Third Place & Finals - England & USA - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

I'm going to take a quick break from Whole30 to close out this World Cup Eating Challenge. I've been slacking so hard on it. Honestly, when I found out in the middle of the challenge that my aunt only had a few weeks to live, it really make it hard to finish this out. I was so close to just quitting it. But my aunt has always encouraged and inspired my creative side. Lately, I've been painting and sculpting less, but I've been showing my creativity through cooking. If that's the gift she gave me in her lifetime, then I wanted to finish it out. So, I still cooked all the things and made sure to show up each day with something for the challenge, but I'm really glad it's done.

For the Semi-Finals and Finals, I decided to just designate all four countries to a day. I got the days of the games wrong though and thought the last two games were 7/3 and 7/4 (they were actually 7/4 and 7/5). Since I was visiting my aunt on 7/3, I decided just to do the last two countries on 7/4 as a big 4th of July party. Once I figured out my mistake on timing, I was already committed and decided just to roll with it and finish a day early. I needed it.

England

English food really doesn't translate to BBQ very well. It's heavy, usually fried. It's the kind of food that's great in a pub to soak up your beers and cheer on your team. I was pretty stumped on what to do...

And then I thought about drinks. Beer would have been an easy go to but I wanted to make something. I remembered about the Pimm's cup cocktail and when I looked it up was surprised just how close to sangria it was.

A Pimm's cup is Pimm's liqour, fizzy lemonade (I didn't know what that was so I used soda water and Simply Lemonade), and a bunch of fruits. I used strawberries, oranges, and cucumber.

It turned out beautiful and was a great addition to the BBQ. It was also really low in alcohol so you could drink a bunch of it and feel totally fine. It actually got quite interesting later in the day when other groups at the pool were pretty far down the rabbit hole and we were fine. Plus, it didn't take away from the main event...

USA

I was really hoping from the start that USA would make it to the finals. Since I thought they were on July 4th, I thought it would be amazing for USA to play on such a big national holiday for the national holiday. The original reports I saw had USA vs. Brazil so all along I'd been planning this amazing mix of both countries and then Brazil lost really early and ruined it for me. 

For USA, I just wanted to do American BBQ. I wanted some classic tastes but also a California twist to it all. 

I started with a marinade for my chicken. I used lime, avocado oil, cilantro, and a ton of garlic. Like a whole packet of garlic. I put it all in the food processor until it was a liquidy paste. 

I put that all in a bag with the chicken and let it marinade in the fridge for a few hours. 

Next up is ribs. Ribs can be so inexpensive at the market sometimes and they are WAY easier than you think they are. There are really two steps. First, season your ribs and bake them at about 300 for an hour. This is to ensure the pork is cooked all the way because you do not want to eat raw pork. I seasoned mine with garlic salt, garlic powder, paprika, chipotle, and sometimes red pepper or chili pepper if you want it spicy.

Once they are baked, brush the ribs with sauce. If you aren't paleo, Sweet Baby Ray's is amazing. It's the best BBQ sauce I've had and it's like $2 for a giant bottle. However, it's basically made of 100% non-natural ingredients. This time around, I tied making my own sauce. I used diced tomatoes, seasonings (similar to the rub), maple syrup, tamari, and balsamic vinegar. I pulsed it in the food processor. It basically tasted like spicy ketchup. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the BBQ flavor I was hoping for. I think some jam may have helped. I have some more recipes for BBQ sauce that I want to try as well though so I'm not giving up yet.

I also made a little side salad and some sweet potato fries as part of my "California" touch. The salad was mixed greens, avocado, and goat cheese with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. The fries actually ended up more like baked sweet potato strips. Some friends brought some deviled eggs as well.

It was all so good! We made a ton of food too so we got to celebrate USA in our stomachs for a couple of days until we went on vacation.

We also found a beautiful spot on the bay to watch the fireworks from. It was a great first Fourth in San Diego!

Now back to Whole 30... maybe I could do some Whole30 BBQ? I'm feeling inspired.

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!

Day 5 USA - World Cup Eating Challenge

I love trying food from around the world and this challenge has been opening up a lot of possibilities for me. However, my boyfriend really likes good old American comfort food. Since I had some gluten free pasta and a big chunk of cheddar cheese, I thought I'd try my hand at making some macaroni and cheese. 

I am definitely one of those kids that grew up on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and I'm pretty sure that's the first thing I ever learned how to cook (maybe second only to tacos). I'm surprised that making it from scratch wasn't much harder. I found a recipe on Pinterest that said to boil the pasta is the same number of cups of milk and then also add that many cups of cheese. I had about 3 cups of my quinoa based pasta so I used 3 cups of almond milk and 3 cups of cheese. 

I thought I'd also go for the extra step of baking the pasta. Since the idea was to avoid gluten, I tried making a topping of bacon, almonds, and walnuts instead. The bacon was a great idea but the nuts really ruined it for me. I also thought baking it really dried it out. Next time I would just add the bacon straight into the pot and call it a day. A little butter and seasoning probably wouldn't have hurt either. 

Keeping with the gluten free alternative theme here - we also enjoyed an American cider. Angry Orchard is a pretty common brand of cider but they came out with some more craft style ciders that Dan and I love. This one was called "The Muse" and the cider is made in the same style as champagne. It has a really rich flavor and it's not sweet which is something that bothers me in a lot of ciders. We found this at Costco. There is also a flavor called "Iceman" which is made like ice-wine as well as one called "Strawman" that we haven't been able to find. 

All in all, the pasta didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, but Dan loved it so he's gotten to make a couple of meals out of it. Sadly, the cider didn't last quite as long.