the bitterballen so I bought a packaged version in the store. I'm normally wary about packaged foods but the ingredients for this one didn't seem too bad and it was locally sourced. 

Since the pot roast already had a gravy, that saved me a step. I used that and tapioca flour (to replace regular flour) to thicken it up. I let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours and when I got back to it, I was able to roll it into little balls. 

I then rolled the balls in tapioca flour, dipped them in egg, and rolled them in almond flour (to act like breadcrumbs). 

I fried them in a bunch of avocado oil, rolling them around occasionally so they'd be evenly fried. They were looking awesome!

...but they weren't awesome. The fried outside was perfectly crispy and the almond flour made great "breadcrumbs" but the issue was the inside. I must have used too much tapioca flour because it ended up being this gummy gooey mess. I tried just picking the meat out of a few of them but it was a pretty tedious task. In the end, they were just inedible. 

The other dish I wanted to make was called stampot. It's a dish that combines potatoes with some kind of vegetable (usually kale) and served with sausage. I really loved the ease of it and anything that adds a little green is always nice so I got to mashing my potatoes!

Next I cut up a bunch of kale and added it to my mashed potatoes along with almond milk, grass fed butter, and salt. I probably should have cooked them first or at least processed them... oops.

I also threw some sausage into the pan which was super easy. 

This was the end result. The sausage was prepared so there wasn't much I could do but I was really disapointed in the potatoes. I added quite a bit of salt and butter and it still just tasted like bland mush to me. I ended up grabbing some sriracha just to survive dinner. 

A few hours after dinner, I was starving. I'd had a big work out that day and then Dan and I went to the Legends of Candlestick flag football game (which was amazing) and the disappointing Dutch food just was not cutting it. We ended up stopping at a local burger joint on the way home and I got an amazing gluten free bacon avocado cheese burger. It paired wonderfully with my Bonny Doon Contra red blend and I didn't have to go to bed hungry. 

Flavor is my best friend and Dutch food was just super bland. I did find a great way to work around the potatoes though. For leftover lunch I threw in some bacon and cheese and treated them like loaded potatoes and that worked much better. 

Semifinals, Day 2 - Argentina - World Cup Eating Challenge

As a Brazilian, I already hate everything that is going to be in this post. As a foodie and kitchen experimenter - this is one of the meals I was looking forward to the most when I started this challenge. It's hard to hate food from a country that eats steak, chimichurri, great wine, and empanadas. I was excited to make and eat those things too.

Empanadas are awesome. They're just little doughy pockets fully of meaty (or cheesey or veggie but that's less fun) goodness. The recipe that I grabbed was mostly for the dough so I totally ignored the filling part of it and went rouge with a mix I'd used in empanadas past.

The way I've always made the filling is simple and delicious. I cut up chicken thighs and cooked them in pollo asada seasoning. Once they were cooked, I threw in some monterey jack cheese and tomato paste. I took out the filling and let it cool down and bit and then chopped it even finer.

That's about the time that the lovely Shannon came over with a bottle of Malbec straight from Mendoza, Argentina. It was one of my gifts from her trip to South America and I thought I'd repay her with a fitting dinner. The Reserva wine was so smooth and flavorful. Malbec can be a heavier wine and you could tell they let this one settle down in the barrel a little bit. Those are great touches that a thoughtful wine maker will do to make sure their wine is high quality before going on sale.

An Argentinian meal wouldn't be incomplete without Chimichurri. This Argentinian sauce is a mix of cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, garlic, olive oil, lemon, and vinegar. The recipe I used can be found here. Mine had a little too much astringency. I tried adding more greens to balance it out. I think I might put a touch of honey in it next time to cut the sourness and acidity that was overpowering it a little bit. 

Next it was time for the steaks. I lightly seasoned them with some salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika. These are probably my favorite set of seasonings and I put them on almost everything. They really bring out the best flavors, especially in meats.

For the empanadas, I was really excited to try out a recipe for Paleo dough. I knew that if it worked, this would open all kinds of paleo doughy possibilities so I really wanted to see how it turned out. My eggs were a little small so I threw an extra one in which was a big mistake. I had to keep adding almond and tapioca flour to bring it back to the right consistency. I think mine still ended up a little sticker than ideal but I finally got it to a place I could work with. I found that it broke a little easier than normal dough so I had to make the empanadas bigger than I'd expected. I ended up doing them by hand instead of using the dough press. Maybe I just have a small dough press though because I tend to see empanadas on the larger side. They turned out kind of ugly but as I've seen, that doesn't usually mean much. 

Everything ended up coming together really well. It's hard to go wrong with steak, wine, and greens but it was the empanadas that were the star of the dish. The verdict on the crust? AMAZING. One reason going paleo/gluten free was easy for me was that I never really loved bread. It was always just a vehicle for sauce or fillings and never something I loved on it's own and I NEVER ate crusts... but I ate this one. I think it was the mix of almond and egg wash that just worked. It really reminded me of the crust on these little Brazilian pies my mom makes called Empadas. I definitely plan and reusing this dough recipe to make those in the future.

Despite having and amazing dinner with an awesome friend and Frozen playing in the background (of course), I had another moment that was the highlight of my night. When Dan came home, we were already well into our second plates of dinner. Of the 8 empanadas, 4 were left. He had 2 and then 1 more so there was just one left....

Dan: Do you want me to eat the last one?

Me: NOOO!!!! 

I probably would have bit it right out of his hand if I needed to. It definitely seems like I need to make more empanadas soon... and cheese bread. These things just don't last in this household. 

Semifinals, Day 1 - Brazilian Feijoada and Even More Cheesy Bread - World Cup Eating Challenge

Updated to include link and modifications at the bottom of the post.

That was just heartbreaking. I knew Brazil losing was a very possible outcome for that game but no one wants to see their team completely fall apart. It's really hard to watch a game where it looks like your team just stopped playing. I really had no motivation to do the challenge Tuesday. I had already decided to cook the dish for whichever country lost, but I was so disappointed with the game, it was hard to bring myself to do it. I basically just wanted to turn off the TV and be like this:

But I knew I needed to see this through....

Since the game was decided in the first half an hour and I don't like torturing myself, I decided to use the second half to get my shopping done for the challenge. I had long been planning to do Brazilian feijoada - an amazing traditional black bean stew.

Beans are kind of a wonderful thing in Brazil. In a country with a bit disparity between the rich and the poor and a very small (but growing!) middle class - it's so interesting to find a dish that is eaten at all economic levels. While certain aspects of it might change - I love the idea that this is a unifying dish across all classes. In all the time I've spent in Brazil with my family, I don't think I ever went more than a couple of days without seeing feijoada on the table. Even at my parent's house in the US, it was weird to go a week without black beans. It was definitely one of the harder things to adjust to when I went to college.

As for cooking them - the first still was to boil the beans to start getting them tender. Beans take forever to cook to the right consistency and I wasn't getting the head start of soaking them so boiling ahead of time was crucial. 

The one thing I didn't like about my recipe was that is told me to drain the liquid. One of my favorite things about feijoada is just the inky color of the sauce and I feel like a lot of that went down the drain when I poured the beans into the colander. 

Next, it was time to take out my trustiest kitchen tool - the crock pot. If you don't have a crock pot, get one. This isn't like the admittedly silly waffle maker or the helpful but not necessary lemon squeezer. If you like to cook amazing food but have a job or a life or anything else that keeps you from being at home for 10 hours to check on your dish, a crock pot will save the day. Even if you don't have a job or life and are at home for 10 hours a day, they way the crock pot cooks things just gives you then most tender meats and it's still nice to be able to set it up and walk away while the cooking just happens for you. The slow cooker is easily the best cooking tool I have.

So I poured my beans into the pot and got started on the rest of the ingredients.  

What makes the black beans feijoada instead of just feijao (which just means beans) is to have tons of meaty goodness in there. I had a pork shoulder, short ribs, and sausage to add. The recipe also called for a ham hock. I had no idea what that was so I grabbed this salt pork. I'm pretty sure it's just a giant chunk of bacon. When I got home, I read the recipe again and realized the ham hock was just a big ham bone. Oops - oh well, BACON!  

I cut up my cured ham in to little pieces and quickly seared the outside then through it in the crock pot. I did the same with the pork shoulder and short ribs and then added garlic, onions, and jalapeno. I seem to keep getting more jalapeno in my eyes than my dishes though. I think it's time I invest in some kitchen gloves. 

The reason for browning the meats a bit before throwing them in the crock pot is just to give them more flavor. I don't know why but browned foods are always more delicious and while the crock pot will make a meal tender and juicy, it won't add that browning aspect. 

I let everything sit in the crock pot for a few hours while I finished work and then took a nap. See? This is why the Crock Pot is awesome. I was cooking while taking a nap. I was cooking while working. Crock Pots literally make multitasking the easiest thing in the world. 

Once the feijoada was almost ready, I threw in the sausages. I used the same liguica from the Portugal challenge since it was so delicious. Most sausages are already precooked so this is more of a heating up. If they had been in the slow cooker the whole time, they probably would have disintegrated. I've done this before. It's not ideal.

I paired my Brazilian stew with some Brazilian cheese bread and enjoyed it all over a bowl of quinoa. I don't really eat a lot of rice so I like using quinoa to fill that void. 

After that I just took a lot of gratuitous pictures of cheese bread. Turns out, that's all anyone cares about. I get more hits because of cheese bread than anything else. To be fair though - the stuff is basically crack. I had the last three pieces for breakfast today and was super bummed. I think I need to go home and make more...

Whew, because of the space between games now, this was the first post that wasn't ready and scheduled to go out ahead of time. I guess I'm caught up!

Update:
  Here's a link to the recipe I used and I've outlined what I changed:
- no oragne juice, that seemed weird to me, i just added enough water to cover the beans and some of the meat
- cured ham instead of ham hock
- coriander bc I forgot
Things I would do differently:
- not drain beans after rinsing
- actually get the ham hock. my cured ham was good but there were a ton of fat chunks that I had to pick out while eating.

Quarterfinals - Brazilian BBQ and Argentinian Wine

For quarterfinals, I had an interesting situation on my hands. If Germany, the Netherlands, and Argentina all moved on then I could make meals for those countries during the semifinals, finals, and third place game. Since these teams were all favored to win their games, and I was on vacation while they were on, I thought I'd take the opportunity to go a little easy on the food challenge in order to really be able to make some special things for the following week.

What my 4th of July looks like on World Cup years

I knew that for Friday, I was going to do Brazil. When I started this challenge, it was mostly just tying in with my love of my Brazilian culture and desire to make Brazilian cuisine whenever they played. The idea for the challenge sprung from there as I realized that food is a big part of all cultures and it would be fun to celebrate that. However, that pushed around my eating schedule a bit... I knew that if Germany won, I could save Germany for the semifinals and I had done all of the other teams playing Friday. This meant that I would finally be able to do one of the Brazilian recipes I was excited for from Day 1 - CHURRASCO!!!

Churrasco may seem like a big scary word and it's definitely got a tough pronunciation but simply it's just barbecue. Brazilian barbecue is done "rodizo" style which means on skewers. It can range from little toothpick churrsquinhos to the fancy Churrascarias that use giant rotisserie skewers. Mine were somewhere in between.

 The skewers themselves are really straight forward. My mom suggested steak and bacon. Obviously, I thought this was a great idea. Since I was at a rental property and didn't have a lot of seasoning, I really wanted high quality meat. I was happy that the super market had a special on grass fed top sirloin. I seasoned them with some salt and pepper and then made my bacon and steak skewers. I also had some shrimp so there were a few of those too.

The grill got super hot really quickly so the skewers cooked super fast once we threw them on.  

The skewers cooked really quickly once we threw them on and it wasn't long before we were snacking on some surf and turf.  

They tasted amazing. For something so simple we honestly could not get enough of them. We weren't even super hungry but definitely ate a ton of them. 

Our fire had the added benefit of keeping us warm on the super chilly Santa Cruz beach after the sun went down. 

It turns out our view of fireworks was a little more "front row" than we were expecting. We were pretty bummed that Santa Cruz doesn't put on an aerial show. Strangers lighting off illegal fireworks a few feet away from us wasn't too fun. There wasn't a lot of respect for the safety of people around them and we quickly picked up our stuff and got out of there.

For Saturday, I really wasn't feeling like cooking and I knew that with our last day in Santa Cruz, the long drive home, and the little sleep from the fireworks going off all night - I needed something easy. I decided that if the Netherlands won than I would be able to spotlight the last 4 teams during semifinals and finals. That meant I didn't need to do anything crazy. I popped into a wine store and just picked up a nice Malbec. Being away, even for a couple of days, definitely makes little things like a glass of wine at home with kitties even better.