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. 

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.