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. 

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!

Eating Around the World... Cup Day 1

I know I've been gone from the blog writing for a while so first a quick little intro on that. Basically, I've been trying to figure out a way to re-brand and figure out what direction I want to go in. Do I write about wine or food or adventures? Is there a way to combine them and make it worthwhile? What about my other interests? It's hard to find a balance between what's interesting for me to write but also interesting for anyone that might find their way here. I'm still trying to answer a lot of questions on what direction I want to take but I know that I can't just focus on food or wine or my lifestyle. I need to hit on all of them somewhat. So the big picture of this blog is still under construction but a had an idea for some posts in the meantime....

A World Cup Eating Challenge!!!

I love food. Like a lot. I also love the World Cup. While I'm a true blue Brazil and USA fan (get it - because they both have blue as a color...), I thought it would be fun to celebrate the rest of the World as well.

So here are the rules:
- Eat something from any of the countries playing on any given day. E.g. today's options are Mexico, Spain, Australia, etc.
- There should be an effort to actually cook something. I have to make some exceptions here because I'd love to have sushi for Japan but I'm not sure I trust consuming raw fish from the super market.
- Bonus points for not repeating. This isn't a strict rule because I plan on showing some preference to Brazilian and American dishes.
- Have fun eating a variety of global dishes and trying to experiment a little bit in the kitchen!

Last night, to celebrate Brazil's victory in the first match, I decided to make two of my favorite Brazilian dishes: Pão de Queijo and Brigadeiros!

Pão de queijo (cheese bread) has always been one of my favorite Brazilian treats. I never knew what amazing mix of ingredients made it possible. What kind of cheese was in it? What kind of flour was used (I knew it wasn't regular flour)? I'd only ever made it from packages so when a friend sent me a recipe for these guys, I was excited to get answers to my questions.

Pão de queijo is gluten free and uses tapioca flour. This is what gives the middle that ooey gooey delicious center. This recipe uses Parmesan and cheddar cheese (which I put in a little extra of) and adding just the right amount of salt really makes the flavor pop. I also used almond milk instead of regular which doesn't seem to make any difference.

The only real difference between making them from scratch and the package seems to be the consistency before they are cooked. When they are from mix, I could roll them into balls. However, the scratch recipe requires ingredients to be blended together and the result is a very liquidy consistency. Therefore you need to use a mini muffin tin to get some shape to them. This didn't bug me though because the final product is delicious!

I had the opposite happen when I made brigadeiros (little dulce de leite based chocolate balls). Normally I made these from scratch using sweetened condensed milk and chocolate powder which are brought to a boil on the stove. However, I found a pre-made container at a corner store in the mission and decided to give that a shot.

There was no indication if it was pre-cooked or not but by the consistency, it seemed to be so I just rolled them into the little balls and coated them in sprinkles. After eating a couple, I'm still not sure if they needed to be cooked or not. The consistency seems off from either. They're still delicious but I prefer the old fashioned method better.


I think Day 1 of my food challenge was a success and I'm excited to continue celebrating soccer through food!