Round of 16, Day 4 - USA, Belgium, and Tears - World Cup Eating Challenge

As soon as it was announced that Belgium and the USA would be playing each other, Dan sent me a message asking if we could have Chicken and Waffles again. I realized I'd done Switzerland and I really wanted to save Argentina for as long as possible.. that left Belgium and the US again. I tossed it to Facebook and mostly it was Dan still saying he wanted waffles and a couple of people agreeing with him. Ok boyfriend - you get your waffles.

The biggest thing for me is to try new things. Luckily, I'd just gotten a couple of new cookbooks and there were three new waffle recipes! Three!

I decided to go with the Pumpkin Waffles in The Paleo Kitchen. One of the authors is PaleOMG where I got the other waffle recipe so I knew it would be tasty while still being different. The only small issue with the recipe is that it uses a ton of eggs and we had 3 left so I sent Dan to the store while I started the chicken. 

I wanted to treat the chicken differently too. I thought I'd go for more of a "grilled" style. I seasoned the chicken with paprika, garlic salt, pepper, chipotle pepper, and garlic powder and cooked a few pieces at a time in bacon fat. 

Once I got my eggs, I mixed everything together and started making the waffles. 

Waffles are a pretty slow process so there was a lot of downtime during this breakfast prep...

...which is good because despite the way it might seem, I do have a job. I was able to work just a couple of feet away from my waffles and take them out as they were ready. This is probably multitasking at it's finest. 

In the end, it all came together beautifully. The pumpkin waffles were amazing. I like them better than the chocolate waffles although I think they'd be even better with a handful of Enjoy Life chocolate chips. I also added a side of bacon because bacon makes everything better (and it gave me the bacon fat I used to cook my chicken). 

One thing I have to say about paleo waffles - they are super filling. I can barely eat a whole one. Granted, these are Belgium size waffles but I keep making extra mix so we have waffles for like a week. I mean, they're awesome, but it's a lot of waffle. 

At the end of the day, when work was done and the USA had lost despite some badass goal tending, I decided to enjoy a drink. I couldn't think of a better thing to do then open some bubbles and celebrate the USA's amazing run at the World Cup by mixing it with my leftover agua fresca.

In '98, I spent a Summer in Brazil during the World Cup. It didn't take place there but they made it to the finals and lost. Afterwards, they threw a party. I asked why they were celebrating when they lost and they told me that losing isn't a good reason to not have a party. The sentiment was lost on 12 year old me but I never forgot the words and I've since learn to appreciate celebrating despite a loss. Celebrating the US making it further in than World Cup than anyone thought they would (except Americans chanting "I believe that we will win") seemed completely appropriate. Days like that make me really proud to be American and Brazilian and I love sharing the idea of one culture with another. 

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!