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.

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.